Ways to Effectively Market Your Site in 2015 (and beyond)

Since 2010 came, a lot of online marketing experts and practitioners fixed their eyes on the future of marketing amidst constant and consecutive updates on Google search algorithms. Panda Algorithm for instance has been updated 26 times already since it was introduced in 2011 with the latest update just been released last week. These kinds of algorithmic updates has changed the playing ground which left all marketers cramming to find the holy grail of winning online marketing strategy in the next years. In fact, despite that the purpose of these updates is for better search results and usability, marketers are adamant on the notion that all these changes made their job a little more difficult. But could there still be good and effective ways to market websites in 2015 and beyond? The answer is a big YES!

What Google Plans

 All the changes being brought in by Google on search can be traced back when spam and search engine gaming proliferated over the internet in attempts of having websites rank number 1 in the biggest search engine. With SEO’s seeing loopholes in algorithms and how Google ranks the website, there had been an increase of websites being registered all with shallow content and unnatural links that eventually turned the Internet into a virtual world polluted with spam. So, how would Google fix this? Implement stricter rules and penalties in hopes that whoever violates it will be penalised, deindexed, or banned from the search engine.

Google’s Matt Cutts for instance, has been giving videos and tutorials on how to win marketing and search without being too focused on unnatural links and search gaming schemes. He also provided us with great answers on where Google’s search engine is heading in the future. For one, he announced last March in SMX East that Panda will be incorporated in the search algorithm making it another factor to look into. Previously, he also mentioned about the negative effect of hosting too much ads on a web page or links that flows PageRank without outright disclaimer.

Current SEO Practices

Rand Fishkin of Moz released his predictions on the Marketing World in 2014 last January this year and he pointed some great insights to talk about. His predictions play around content marketing and the role of social media specially Twitter and Pinterest.

By the end of 2012, guest blogging has become a blood line for many marketers especially after Google sacked content farms and article submission sites. Many companies depended mainly on guest blogging to win and acquire “editorial” links but has been cut short by Google when many blogging sites and blog networks were penalised by Google for having spammy links, questionable practices, and violations of search guidelines. This move has eventually lead to another question of what to do next. Today, guest blogging is still an accepted way of generating visibility and encouraging outreach but no longer been being widely used for linkbuilding.

Infographics and content marketing are another popular modern practices amongst marketers because they offer a very effective way of venturing across all marketing platforms like social media, email, blogging, social bookmarks, etc. Since sharing data is almost equals to kindness, many people embrace the idea of sharing good and interesting content over the net.

Revolutionise Content Marketing

“What’s next? Filtering the noise. Remember: noise is relative. Noise is just a lack of relevance. How do we connect consumers to relevant content and answer their questions? Right now the push is all about creating content – but is all the content being created really addressing your customers? Are your customers discovering what they need, when they need it?,” quipped Bill Flitter CEO and Founder of Dlvr.it.

Well, he actually summed everything up. Everything that we see over the internet seems to become noises that distract people. Most of the time, the content being served by search engines and also by websites seems to present shallow ideas or copied information. In 2015, these should be changed by creating content that is backed by surveys, statistical data, and other factual information that will greatly help your readers.

Rethink About Branding

Whether you’re an author, a blogger, selling products and services online, you can never win the search of the future without having a solid branding. Ultimately, great way of establishing the brand you own is by learning the behaviour of your target audience, and how search technology behaves with the information or the data you present. This is where machine learning and analytics come in.

Getting the right information about your target audience is one of the ways of winning marketing. As technology advances, we can observe that search engines are becoming more sophisticated than before. Search engines today are becoming more user centric that in the near future, we can expect searches to be tailored according to user categories based on their previous search behaviours. By using Google Analytics or any data tracking analytics tool can help you get the right people to target and create content or products for. You can then starting pitching your brand according to the data you gathered about your target.

After learning your target audience, you may also look at how search engines process the information being given by searchers. Machine learning can benefit your brand and your branding efforts if you will effectively correlate information and use such to your content marketing. Search engines nowadays have become very effective in filtering out bad content from the good ones by instituting algorithms within it. Before, images cannot be crawled by Google, but by using alt text attributes and citations, images today can now be searched to the exact query users search. Imagine using this opportunity for your brand logo or images connected with your brands.

Check this Prezi Presentation about the Future of Search for more info.

Reconstruct Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing today has become the alternative platform that many online marketers are using to help overcome the ever-stricter field of SEO. But because of this, social media has turned into the rebound platform where noise is being thrown at. Businesses flocked to social media marketing in hopes that it can help them with visibility and branding. However, without the right knowledge on how to do it makes the effort all futile. Social Media marketing should always be directly connected to the campaigns of the website or the company and should not be taken as an independent tool. It should also be used as way to mine data of target audience than just a mere platform to get your message across. Remember, social media is like a two way radio, your responses are important after you have heard the message.

Joseph Glenn is the Online Marketing Assistant of Easy Internet Services & Solutions.