6 Marketing Resolutions for a Successful New Year

There are many things to look forward to in the digital marketing world in the new year.  We’ve put together for you the top six things we think you should be focusing on for your digital marketing strategy in 2017. Follow this advice, and you can look forward to a strong year gaining more traffic, converting more leads, and closing more sales.

1. Focus More On The Mobile Experience

Mobile first, all else second is what we live by at Top Marketing Agency. With the majority of consumers using mobile devices to browse the web, it’s no longer enough to simply have a bare-minimum mobile-friendly design. Create your website with mobile device users in mind. Your mobile display should be intuitive, user friendly, and have a super-fast loading speed to boot. In fact, loading speed is even more critical for your mobile site than you may think.

Slow loading speed means bouncing site visitors that get to your website and leave because of the frustrating experience of waiting for the page to load. Aside from running the risk of losing site visitors to your competitors due to poor loading speed, page speed also affects your mobile ranking factors with Google. For this reason, we strongly suggest implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages (or AMP) HTML when creating mobile pages in the new year. AMP is a groundbreaking, open source project headed by Google in collaboration with many different partners around the globe that provides a simple solution to mobile load speeds problems. AMP is normal HTML, but with a couple of restrictions and extras. No complicated code, no extra time spent creating multiple custom versions of web pages, so no excuses to not live life in the fast lane.

First things first: Do you have a responsive website? Use our free online tool to find out!

2. Dive Deeper Into Your Data

Sure, you use all the right SEO tools and analytics tracking available to you, and that’s a great start. But are you asking the right questions and putting together the right pieces of the puzzle to make the most of your data? Simply collecting information can leave you standing in place with your wheels spinning if you aren’t thinking critically and putting actions to the data you have. We get it: there’s so much information available to you that this can easily seem like an overwhelming and daunting task, so tackle one thing at a time. Your metrics are there to help you, not paralyze you.

If analyzing data isn’t your strong suit, you may be interested in our dashboard reporting services, where you can track progress of all major websites, profiles, and incoming calls through one easy-to-read dashboard.

3. Short-Form Vs Long-Form Content: Quality Beats Quantity

If converting site visitors is what you’re aiming to do (hint: it is), 2017 will be even more about sharing long-form content over short-form content. Long-form content comes in a variety of formats: it can mean e-books, white papers, case studies, industry reports, and other guides and resources. While the agreed-upon length of long form content varies depending on who you ask, typically long-form content can be defined as 1,000 words or longer. The key to success through long-form content is that it is not so much about length and more about the value the content provides. If you want to see success with this strategy, focus on the quality of content you are producing and be sure you deeply understand your target audience. Be patient and persistent: this is not an instant-gratification strategy, but over time you will gain more traffic, more leads, and more sales by strengthening your brand and engaging with your prospects.

4. Schema.org Microformats: Use It or Lose It

With all the content on the web, sometimes your basic code isn’t going to be specific enough to get you ranking high in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for the things you want to be found for. You can give yourself a leg up by applying Schema.org microformats to your web content so search engines can better understand what exactly is on your pages, which in turn helps you get found in SERPs. Microformats follow a specific structured markup to further define the content of your web pages. It may seem like extra work now, but this is the future of coding. Without this additional metadata, you may soon run the risk of being left in the dusty back pages of SERPs. Just as important as implementing microformats is testing them using tools such as Google Rich Snippets to ensure you’re getting the results you’re going for.

5. Make Video a Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy

It’s no secret that video is a powerful tool in sharing your story, strengthening your brand, demonstrating your expertise, and connecting with current and prospective customers by “showing” instead of “telling”. Video engages with more of our senses by using visuals and sound to create compelling messages so you can do more with a quality 60 second video than you can with a 600-word page of content. The challenge is understanding that pumping out an unrelated series of videos won’t be as effective as working video into your overall content marketing strategy. In other words, to compete you can’t skate by with sharing video alone: you’ll need thoughtful and well-designed videos that provide both valuable information and entertainment value, too. Even better: make videos worth subscribing to. If quality and quantity are competing for space in your budget and available time to produce, enlist outside help.

Sneak peak: You’re the first to know we will soon be offering video marketing services. Stay tuned!

6. Don’t Become Complacent In Your Digital Marketing Strategy

It’s easier and more affordable to maintain a vehicle than fix it when it breaks down, and this same idea applies to your digital marketing strategy. With the pace of change in the digital marketing sphere, you can quickly fall behind if you don’t keep your eyes up and set aside time to reflect on what’s working and what isn’t, and we mean often. This will make the difference between needing minor adjustments or total overhaul, and we can bet you can’t afford to lose the time or money you’ve already invested in your efforts. We encourage you to stay curious and passionate about your online presence. There’s plenty of tools and resources available to you, and we’re happy to be one of them. In fact, we’d love to learn about your business goals to see what advice we can offer. We’re even offering a free marketing consultation that you can take advantage of today.

If after reading all of this you feel like we’re speaking in a foreign language, it’s OK, we get that a lot. We specialize in taking care of the details so you can run your business well. Feel free to contact us if you’d like to learn more about how we can put your website on the cutting edge of SEO and launch your digital marketing strategy to new heights in 2017.

Happy Marketing!