Anyone who has built and launched a website has likely encountered an oft-repeated acronym: SEO (search engine optimization). And while you might not have ever done SEO yourself, you've benefited from it in the past: Every day, search engines like Google employ complex algorithms to sift through more than 400 billion web pages and deliver the most relevant results.

Website owners like you use SEO techniques and strategies to get their websites to the top of the search results for relevant user queries. But SEO is not a one-time endeavor — Google and other search engines change often, and ongoing SEO ensures your website stays in front of the people you want to reach. Just as a physical storefront requires regular maintenance and updates to stay competitive, your website needs ongoing SEO to remain visible amidst the ever-changing digital landscape.

The ABCs of SEO: What is Ongoing SEO and Why Does It Matter?

Don't let the techy jargon intimidate you. HubSpot — considered one of the gold standards for SEO and digital marketing advice — defines SEO as simply a collection of strategies and tips that "expand a company’s visibility in organic search results'' and help "drive more visitors to the company’s website, increasing their chances for more conversions which leads to more customers and more revenue."

SEO Connects the Search Engine Algorithms With Your Website's Content

Regardless of your website's goal or industry niche, all SEO techniques have one thing in common: They look at ways to optimize your website's content, keywords, and links to help search engines rank your website higher in the search results when someone searches for something related to your keywords, content, or brand name.

According to HubSpot, SEO needs to address the key factors that all search engines use to determine the value of your website's content — and therefore how high in the search results your website or specific landing page should appear:

The intent or meaning behind why someone is searching for a specific term or question
The relevance between what someone searches for, and the content on your website
The quality of your content (for instance, a website about physical exercise written by certified personal trainers is deemed by Google to be higher quality than a website where the articles are written by non-experts)
The performance of your website, such as how long it takes a page to load and whether it works well on mobile devices

Static SEO Versus Ongoing SEO: Why It Matters to Stay Fresh and Keep Your SEO Updates Current

As users' web behavior changes and technology evolves, search engines proactively adjust their algorithms.

If you aren't conducting ongoing SEO maintenance and upgrades, a well-optimized website today can quickly become obsolete tomorrow, causing your search rankings to drop and attracting fewer organic visitors. Google itself updates its algorithms several thousand times per year, including significant "major" changes every few months that dramatically change how it crawls and ranks content. For example, Google's infamous Panda update changed how it ranked how-to lifestyle content on the Internet, causing one major content publisher to lose a whopping $6.4 million of traffic and advertising nearly overnight.

How Ongoing SEO Influences Your Website Strategy

Staying abreast of changes to SEO techniques and strategies provides important guidance to your content, marketing, and overarching website strategy. For example, it can dictate or influence:

How much content you publish, and the content's format, length, and focus
How you incorporate other forms of media on your website, including images, video, and audio
How you organize content on your site, including landing page layouts and your site's navigation
What keywords and target users your website focuses on

Embrace the Power of Ongoing SEO

Caroline Forsey, an expert in thought leadership and marketing content, looked at the survey results from more than 400 of the world's leading web analysts to predict the biggest SEO trends of 2024. According to her data, some of the top changes in SEO strategies this year include:

A heavier emphasis on expertise, meaning the content on your website should come from experts in your related field (including bylines and author bios that demonstrate the author's credentials and experience on the topic they're writing about)
A renewed emphasis on first-person, credible content, especially as more websites generate high volumes of low-quality AI content (Google itself has announced upcoming changes to tackle low-value articles created by AI)
A priority on websites that are deemed trustworthy, such as e-commerce sites with well-rated customer service, or content sites that do a good job of citing trustworthy research and statistics
Bonus points on content that is creative and original and doesn't simply rehash content found on other sites

Of course, these SEO trends will inevitably change every year, and ongoing SEO will keep you competitive no matter what Google, Bing, and other search engines do. No matter your website's industry or content strategy, ongoing SEO requires that you:

Focus on keeping your content fresh and high quality, including new blog posts or regularly refreshing and updating old product descriptions or articles
Conduct keyword research often, since the terms or phrases that your core audience uses will evolve over time
Maintain your website's overarching performance, such as mobile-friendliness as mobile devices evolve, and page load speed
Build a diverse portfolio of high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites within your niche, which may include outreach campaigns, getting others in your industry to write guest blogs, and participating in online forums or communities
Keep on top of technical and performance metrics, such as scanning your site for broken links (and fixing the links you uncover) and using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track organic traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rates, and conversion rates
Stay on top of algorithm changes so you can adapt your SEO strategy in real-time

Some website owners think of SEO as the first step of their promotional strategy. But it's less a first step, and more an ongoing journey to ensure you, your brand, and your content stay relevant in such a competitive atmosphere. Whether you choose to go it alone and take a DIY approach to SEO, or you choose to consult with a digital marketing and SEO agency, check in often and make sure your SEO evolves as the world around you evolves.

