A Step-by-step Guide To Create the Right Marketing Automation Strategy
Jul 08, 2024
10 min read
Did you know that businesses that implement marketing automation experience an average of a 20% increase in sales opportunities?
A successful marketing automation strategy requires careful planning, optimization, implementation, optimization, and data analysis. This blog will explore the key steps to creating the right strategy for your business.
Let’s get to the practical tips and step-by-step guide to help you create a successful marketing automation strategy.
What is a marketing automation strategy?
A marketing automation strategy leverages software to automate repetitive marketing tasks, streamline marketing processes, and optimize campaigns.
This approach allows businesses to deliver personalized content to customers at each journey stage, enhancing efficiency, revenue, and customer loyalty. It also increases efficiency, customer engagement, lead generation, and ROI.
Implementing a cohesive marketing automation strategy is crucial for analyzing analytics, addressing challenges, and effectively leveraging marketing automation tools.
Overall, a marketing automation strategy helps businesses to scale their marketing efforts and improve outcomes while reducing manual effort and errors.
Business impact of an effective marketing automation strategy
An effective marketing automation strategy has the potential to significantly transform a business's approach to customer engagement and lead generation, especially within the SaaS industry.
Leveraging marketing automation tools and technologies can help companies streamline their marketing processes, enhance efficiency, and drive revenue growth with better marketing automation services .
Here are five key points highlighting the business impact of an effective marketing automation strategy in the B2B SaaS industry:.
- Enhanced Lead Nurturing: Marketing automation enables businesses to engage with leads at various sales funnel stages.
- Optimized Resource Utilization: By automating repetitive marketing tasks such as email campaigns, social media scheduling, and lead scoring, companies can save valuable time and allocate their resources more efficiently.
- Improved Customer Segmentation: Marketing automation software allows businesses to segment their audience based on various criteria such as demographics, behavior, or purchase history.
- Heightened Personalization: Personalization fosters a deeper connection with customers. Businesses can deliver highly personalized content to their customers based on their preferences, behavior, and stages in the buyer's journey.
- Increased ROI: By automating marketing processes, businesses can achieve higher efficiency, reduce manual errors, and optimize their marketing campaigns.
In conclusion, an effective marketing automation strategy holds immense potential for businesses in the SaaS industry. By embracing marketing automation, businesses can position themselves as industry leaders and drive significant growth in the competitive B2B SaaS market.
Want to reduce your CAC to half?
Step-by-step guide to creating a successful marketing automation strategy
This step-by-step guide will help you create an effective strategy and leverage marketing automation services to streamline your marketing operations, improve customer engagement, and drive higher conversions.
Step 1: Define goals & objectives to identify the target audience
Begin by defining clear goals for your marketing automation strategy that align with your overall business objectives and marketing efforts.
- If you aim to increase lead generation, improve customer retention, or boost sales, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals provide a solid foundation for your strategy.
- Identifying your
- is equally important.
- Conduct market research and analyze customer data to understand your audience’s demographics, behaviors, preferences, and pain points.
This data-driven approach ensures your campaigns are targeted and resonate with your audience, driving higher engagement and conversion rates.
Step 2: Choose the right marketing automation software
Selecting the right marketing automation platform for lead generation is crucial to achieving your goals. Consider features, functionality, integration capabilities, ease of use, and cost.
10 most popular marketing automation platforms include:
- HubSpot: Known for its robust CRM and marketing automation capabilities, Hubspot offers tools for email marketing, social media management, and lead nurturing.
- Adobe Marketo Engage: Ideal for large enterprises, Marketo offers advanced features for email marketing, customer segmentation, and analytics.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Provides comprehensive solutions for email marketing, social media advertising, and customer journey mapping. Enterprises majorly use Salesforce .
- Oracle Eloqua: Oracle focuses on lead management, marketing analytics, and multichannel campaign management.
- ActiveCampaign: This tool offers a user-friendly interface with features for email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM. ActiveCampaign is great for customization and user journey mapping.
