Online Marketing Trends

By Author: Mel Joelle
Total Articles: 4328
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In no order of importance, here are some unmistakable trends we are seeing in online marketing:

1. Social Media Coming of Age - the growth of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc is just staggering. Businesses of all sizes are coming to realize that need to join the conversation and not just sit around and wait for the phone call to ring or the online form to be sent in. The social media will prove to be an important new voting tool for consumers and a key source of referencing product information and real human experience. Since the Social Media provides a hub for people to network among like-minded counterparts, colleagues, neighbors, etc, the opportunity to compare notes and information as part of the process in making purchasing and business decisions will become increasingly obvious. Online marketers will learn that Social Media is an integral part of any SEO or Internet Marketing Strategy. Make sure your Internet Marketing Company or SEO isn't just talking meta tags and title tags anymore. Deep involvement in the social media is a leading edge component of comprehensive online strategies.

2. Performance-Based ...
... Fees - we are seeing higher and higher volumes of searches for a Pay for Performance model verifying what Optimum7 has understood for a long time. Many folks have paid for SEO services only to be disappointed that the end-result has been that the client has written checks but has received the results they had expected, or even worse, promised or guaranteed by the SEO. Business websites are there to do business and owners, as well as key executives, seek to work with Professional Online Marketing Companies who will participate and / or share the risk based upon performance. Optimum7 offers just such a Pay for Performance model where a large percentage of the total fees are strictly contingent on performance as measured in Search Engine Rankings.

3. It is not enough to just get high organic search engine rankings. We understand that if we take the position that we did our job if we achieve high search engine rankings, we can and will lose clients when it comes time to renew our services. The reason: High Search Engine Rankings alone don't guarantee anything but increased traffic. It does not mean that visitors to the website will actually convert. Whether you seek onsite sales via a shopping cart, leads through an online form, requests for more information or a simple phone call, you don't just want high rankings; you want measurable conversions enough to justify the investment. If this is not achieved, you will go elsewhere and we are not interested in a revolving door of clients. However, without conversion optimization as an integral part of Search Engine Optimization, we will have exactly what no one wants. So, we focus on all of the elements on the website itself that directly influence and effect the ultimate end result.

4. PPC or Sponsored Search will be increasingly seen as just paid ads and not earned spots on the elite first page. We see increasing awareness by potential clients that online searchers that actually use the paid listings are actually decreasing in number due to the fact that more and more realize that organic rankings are not paid for per se. Rather these sites are being ranked by Google based on relevance. Social Media also play into this trend as the comments, experiences; recommendations of online participants mean more to real people than paid ads even if those ads are on Google. PPC has always lived on the fact, and very important fact, that it is the most measurable way of calculating ROI; fact is, ROI is likely decline and this is easily understood intuitively it's a bidding model and those resorting to a bidding model are often those who are not willing or committed to do the hard work it takes to EARN RELEVANCE in the organic arena. Moreover, think about what those relying on outbidding tend to do overlook the most important aspects of winning competitively, i.e. offering a better product or service at a better price.

5. Here Comes the Business Blog - while growing, there is an increasing awareness of the blogosphere and the importance of generating meaningful, relevant content that is closely associated with the business website. Blogging and SEO need to be integrated as they go hand-in-hand. The blog needs to be structured to foster interaction with the website itself, both from a human and search technology point of view. Remember, the more often a website is updated with fresh, unique content, the more the spiders will visit and feast on your site. The Business Blog's time has come.

6. Multi-media Content Growing - by paying attention to the real human interaction with a webpage, there is a growing realization that we are visual beings. Video and high resolution images will become more and more prominent to more fully attract, engage and lead visitors through a sophisticated funnel to foster and optimize conversions. One thing for certain is that new media will involve high levels of interactivity in the form of creating customized pricing, products, services, participating in surveys, contests and challenges to optimize interest, excitement and ultimately new business and clients.

We believe strongly that these are the strongest trends continuing to evolve online. There are many more that we are keeping a close eye on. We continue to develop new strategies and processes that fully reflect these trends. As always feel free to contact us.
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