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7 Ways To Expand Your Business Through Digital Marketing in 2021

So many businesses are slowly focusing on the digital aspect of their business, recognizing the opportunities that come with having a strong online presence. Big or small, digital marketing can have a big impact on your business if executed correctly, which is why I am here to help. Fundamentally, there’s a lot more to Digital Marketing than just search, in fact, Digital marketing is an ever-evolving mix of different digital channels that you can use to promote and drive value to your business. While most people think of SEO and SEM when it comes to digital marketing, and while yes, they are a big part of it, there are also other crucial channels to look at when trying to optimize and prepare your business to excel in the online world.

  1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization): The process of aligning the various elements of your site (tags, content, data, information, links, etc.) with the best practices of search engines, so that you can rank as high as possible in search engine results.
  2. SEM (Search Engine Marketing): The process of implementing search and display campaigns on advertising platforms such as Google Ads and Bing Ads, with the aim of creating relevant traffic and awareness for your brand and website.
  3. Social Media Marketing: The process of marketing your brand and website on social channels to create awareness, loyalty, retention, traffic and conversions.
    • Most common social channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.
  4. Email Marketing: The process of collecting email subscribers, then creating and sending email campaigns intended to grow brand awareness and sell more products and services, or otherwise convert subscribers such as encouraging event sign-ups, content downloads, etc.
    • Common email marketing platforms: Mailchimp, Constant Contact, GetResponse, SendinBlue (this is a highly saturated market, and there are many to choose from)
  5. Content Marketing: The process of creating and sharing videos, articles, images and other forms of digital content.
  6. Local Marketing: The process of marketing your product or service to specific geographical locations or neighbourhoods.
  7. Landing Page Marketing: The process of creating highly targeted landing pages and directing traffic to said pages based on a set of predetermined criteria. The main goal of these pages is to get visitors to stay longer on your site and convert (buy, signup, etc.)
    • Landing page marketing is also known as CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization.

While these are not the only ways to grow your business online, they are a gold standard that should be practiced with every business. The channels help build a foundation for your business to not only survive online but to thrive in it and sail the waters efficiently.


 

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5 ways to improve your SEO content marketing strategy in 2021

SEO has changed quite a bit over the years. With the world increasingly moving towards online, it becomes even more important to have strong and optimal SEO & Content for your site or web property. Search engines such as Google and Mozilla for example, are getting smarter and smarter which makes search engine specialists stay on top of their game. This also paves the way for content to be increasingly important to drive visitors to your site. Remember, content is king, content is the lifeblood of your site or web property which is why it is important to remember these 5 key ways to improve your SEO Content so your web property can stay on top of ITS game.

  1. Addressing Searcher Intent vs Just Keywords

Remember, search engines are becoming smarter and as content creators, we have to adapt to the reality of things. It cannot be stressed enough that Intent should be prioritized over keywords! When we usually search we always go right for the goal of what we are looking for so it’s important to think about which words or phrases someone would use in the search bar. Keeping the customers’ intent in mind will help you tune your keywords towards what your customers are actually hoping to find.

Remember: Keywords of course matter, but make sure they are organic and always address the intent first. It is also important to remember the four types of search intent of being: Informative, investigative, navigational and transactional!

 

2. Create Original Content

Creating original content is crucial for not only search engines but for humans as well. In the grand scheme of things creating original content is the safest bet to not get penalized for duplicate content. You also have pride in something you created from your brain and is an incredibly rewarding feeling. Having said that, Backlinking is something incredibly important that weaves into creating your original content. Backlinking for those who don’t know is a means to get other sites to link your website to theirs. Essentially a referral, a vote of confidence if you will, and it turns out one of the best and effective ways of getting these sites to backlink you is to be original and create unique content.

 

3. Make sure it makes sense!

 We saw how smart search engines are getting and it’s important to keep that in mind the whole way through. Make sure your content makes sense! Say we are writing about “the best gyms in Montreal”. Google will grade our authority and article integrity based on if we referenced actual gyms such as Pro Gym, Rgym, Econofitness etc…

Google knows that these are actual legit gyms and will look for them, which means that if Google doesn’t find any it wouldn’t deem the article worthy and not show up!

4. Create engaging content

 Google is well aware of how engaging your content actually is, and rewards it accordingly. Which is great of course, but puts extra emphasis on how well you can actually produce engaging content. To help yourself in making engaging content, some of the main ranking factors for search engines are not surprisingly user related. Metrics like: time spent on site, bounce rate, pages per visit will help you judge how engaged your visitors are on your site. Make sure to create content people want to spend time with!