- Keap (formerly Infusionsoft): Designed for small businesses, Keap offers email marketing, CRM, and sales automation tools.
- GetResponse: Known for its email marketing , landing pages, and webinar solutions.
- Customer.io: Messaging automation and customer segmentation are the major focus of Customer.io .
- Dynamics 365 Marketing: Integrated with Microsoft’s ecosystem, Dynamics 365 offers tools for email marketing, lead nurturing, and event management.
- Act-On: Providing comprehensive marketing automation solutions for email marketing, lead management, and analytics, Act-on is a great tool for automating marketing activities. .
These platforms are essential for creating and optimizing marketing campaigns.
Step 3: Map out your customer journey
Creating a customer journey map is essential for understanding all customer interactions and touchpoints with your brand.
This visual representation helps you identify opportunities to deliver personalized, omnichannel experiences, build trust and loyalty, and foster strong customer relationships.
Key stages in a typical customer journey include:
- Awareness: When customers first become aware of your brand or product.
- Consideration: When customers are evaluating different options and considering a purchase.
- Decision: When customers decide to purchase your product or service.
- Retention: When efforts are made to retain customers and encourage repeat purchases.
- Advocacy: When satisfied customers become advocates and refer others to your brand.
Use marketing automation to engage customers with welcome emails, personalized product recommendations, and surveys while tracking attribution for optimized strategy.
Step 4: Deliver personalized content
Personalization is key to effective marketing automation. Use customer data to segment your audience and deliver personalized content that resonates with each segment.
Marketing automation tools can analyze data to enhance customer profiles and generate dynamic content, ensuring relevance and engagement at each customer journey stage.
Types of personalized content include:
- Email Marketing: With email marketing automation , send personalized emails based on customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history.
- Dynamic Website Content: Display different content on your website based on the visitor’s profile and behavior.
- Social Media Advertising: Target specific audience segments with tailored paid ads .
- Product Recommendations: Suggest products based on past purchases and browsing behavior.
This collaboration between sales and marketing teams bridges the gap, optimizing campaign expenditures and accelerating the generation of marketing-qualified leads.
Step 5: Set up automated workflows
Implementing automated workflows is essential for delivering timely, targeted messages and ensuring quality leads are passed to the sales team. Common workflows include:
- Customer Onboarding: Welcome new customers with a series of emails that introduce your brand and products.
- Abandoned Cart Reminders: Send reminders to customers who have added items to their cart but haven’t completed the purchase.
- Lead Nurturing: Engage leads with educational and promotional emails to move them through the sales funnel.
- Upsell and Cross-Sell Campaigns: Suggest additional products or services based on previous purchases.
- Win-Back Campaigns: Re-engage inactive customers with special offers or incentives.
Each workflow should be designed to achieve specific objectives and provide value to the customer at each stage of their journey.
Step 6: Measure and analyze campaign results
Continuous measurement and analysis of your campaigns are crucial for optimizing your marketing and automation strategies. Use analytics tools to track key metrics such as:
- Open Rates: The percentage of recipients who open your emails.
- Click-Through Rates (CTR): The percentage of recipients clicking links within your emails.
- Conversion Rates: The percentage of recipients who take the desired action, such as purchasing or filling out a form.
- Bounce Rates: The percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
- Unsubscribe Rates: The percentage of recipients who opt out of your email list.
- Return on Investment (ROI): The overall profitability of your marketing automation campaigns.
Use these insights to identify what’s working and what isn’t and make data-driven decisions to improve your strategy.
Want to reduce your CAC to half?
Challenges of Marketing Automation
While marketing automation offers numerous benefits, it also comes with challenges, including:
- Maintaining Data Quality: Ensure your customer data is accurate, complete, and up-to-date to avoid sending irrelevant or duplicate messages.
- Integrating with Other Software: Seamless integration with your existing CRM, CMS, and other tools is essential for effective automation.