2/11/21, 9:33 AM

You know that your marketing automation tool can be used to promote your business, but there are many other powerful functions you may not be fully utilizing. These forms, landing pages, and task automation features can help you streamline your operations, improve marketing performance and gain valuable insight into your target audience.

Many people are only using their marketing automation tool for email marketing. But they really are capable of so much more. Read on to discover everything your marketing automation tools can do.

Forms

Your forms can help you streamline your entire business both internally and externally. One of the functions of a marketing automation tool like forms is to gather customer information. Because of this, you can easily customize the fields in order to bring in the right data and find the right ways to use it. Depending on the information you collect from the form submissions, you can then assign that lead to the appropriate team member. For example, if you assign leads based on geographical location, then any form submission can be routed to the appropriate sales member based on geography. Here are other ways of how to effectively assign your leads. By doing this, you can streamline your marketing operations and simplify your sales operations.

You can also use forms throughout your various stages of your sales process to gather more pertinent information and further qualify prospects as they continue through their buying journey.

Landing Pages

A good marketing automation tool includes custom landing page builders. You’ll be able to use these landing pages for specific campaigns, and they are great for A/B testing. You can test how different campaigns, marketing ads, and other features perform with your target audience.

These tools have templates and landing page builders, so the process is fast and simple. Once the page is created, you can use it to generate leads through effective digital marketing campaigns.

Call-to-Actions (CTAs)

A/B testing is one of the most important functions of a marketing automation tool. A CTA encourages the viewer to click on an ad, make a purchase, sign up for your newsletter, and more. With automation tools, you can design custom CTAs in the system to look however you want.

This is important because you need to test your CTAs to determine which ones work best. A/B testing is one of the best things you can do to help your business grow, and it allows you to refine your marketing strategy. With each iteration, you can change up your A/B test, so you can learn more about your customers and the types of CTAs that perform best.

Task Automation

Task automation is useful for your internal teams and your overall sales efforts. Through automation tools, you can reconfigure the way your teams create and assign different workflows and automated tasks.

By doing this, you can get your team to follow the correct process with new and current leads. For example, you can create internal alerts if a lead has not been contacted by a sales team member. In such cases, you can then require that assigned team member to reach out in a specified time period and even put a reminder on their calendar. This allows you to not lose sight of those client and prospective buyer relationships that require time to nurture.

Online Surveys

A good marketing automation tool will also feature options for creating your own online surveys. Through surveys, you can learn more about what your customers like and dislike about different products. You can use surveys as inexpensive, fast tools for conducting market research.

Surveys can also be used to collect feedback from your clients. Later, this information can be used to demonstrate social proof of your product’s quality. Plus, online surveys are a useful way to measure customer satisfaction with your products and services.

Reporting and Analytics

If you want your company to be successful, you have to know how effective the investments you are making in your marketing efforts. Marketing automation tools include features like ROI custom reporting and advanced analytics. You can visually see the most effective channels for acquiring leads and customers and gain insight into campaign and content performance.

Advanced analytics can also help you determine which customers are the best targets and which campaigns suit each type of customer. These tools help you gain valuable insight into how new business is being generated and provides powerful data that to use when making future marketing investments.

Marketing Automation Helps You Run Your Company Better

A good marketing automation tool has the power to do so much more than create simple email marketing campaigns. You can manage your sales channel, collect valuable data, and conduct A/B testing. Marketing automation tools allow you to streamline different sections of your business, so you can spend less money while getting better results.

If you want to catalyze your company’s success, the right tools can help. To learn more, contact us at Synchronicity today.

Hokuyo

AccruePartners

How to Use Functions of Your Marketing Automation Tool for Other Parts of Your Business