 

5. Diversifying is Key

 

Lastly don’t forget that diversification will always be incredibly useful for content. Video, images, text, gifs… product descriptions, reviews, helpful tips, useful articles, fun facts, media coverage, quizzes, your grandmother’s famous sugar cookie recipe… Is it relevant? Is it fun? Accessible? Linkable? Useful? Engaging? Get it up there! Diversify your content and your content type. Users appreciate it and Google will reward you accordingly!

 

 

Of course, these aren’t the only ways to improve your SEO and Content creation but it is a good place to start! Remember to always create with the user in mind. Search engines will always look for good, relevant and accessible content so make sure you are on the search engines’ good side!

If you liked what you read, be sure to check out The SEO Way, my book on a beginner’s guide to SEO for all the latest tips and tricks to help you along your journey!

https://www.amazon.ca/SEO-Way-Beginners-Search-Optimization-ebook/dp/B07VGJZPK8

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An Intro to Microsoft Clarity Web Analytics

An Intro to Microsoft Clarity Web Analytics

What is Microsoft Clarity Web Analytics? How is Microsoft Clarity different from Google Analytics? Should you install it? And How to get started? 

Microsoft is entering the web analytics world with style by introducing Clarity by late October 2020: https://clarity.microsoft.com/

After testing the tool out in the past few days, I wanted to share some of its best features, how to get started, and some questions that I got from students on the tool. 

 

Microsoft Clarity Web Analytics

Source: https://clarity.microsoft.com/

 

Here are some questions that I addressed that I believe will help you get a better idea of the tool and how it can better serve you or your business. 

So what is Microsoft Clarity?

In essence, it is a tool that allows you to clearly understand what users are doing on your site, using features such as Heatmaps, Session Playbacks and Insights. 

Based on Microsoft’s site, it is a behavioural analytics tool, meaning it is concentrated on user interaction and behaviour.

 

Is Microsoft Clarity free?

Yes. 

Can I try Microsoft Clarity out without installing it?

Yes, there is a demo that Microsoft provides: https://clarity.microsoft.com/demo/projects/view/3t0wlogvdz/dashboard

 

How is Microsoft Clarity different from Google Analytics?

While Analytics includes Acquisition, Audience, Conversion, and Behaviour reports; which respectively allows you to understand how people come to your site, who is visiting your site, are they converting on your site and how they are behaving when they are on your site; Microsoft Clarity concentrates mostly on behaviour. The tool extensively covers behaviour through features such as Heat Mapping and Session Recording that we don’t see on Google Analytics.

 

Should I Install Microsoft Clarity? 

Let me rephrase this question. Should I install Microsoft Clarity even if I already have Google Analytics in place on the site? 

Definitely. It is a great and different way to truly understand why people are :

  • Engaging
  • Not engaging
  • Bouncing
  • Converting 
  • Not converting
  • What are they getting distracted by?

The tool is a great way to answer whether you should change a CPA or not. Whether you should add video, change a photo, update the navigation bar, etc.…

What makes Microsoft clarity different from Google Analytics?

  • Session playbacks
  • Heatmaps
  • Insights

What are session recordings? And how can that benefit my website/business?

  • It is a functionality that will allow you to track how individual users are behaving on your web property, by showing you individual session recordings.
  • This can help you see what is going smoothly and what is disrupting their flow.
  • This functionality is especially useful to fix detailed issues and investigate the exit rate or bounce rate. It is not ideal for major decision making.

Here is a short video:

Here is how Session recordings look:

Microsoft Clarity Session Recordings

Source: https://clarity.microsoft.com/

What are heatmaps? And how can that benefit my website/business?

  • It is a functionality that will allow you to see how a specific segment of users or a group of users has navigated through your page. What caught their attention and what didn’t.
  • This is ideal for decision making. 
  • It is a great way to see what drove engagement on the page. 
  • If you are to start, start with heatmaps and then hone in through session recordings, which might give you a more detailed answer.

Here is how heatmaps look like:

Microsoft Clarity heat map

https://clarity.microsoft.com/demo/projects/view/3t0wlogvdz/heatmaps?date_h=Last%203%20days&url_h=https%3A%2F%2Fclarity.microsoft.com%2F

 

What are Insights? 

  • Insights are great for decision making and finding general site issues. 
  • It is the set of meaningful numbers and graphs created by Microsoft Clarity by refining the data created by visitors on your web property. 

Here is how Insights look like:

Microsoft Clarity Analytics Insights Dashboard

Source: https://clarity.microsoft.com/

 

How to get started with Microsoft Clarity?

