When it comes to brand visibility, you can’t go wrong with a solid search strategy in place. After all, it involves small tweaks that will help users find you if and when they need to. Of course, there are other elements at play, like your marketing strategy and specific business objectives, but a universal goal is growth and awareness, and that you’ll find on the search engine results pages - if you know-how. 

Search engine optimization is split up into two main categories in terms of the logistics. The first is on the backend, where the structure of your site and aspects of your code help determine visibility and give Google the lay of the land. Typically SEO specialists need to interact with this backend to ensure that pages are structured and categorized correctly, that duplicate content is marked as “invisible” to crawlers and that the site loads quickly enough for it to be convenient to users.

These are just a few basic and oversimplified examples for context. However, you don’t need to be a fully-fledged tech expert to make a significant difference to a site’s ranking - as there’s a whole nother element to gaining search cred. 

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO relates to activities you can do on the front-end to improve your site’s ranking, support link-building strategies and make content more inclusive and easily indexable. It’s also a good place to create mechanisms for users to engage with what you’re publishing and be able to process it all quickly and easily.

Why is this so important? Because it helps search engines like Google and Firefox determine how relevant your content is to a specific search query, which means the people who are looking for your products and services are more likely to find you. In fact, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. (BrightEdge)

In order to start improving your presence online and making the necessary changes to become more visible, it’s important to master the basics. Here’s how: 

• Use keywords thoughtfully: Conducting basic keyword research using a keyword planner, can give you a good indication of what users in your segment are searching for, in relation to your brand. You can use the search volumes to determine a list of keywords by priority - primary, secondary and tertiary or thematic keywords.
  
  These keywords go into the metadata but also have special placements in the copy, on-page. You can show topic hierarchy by using the primary keyword in the title, and first and last 100 words of the page, the secondary keyword in the first subheading, and thematic keywords sprinkled throughout.
  
  
• Get meta: Creating metadata for your pages and posts is a good way to optimise what users see when they search for your brand pages or related keywords. In the CRM you can write custom titles and descriptions for your page, using your primary keyword which is the keyword most searched for by your audience. Descriptions are usually truncated at 155 characters, so keep them short and engaging.
  
  This way users are more likely to read the whole thing and click through to your site. Plus, it has the added benefit of showing Google and other search engines what the page is about, as their technology indexes keywords. If you don’t create a custom one, it will automatically showcase the first few lines of text on the page. Pro tip: keep your primary and most important keyword close to the beginning of your title and description.
  
  
• Create scannable content for users: Search engines allocate a  readability score to content that determines how easy it is for users to consume. This is based on factors like scannability of content, sentence length, and language use.
  
  Optimising your pages for better readability means formatting your pages with subheadings and bullet points, for example, considering language use and ensuring clean, well-written copy that takes punctuation, grammar and spelling into account.
  
  
• Be inclusive: When uploading images onto your site, you can include alt tags and captions that describe images and give them context. This serves two functions. First, it makes the images more inclusive for the visually impaired interacting with the site, as these tags and captions are read via audio channels. Secondly, it allows search engines to index the images more thoroughly and gives them a thematic context in the same ways as keywords do. From here, they can determine relevance to search queries.
  
  
• Make it meaningful: The quality of your content is what’s going to ultimately keep readers on your page, which means fluff won’t cut it. Similarly, by linking to reputable sources you can up the credibility of your work. The key to great SEO is simply creating genuinely good content that serves a purpose and fits a theme. So allocate the necessary resources to create something that meets needs and offers the reader more than what they expected.
  
  
• Share it: The more traffic that goes to your site, the more likely it is to rank higher in the SERPs (MTU Edu). A good way to drive traffic is through sharing your content on social channels. By adding social icons, you can also encourage users to share with their audiences, helping you generate a larger readership on your site.
  
  

All told, basic on-page search knowledge is a must-have for any marketer or creative working particularly in the digital copywriting space - but it’s also an important part of your content strategy.

Without at least some consideration for search queries, you won’t get the most value from your site, which means wasted resources, missed leads and simply taking up space online. We can help you formulate better on-page strategies and drive new business to your digital doors. Speak to us for more information.

From self-driving cars to the rise of chatbots, we’re seeing a rapid acceleration in artificial intelligence and machine learning — and it’s changing the marketing world. 