- Balancing Automation and Human Touch: While automation can handle repetitive tasks, it’s important to maintain a human touch in your interactions to build genuine relationships with customers.
- Avoiding Over-Communication: Be mindful of the frequency and volume of your communications to avoid overwhelming your customers and causing them to unsubscribe.
- Segmenting Your Audience Appropriately: Proper segmentation is key to delivering relevant content and achieving better engagement and conversion rates.
Conclusion
By addressing these challenges and continuously optimizing your strategy, you can leverage marketing automation to its full potential and drive sustainable business growth.
Implementing effective marketing automation strategies can help drive revenue growth, improve customer loyalty, and nurture customers throughout the sales journey.
Best B2B SaaS SEO Practices: Driving Organic Traffic and Growth
Search Engine Optimization’s marketplace never stays the same. It keeps changing; last year, Google updated its search algorithm more than 500 times — that's almost like changing the guidelines every day, sometimes twice! SEO is a foundation for content marketing guides to make decisions based on data and analysis. It is central to understanding what is saas marketing, crucial in awareness and expanding the reach to connect with your ideal customers. The significance of SEO best practices is not just about being visible; it's about making life easier for your customers. When you know exactly what your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is searching for, you can smoothly lead them through your marketing journey. Additionally, 59% of B2B marketers state that SEO significantly impacts their lead-generation goals. According to a recent study by McKinsey, the desire to revert to in-person sales among B2B buyers is only around 20% to 30%. The significance of SEO best practices is not just about being visible; it's about making life easier for your customers. We will discover B2B SEO Best Practices that make things simpler and better. By the end of this blog, you'll have the answer to how to build an online presence that attracts and communicates smoothly with your audience. Saffron Edge specializes in providing the perfect solution for businesses that struggle to gain visibility and rank higher in search engine results. With our expertise in technical and semantic SEO, we optimize your website's structure, functionality, and content relevance to ensure maximum performance. What is B2B SEO? B2B Search Engine Optimization consists of three core elements: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. These three building blocks together form a B2B SEO strategy, which increases your content's visibility on leading search engines. Here is a brief introduction to these pillars that contribute to forming the Best B2B SEO strategy: On-page:Updating meta elements, conducting thorough on-page audits, creating engaging content, interesting user experience, and keyword research. Off-page:link-building, securing valuable backlinks from social media platforms, and engaging in authentic digital PR activities. Technical SEO:Technical SEO makes your website easily discoverable and user-friendly, focusing on indexability, crawlability, page load speed, images, and alt-text, implementing schema markup, and site architecture. Ranking up your website isn’t easy. It is more about creating engaging content and maintaining an online presence with your needs. What are the Common B2B Marketing Challenges? B2B SaaS marketing, in terms of SEO, is difficult as it faces many challenges. The B2B SaaS marketplace is worth over $170 billion. The stakes are high, the competition is fierce, and the journey is filled with many ups and downs. Let's chat honestly about the challenges people face in this SaaS Market and how SEO best practices can be your guide. 1. Global Competition: Imagine a marketplace bustling with activity, where competition isn’t just local but global. The SaaS space has increased by 500% in the last seven years, and the competition is fierce, especially with the U.S. hosting around 8 times more marketing SaaS companies than any other country. 2. Narrow Target Audience: SaaS products are typically designed for a specific industry, company size, or type of customer. This makes it challenging to reach the right audience with your marketing efforts. But it becomes easier if you use the tools for b2b marketing. 3. High-Commitment Decision-Making Process: B2B SaaS is a commitment. Businesses don’t make random purchases; they court, research, and make decisions based on long-term compatibility, making it a high-commitment investment.Companies do significant research to find and ensure that the product resolves their pain points and aligns with their b2b saas company culture and saas marketing budget. The annual contract values have remarkably increased over 5 times in six years. The monthly renewal nature of SaaS subscriptions adds additional pressure, making every month a critical decision point. 