Step 1: Go to https://clarity.microsoft.com/

Step 2: Click gets started:

Step 3: You will be asked to sign in using either Microsoft, Facebook or Google. 

Choose whichever suits you:

Step 4: Create a new project.

(Project here resembles what we call account in Google Analytics)

Fill in your site details, with the proper URL and Category. 

See the example below: 

Setting up Microsoft Clarity

A new project will popup on the left-hand corner of your screen.

New Project Microsoft Clarity

As you click on that project you will be prompted with few integration options.

Microsoft Clarity Tracking Code

You can choose:

  •  Install tracking code on third-party platforms. Such as Google Analytics.
  • Install it manually by copy-pasting the code into your site’s <Head> element.

There is also the option of integrating your Microsoft clarity account with Google Analytics. 

For this example, I will go with the manual option.

Microsoft Clarity Tracking Code

And you are set. Remember that it takes around 2 hours to start seeing the data. 

Microsoft Clarity will be part of “The Secret to Capitalizing on Analytics” -3rd edition. Get your copy.

Feel free to reach out if you have questions: t@rimanagency.com

 

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The Next GEN of Google Analytics is Here | 10 Key Things to Know About GA 4.0

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The NextGEN of Google Analytics is Here

Google has just launched their new and improved Google Analytics 4.0, extending beyond Universal Analytics. The New GA relies on AI and machine learning to create predictions for traffic, conversion, products, etc. What does this mean for businesses? Read on for 10 key things to know, as well as a deeper dive into this exciting update to Google Analytics.

10 Key Things to Know About GA 4.0:

  1. It no longer requires coding or GTM for event tracking.
  2. You can access 4.0 from your current Analytics account by going into Admin 🡪 Property (Create new property) 🡪 Select (Web and app) 🡪 where you can track your website,  mobile app or both.
  3. It is moving away from cookies and will no longer use third-party cookies to track performance. 
  4. GA 4.0 is where AI meets data for marketers.
  5. You will have access to predictive metrics and customer lifecycle metrics.
  6. It provides more granular data control.
  7. It allows improved cross-device measurement & tracking.
  8. It allows deeper integration with search efforts on Google Ads.
  9. Google will be investing more in Analytics 4.0, and will stop updating the older version. 
  10. While GA  in the past was divided into Acquisition, Behavior, Audience, and Conversion reports, the new platform is divided into Life Cycle, User, Events, Explore, and Configure.

 

What This Means for SEM & Google Ads

As we know, Google Analytics is the backbone of a strong SEM strategy, enabling us to make data-driven decisions and immediately adapt to market changes, test results, trends, etc.

With GA 4.0, we now have better audience integration, empowering better exclusion and audience selection based on actions taken across devices and platforms. This means you will be able to see, for example, if someone came from the web, but ended up converting from desktop, which could open up whole new channels for understanding the customer journey.

From a user behaviour standpoint, Google has introduced more user-centric metrics such as LTV (Life Time Value) and expected average churn rate, empowering more informed long term strategies.

GA 4.0 will also allow you to set up enhanced measurements to automatically measure interactions and content on your site, in addition to standard page view measurement.

Additional Measurement in Google Analytics 4.0

In this example, you can see on the dashboard right after being set up where GA captures the Page View + Video Progress + Video Start as part of the enhanced measurement features. See below: 

Event tracking GA 4.0

This means, you will no longer need to code or use GTM to track specific actions on-page, making it easier and possibly faster for marketers. This is especially beneficial for marketers who do not have the know-how or access to make code changes, or in organizations where code changes need to go through approvals or a potentially lengthy ticketing process. 

 

Why You Should Set Up 4.0 (aside from the benefits)

In their update, Google noted that they will be investing in the new platform moving forward and, therefore, moving away from the old one. Your current GA account will still be fully functional, but this likely means that things like support, bug fixes and updates will be phased out, so it’s a good idea to upgrade now.

Learn more: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10089681#start

 

How To Get Setup

The first step is to know what account type you currently have. If you were part of the GA 4.0 beta program, your account would have been known as “App + Web properties”. If you were not part of the beta, your account type would now be known as “Universal Analytics”. 

If you have a Universal Analytics account, you can easily create your new GA 4.0 property from your existing one, meaning you won’t lose your current data. The link above will give you the information you need to do this.

Note: If you did not previously have a GA account, GA 4.0 is now the default, so you would automatically get it upon setting up your account.

Tagging 

When it comes to tagging, you can continue to use existing on-page tags or add new on-page tags. Currently, there are no benefits or downsides to either choice, this is a matter of preference.

