Hello and Happy Tuesday!
This week in Internet marketing, we’ve gathered some of the best stories from around the web. We’re looking at on-site changes to boost social media traffic, as well as the reasons that SEOs need to think beyond Google, and the ways PPC is proving to be the perfect mix of man and machine. We're also looking at email automation campaigns that will make your life easier, and a survey that outlines the most important takeaways on link building in 2016.
7 Simple On-site Changes That’ll Increase Your Social Media Traffic
With more than 2.3 billion social media users in the world today, most businesses find they can't ignore the significance of this outreach tool. There are a few straightforward and reliable strategies you can implement in your website that will help to make your social media a success, like using high quality images in your posts. When it comes to choosing topics for content and other posts, look first at analytics data to see what performs well and gains the most engagement from your audience. And you should definitely have social media sharing plugins and even a "click to Tweet" link to make it as easy as possible for readers to share your content.
Why Now, More Than Ever, SEO Is Not Just About Google
In February, Google announced it would change its SERP to have a block of four paid ads at the top of the results, taking up 80% of the results above the fold and pushing organic results further down. Google continues to be the largest search engine, and it's important for businesses to fine tune their paid search strategy, but it's also a good time to think about the alternatives. DuckDuckGo is the fastest-growing search engine and it's considerably more concerned with user privacy than its counterparts, which throws a wrench in many go-to SEO strategies. And aside from competitor search engines, there are other major players impacting traffic that don't rely on the Google algorithm. Facebook, for example, referred 3.5 billion desktop visits to other websites in January 2016.
Here's Why PPC is the Right Mix of Man & Machine
Science fiction would have us believe that the Man vs. Machine war is inevitable, and a similar, albeit less dramatic theory is that technology will render all of our jobs obsolete. But even if automation tools are handling more of our tasks, the human creativity that drives any work will always be essential. And in the case of PPC, the balance between person and technology is at its best. Paid advertising tools draw in customers, and the (human) PPC manager decides how to guide that person to convert. This post's infographic does a great job of illustrating the important of human creativity in converting a customer through PPC.
5 Email Automation Campaigns That Can Drive Revenue While You Sleep!
There are a few golden rules for building successful email marketing campaigns. The first rule is that a single email should have a single goal. Don't try to cram multiple CTAs in one email. Also, some emails should have goals beyond sales—for example, some emails may set out to simply inform readers of industry updates or encourage them to follow your social media profiles. And take advantage of the automation around email marketing. Set up welcome emails for anyone who signs up or logs in on your site because welcome emails see three times the number of unique opens over batched emails.
2016 State of Link Building Survey: Five Important Takeaways
It came as no surprise to SEOs earlier this year when Google confirmed that links continue to be one of the top ranking factors in a Google search. Moz teamed up with a couple industry experts to publish the 2016 Link Building Survey, which found some interesting new trends in link strategies. For example, a more integrated approach, which bundles link building, is on the rise. Also, link building continues to be closely tied to content and publishing. 78% of people in the survey said they viewed content as the most effective link building tactic.
Check out these additional articles for more internet marketing news!
5 tips to writing the perfect headline for your blog post
Google Accelerated Mobile Pages and content: the need for speed