4. Monthly Subscription Renewals: Companies have to make purchase decisions every month, which means your product must prove its worth every month. It’s not a one-time courtship; it’s a monthly revalidation. 5. Continuous Proof of Value: B2B SaaS customers need to be constantly convinced that they are making the right choice by purchasing your product. This requires marketers to provide ongoing proof of value, such as case studies, testimonials, and free trials. B2B SaaS marketers also need to consider the following: The need to stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends and technologies. The importance of creating high-quality content that is relevant to their target audience. Using social channels to connect with potential customers. The importance of tracking and measuring marketing ROI. What are the top marketing metrics for SaaS? As you implement B2B SEO practices, understanding and revising the key metrics is also important. Here are our top marketing metrics for SaaS. Each metric helps you understand how much money is coming and enables you to attract, retain, and maximize the value of your customer base. Regularly analyze these metrics and tweak your SEO strategy accordingly. Churn Rate: The churn rate, indicating the percentage of customers discontinuing your service within a specified period, holds significant importance.For B2B SEO practices, monitoring churn helps you identify potential pain points in your SaaS Marketing customer journey. By optimizing your SEO content to address these issues, you can enhance user experience and reduce churn. Customer Retention: High customer retention is a testament to the value your SaaS solution provides. Implementing B2B SEO practices by creating content focusing on customer success stories, testimonials, and case studies. Optimizing these pages for relevant keywords enhances their visibility, boosting your credibility and attracting potential clients. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Calculating the Customer Acquisition Cost is essential for understanding the resources invested in acquiring a new customer. In the B2B SEO market, focus on creating specific content that focuses on the needs of your target audience. Use relevant keywords and update landing pages to increase organic traffic, reducing the overall CAC. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): Monthly Recurring Revenue is the lifeblood of SaaS businesses. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) reveals the revenue generated by customers within a single month. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) quantifies the complete revenue a business anticipates from a single customer throughout their entire engagement.B2B SEO practices can contribute to CLV by creating relevant, evergreen content and attracting organic traffic over time. This not only aids in customer retention but also expands the customer's lifetime value. How to pick goals for your B2B SEO Strategy? Picking goals for your B2B SEO strategy involves a thoughtful and strategic approach. We'll break down the process in a way that helps put your efforts in the right direction: Keyword Research: Quality Over Quantity: Instead of focusing on many different keywords, focus on quality. Aim for a list of 3,000 to 9,000 keywords, a range that provides enough diversity without overwhelming your strategy. The precision should be accurate; each keyword you choose must align with your business objectives. Strategic Keyword Mapping: Select 6-7 keywords strategically. These should mirror what your ideal customers are searching for. Use these keywords as a guide to organize your website menus, plan your content, and identify areas for improvement. This approach makes your content relevant and valuable to your target audience. Aligning SEO Goals with Business Objectives: Connect your SEO goals with your broader business objectives. For example, decide whether to boost overall traffic or attract individuals ready to purchase if you aim to attract more leads for a SaaS product. This decision shapes the metrics you'll focus on to measure success. Key Metrics to Focus On: Many SEO specialist tells us to focus on search volume, while it is not harmful to look at a few other metrics: Volume: Estimated monthly searches for a keyword. CPC (Cost Per Click): The cost of advertising for a keyword; higher CPC often indicates higher conversion rates. Competitive Density: How many advertisers compete for a keyword in paid search? Keyword Difficulty: Measuring how hard it is to rank organically for a keyword; higher difficulty means stronger competition. B2B SEO strategy is all about balance. Balancing the number of keywords, aligning SEO goals with overall business objectives, and focusing on key metrics. By keeping it simple and strategic, your B2B SEO efforts can increase visibility, better lead generation, and overall business success. Creating an SEO Strategy that Drives Success for B2B SaaS Creating a successful B2B SEO strategy requires a systematic approach prioritizing impact and user-centricity. Follow these steps to implement the best B2B SEO practices: 1. Conduct Technical Audits: The foundation of a successful SEO strategy lies in a solid technical foundation. Start by conducting a thorough technical audit to identify and face any issues that are hindering your website's crawlability, indexability, and overall performance. This includes checking for broken links, optimizing site speed, (essential for fast-loading SaaS dashboards),ensuring mobile-friendliness, and implementing structured data markup. 