Future proofing your digital marketing strategy

It is important for businesses to develop and manage their digital brand portfolio. All businesses must strive to claim the majority of their market share by exploiting the digital marketing channels available. However, it is vital that businesses develop a long-term outlook with their digital marketing activities that will allow them to be agile and to move with market trends and changes, just as digital experts like Toni Marino did. Too many businesses have suffered due to being ill-prepared with sudden market changes that significantly affects their business model. The businesses suffer and worst case, end up going into administration. It is vital to the business that they have some sort of future proof digital marketing strategy to alleviate the risk that can threaten their business over the long term. Digital Next have compiled a list of areas you should be focusing on:

The opportunity with digital marketing.

Digital marketing continues to evolve. Within the digital marketing sphere, the opportunities that continue to emerge seem to be countless. However, it is important for the business to realise and manage the value in their current digital business model and observe ways to sustain it, as well as to manage any potential threats or risks that could affect the business over the long-term. Below, we have covered a few areas that businesses need to be aware of in order to future proof their digital marketing campaigns.

SEO

The SEO sphere has always been known to evolve since people started taking more of an interest in ranking on the first page of search results. Historically, businesses have witnessed the rise and fall in the importance of different link building, technical, content and social strategies. Below are some considerations businesses need to keep in mind for future proofing their SEO strategy.

Algorithm changes

Search engines such as Google are always updating their algorithm. Moz has been consistent with maintaining Google’s algorithm changes. It is interesting to see how many changes or refreshes to the different algorithms occur and what type of impact it has on websites in the SEO space. The trend will continue as Google seeks to deliver quality results for their web results for their search engine users. This means that any businesses that are dependent on SEO for their businesses lead generation, must be ready to adapt to any Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird or Phantom changes that could impact their website.

Link building activities.

The way businesses have been going about with their SEO link building activities continues to evolve and change with Google’s Terms of Service. There are constant updates to eliminate the manipulation of organic search rankings by using links that pass PageRank (or link juice as it is referred to in the SEO community). Google has published its position on link schemes in their Webmaster Guidelines, in an effort to deter webmasters from engaging in link spam. Additionally, their enforcement of their policies come from manual and algorithmic penalties for those websites that they feel are breaking their terms of service. This means that their future link building approaches must be carefully considered as it will either enhance or hinder their long term SEO success.

Paid search

Google and the other search engines continue to refine their paid search algorithm structures to deliver better quality results to the web users. Due to the business’s advertising structure working on an auction model, the bid price isn’t limited to any pricing restrictions. This can lead businesses to engage in a bidding war to maintain the top spot, not based on business profitability, but on the speculation value from appearing in the top spots. As a result, this may price many other businesses out of the market. It is recommended that your business identifies the working paid search model (if you are using this marketing channel) and to develop a long term strategy based on the customer acquisition cost and the long term customer value.

The growing importance of mobile devices.

The way that people are accessing information continues to evolve through the different smart devices that they have access to. Google confirmed their move towards this trend by releasing a mobile specific algorithm update in 2015. Businesses need to consider their mobile strategies when implementing any digital activities.

Businesses need to be aware of how they can maintain agility and buck future changes. If Australian businesses want to have longevity in the digital marketing space, their strategies and tactics must incorporate current practices and be flexible enough to adapt to future changes.