Tech research firm, Gartner, predicts that by 2020, AI will be a $3.9 trillion business. Businesses need to prepare for this inevitability by taking action and capitalising on the opportunities artificial intelligence can bring to their business.

Preparing for the future

When it comes to the future of marketing, opinions are divided. Some experts believe that AI will change the way we live for the better and boost our economy. Others see it as a potential threat to humankind and we can understand why, at a cursory glance. 

Artificial intelligence is getting smarter. It’s approaching the same level of intelligence as human beings, and there’s no question that it will continue to become more relevant as we find new use cases for it in a digital world. 

As it does so, it will continue to have an impact on many aspects of our lives, including on the way we market our businesses and how we interact with brands as consumers. But in a best case scenario, this intelligence will be used to heighten human potential rather than cannibalise it. 

Why is it taking so long?

AI has been a hot topic for years, but it’s only recently become widely accessible and affordable enough to be utilised in business applications as a standard. What’s more, advancements in machine learning technologies and the rise of big data have fueled interest and sparked new research into AI’s potential for democratising access to opportunities and unifying the world with technology. Let’s get down to what it is at its core and why it’s so relevant to us as modern marketers. 

1. What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, an ideal "intelligent" machine is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximise its chance of success at some goal.

We’re already seeing a number of applications for this in the marketing and comms world - particularly in the social listening and monitoring space. This is, in part, why marketing has changed so much over the last 5 years. 

2. Why it’s crucial to your new marketing strategy

Marketing comprises a range of activities that are typically focused around understanding consumers and their interests in a modern context. By simulating or supplementing human intelligence, we have a range of benefits available to us on both sides of the messaging fence. 

• Streamline resources. Internally, AI can support businesses in their process goals. Think of a SlackBot for example that provides useful tidbits of information or reminders to the team. Similarly, word prompts and email suggestions can take some of the mental work out of completing tasks.
  
  
• Target content to specific audiences. AI allows you to get information about individual customers and prospects so that you can then tailor marketing campaigns to them. This is a lot more effective than generic marketing campaigns. So, for example, if you want to know what your consumers are saying online or how they behave, AI can help scan trillions of data points to collate a profile for you - making quick work of building personas or targeting specific demographics.
  
  
• Interact with less manpower. Artificial intelligence can communicate with your consumers on your behalf. And, with the help of machine learning, it can change its behaviour to accommodate their interests and needs. Automated responses can be a useful tool when customers message you on social media platforms. Improved interactive voice systems also hold some efficacy when it comes to supplementing manpower.
  
  
• Delight and engage automatically. While AI technology is still relatively new to consumers, it still has the power to delight them, even in simple applications. Acknowledging their DM with an automated message, can be a powerful way to increase your response time and offer them useful resources for what to do next.
  
  
• Prepare for future advancements in technology. As technology advances, the possibilities for marketing automation become endless. Artificial intelligence can help take a lot of the manual work out of marketing and allow you to focus on the creative aspects of your work. However, there’s another important aspect at play. Brands that want to succeed beyond web 4.0 need to have the infrastructure, skill and understanding to operate in a hybrid world of virtual, artificial and physical environments. 

3.. How to use it effectively in your business

• Use it to intimately know your audiences through media monitoring and social listening
• Integrate AI into new brand activations and media campaigns
• Automate engagement through chatbots and profile growers
• Activate your brand with creative concepts that incorporate new technologies. 
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All told, AI is no longer a far-off concept that may or may not impact our realities in the near future. It’s very much here in familiar interfaces and chat applications that people encounter on a daily basis. Even companies like Google have incorporated it into their document creation, suggesting words and helpful tools when users start to write. However, as the capability and access grows, so does the scope of opportunity to use this technology in more exciting and novel ways. 
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Don’t get left behind

Speak to us about your next AI project or how you can incorporate it into your existing marketing campaigns. 

Often, a big decision when starting a new software project is whether or not to outsource development or simply do it in-house. The most common reason for this concern to pop up is that companies have heard about bad experiences from friends or colleagues, or they’ve experienced it themselves.

After all, working with third parties can come with its challenges. But as with everything in life, proper planning prevents poor performance - and this applies to outsourcing tasks as much as it does to anything else. 

How does this dilemma come about?