Tagging in Google Analytics 4.0

Here is a sneak peek into the new GA experience look and feel:

Real-Time Reports 

Google Analytics 4.0 Real Time Reporting

New Categorization

As mentioned earlier, the previous categorization of Acquisition, Behavior, Audience, and Conversion reports has been updated to Life Cycle, User, Events, Explore, and Configure. Here’s what that looks like:

Google Analytics 4.0 New Navigation

The Bottom Line

Love it or hate it, Google Analytics 4.0 is here to stay, and there’s no question that the platform is getting more powerful with each iteration. What are your thoughts on the new GA?

Sources:

https://searchengineland.com/google-analytics-4-adds-new-integrations-with-ads-ai-powered-insights-and-predictions-342048

https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/analytics/new_google_analytics

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9445345?hl=en

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How to Capitalize on Relevancy and Intent as a Marketer?

As we are moving more and more towards voice search, mobile-first indexing, and machine learning algorithms, search and SEO are becoming more and more… intentional.

At least in the sense that you must focus on the intentions of your market.

If the content is to successfully build strong SEO, it cannot be based solely on keywords. The intent of your audience must also be taken into account.

What do I mean by this?

An intention, in search, is the meaning behind a search query and not simply the words used.

Let’s say you are looking for a gym to go to so you type “gym” into Google. Go ahead. Give it a try.

Notice that Google doesn’t give the definition of the word “gym”. It doesn’t give you the history of gyms, or even an alphabetical list of gyms.

No. Google anticipates your intention. It assumes you are looking for a gym in your neighbourhood. The first results you see will be the Google local listing gyms near you, then a list of search results for gyms in your area and gym directories, typically listed based on an algorithm of user reviews, link popularity and many other factors.

Google’s mission is, “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

For me, the most important part of Google’s mission/vision statement, are the last two words: accessible and useful.

We are constantly moving to more relevant and smarter search results – results that are more and more accessible and useful. Relevancy, accessibility and usefulness depend heavily on understanding the intent of the audience.

To capitalize on relevancy and intent as a marketer, remember these four query types:

  • Informational
  • Investigative
  • Navigational
  • Transactional

Each of these query types can be associated with certain phases of the consumer purchase journey:

  • Informational Queries – Researching non-transactional information

Informational queries are at the very top of the funnel – the awareness phase. Results are usually broad and informational, with no intent to sell.

The main intent behind informational queries is, well, to get information. Most search results associated with informational queries tend to be direct answers.

  • Investigative Queries – Researching options

Investigative queries come from consumers with the intention to discover options in the market or do additional research. In terms of the consumer purchase process, these searchers can be in either the awareness or consideration phases of the funnel. These queries may not necessarily lead to conversions. Indeed, they may not even be driven by any intent to purchase.

These are queries that involve researching specific details. Searchers may be looking for talent, competition or options available in the market.

The intention behind these queries may or may not be to eventually purchase, but what Google does know (or assume) is that the searcher is exploring options. Search results are, therefore, tailored to provide those options for investigation.

  • Navigational Queries – Looking for something you already know you want

By this phase, the consumer already knows what they want. Perhaps it is healthy fruits (from informational queries) and the consumer now knows the best places to buy them from (investigative queries).

For example, when a searcher knows the brand, product or service, but does not know the URL, they will just type the name into their search or address bar.

For example, when you want to access Gmail, you usually just type “Gmail” into the address bar rather than a full URL. Google does the rest.

As generations are getting lazier by the second, navigational queries are becoming more and more popular.

  • Transactional Queries are queries that involve an intent towards an action

The action doesn’t have to be money related, it could be a signup, newsletter, phone details, address discovery, getting direction.

For example, if you search “Buy healthy food”, then that is a transactional query.

So what can we do as marketers, entrepreneurs, and startups?

We have to capitalize on the searcher’s intent instead of keywords and capitalize on each query type.

I would recommend using this approach in your future content as well as for past content. Go to your current blogs, pages, and products; analyze the actual intent and value of the content and update accordingly.

The best way to test search intent is Google Search itself. Search the term you have in mind and based on search results, you will be able to categorize it accordingly.

Remember there are no right or wrong search intent queries, the right approach is to match the right queries with your brand and business goals.

If you are an e-commerce site, it is ideal to concentrate on transactional queries and investigation queries, while not fully ignoring the informational and navigational queries.

Intentions can no longer be ignored, they need to be a critical part of your marketing moving forward.

Source:

https://moz.com/blog/segmenting-search-intent

http://searchengineland.com/search-intent-signals-aligning-organic-paid-search-strategy-249601

 

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