Upgrading software is a critical task for any modern business and can improve a company’s productivity by as much as 50%. Apart from this, new systems are more adaptable and have better security, a key factor in today’s data landscape.

According to Norton, one of the most used antivirus softwares in the world, new software and upgrades can help get rid of old flaws. Hackers and cybercriminals are constantly getting better and you should too, to make sure your company’s data and systems are safe and efficient.

In the same breath, companies don’t always have the resources to allocate time and internal spend to technical projects and need support, to a greater or lesser degree.

5 Questions To Guide You

Every situation and every upgrade is different. It is vital for you to do a thorough analysis of your project, plan out your goals and timeline before deciding who’s going to be responsible for the task of upgrading - and to what extent they’re involved. Key decision-makers should ask themselves:

What is the scope of the upgrade or new development?

The most important question to find an answer to when upgrading your software is why you are doing it. The key objectives you use as a mark, serve as vital information for the development team, and can help you figure out priority and critical areas for development. This will impact the level of resources you need to continue and give you a basis for understanding when and what you can get help with.

Do you have the skillset, internally - and is it your core competency?

Sit down with your team and find out if they have the ability to develop the best possible software. 

Building software is a complex process and the benefit of having an outside company is they can have access and knowledge on the latest technology that is being used. (Maxxor Blog) However, many companies don’t have in-house development teams because of the cost or demand for that kind of work on a monthly basis. 

On the other hand, some companies do software development for other brands, as their core service offering and this presents an ethical and logistical dilemma. When a skill is your company’s core competency, outsourcing this skill makes your business vulnerable. In these cases, it’s best to enlist temporary or supporting development, rather than putting an entirely separate team on the project. 

Do you have capacity?

Does your team have the ability and capacity to do this work while continuing to service your company on a daily basis? Very few businesses can afford a software team solely for building new products. This means that they are constantly dividing their time between your upgrades and their daily tasks. 

Your team may have the skills and the experience to get this job done but do they have the capacity with everything else going on? If yes, then you could think about doing it in-house as a priority - even if the cost is higher than that of partnering with other developers. If no, then it may be more effective to look at outsourcing the work to some extent.

Is your internal infrastructure set up for partnerships?

Agility in the software world is key and can help create environments where partnering with service providers is easier. Without the right communications and data-sharing infrastructure, it will be a complex task to plug in new teams and can create a myriad of challenges when working with freelancers or other organizations.

If your internal infrastructure is not geared up for remote and collaborative working, you’re going to have a problem. In these instances, you need to factor in the costs of creating this environment, although the benefits can be two-fold for your business. If you can’t do this, starting in-house may be a more viable option. 

What is your budget?

Budget constraints play a major role when going into a new project. And while the face value of one option may be cheaper, you need to take into account the cost of mistakes, setbacks, and not reaching the goals you want to achieve. Besides that, the training and infrastructure costs internally can add up fast and need to be considered. 

It may seem cheaper to hire more staff but will you have work for them after this project is done? Further to that S&C says “Businesses cut down their development costs up to 50-60% when they turn to an outsourcing company”. 

Typically, there is a lesser risk and cost associated with outsourcing, as you are not bound to permanently employ developers and not responsible for the overheads associated with third parties, however, in cases where they are too far removed from your team, you are likely to incur quality control and time costs. 

Who can you outsource to?

There are many companies that offer software development services, but quality and competency are two important considerations. At Digital Grind, we’ve got an established team of digital experts who understand the software and user experience design landscape. 

For example, we recently worked on a project with Moro Hub where we built a platform with an A-grade standard of accessibility. In that instance, the infrastructure existed for us to work together as a team and the result was an exciting new platform that could help Moro grow their brand awareness and continue to evolve. Their feedback? "Digital Grind developed our company's website, and they have done an excellent job. They developed a website that was more than our expectation and it is AAA accessible. They were very cooperative and accommodating; their flexibility in amending changes to meet our different stakeholder's requests was exceptional."

So, there are definitely instances where partnering or outsourcing your development can be beneficial to you and your organization. However, considering the checklist above, you will need the right processes and environment to make this achievable and should be aware of your core competencies - and the impact that outsourcing can have on your brand and clients. 

When it’s not your game, it’s best to handoff to an all-star team. Speak to us