2. Perform Competitor Research: Identify actual organic competitors through keyword research and reverse engineer their successful SEO strategies, particularly those focused on SAAS lead generation. Analyze insights to improve on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and content marketing efforts. Analyze and improve upon competitors' strategies to strengthen your long-term SEO approach especially in a saas marketing in a startup. 3. Invest in User Research: Conduct user research to gather quantitative and qualitative data that help create the best B2B SEO for SaaS companies. Interview sales teams to understand key switch points and customer pain points for targeted content creation. Analyze CRM data to identify converting personas and create content strategies accordingly. Scrape review sites for user sentiment and language, shaping benefit-driven copy. Here is a breakdown: Talk to Your Sales Team: Have a chat with your sales team. Ask them about the common problems users face daily. These insights help shape your content strategy and pinpoint what matters to your audience. Check Your Customer Data: Take a look at your customer data. Identify the types of people who become your customers most often. This helps you create SEO personas and imaginary profiles representing different customer types. This way, you can plan the strategy and determine what content will best connect with each group. Read Reviews on Sites: Scrap review sites like G2 and Capterra. Find out who your current users are – their job titles, industries, and what they're saying about your product. It's like understanding their language and concerns. This helps you tweak your messages to align better with your audience. Create Small, Targeted Content Plans: Now, use all this info to create small, targeted content plans for each type of user. Make sure your content covers every step of the buyer's journey. In short, you must turn your website into a helpful guide that speaks directly to your Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs). Investing in user research is like being a detective for your business. You're gathering clues about who your customers are and how they think. This way, your website doesn't just attract people; it keeps them interested and ready to do business with you. 4. Conduct Behavior Analysis: Track key user actions on the website, including CTA clicks, scroll depth, and user behavior flow. Analyze the customer journey to understand page interactions from first touch to conversion. Develop hypotheses and conduct conversion rate optimization(CRO) tests to guide users through a logical journey, focusing on brand building over immediate sales. 5. Run User-Focused Keyword Research: Focus on content that adds value to users at all funnel stages, including insights from user personas. Gather data from Google Search Console for 'real' volume on keywords, including low-volume keywords with high intent. 6. Build Topical Authority: Use insights from user and keyword research to tackle topics. Develop an internal linking strategy to enhance perceived topical authority for both users and search engines. Focus on winning quality backlinks using our backlinking strategies, brand mentions, unique content creation, and answering search intent. 7. Prioritize Efforts & Seek Assistance: The important thing is to prioritize tasks based on business goals and decide whether to outsource or build an in-house team. Recognize the competition for SEO talent and ensure exceptional offers when hiring. Align SEO strategy with business goals, whether through outsourcing or building an in-house team. 8. Measure SEO KPIs: Establish KPIs such as overall revenue, non-branded vs. branded search success, organic traffic by content, conversion rates, and keyword SERP rankings. Allow sufficient time for the SEO strategy to yield results, typically a minimum of three months. Regularly measure and analyze KPIs to adapt and improve the SEO strategy for ongoing success. Implementing these best B2B SEO practices will result in a holistic approach that combines technical excellence, user understanding, and strategic content creation for sustainable success. Conclusion This outline consists of all the essential components of a successful SEO strategy, from discovering that mastering SEO is not just a strategy but a complete roadmap for SaaS success to b2b SaaS meaning. We also explored the challenges and roadblocks, clarifying that the best B2B SEO practices blend technical finesse, user-centricity, and strategic content creation. While implementing B2B SEO practices, remember the importance of agility, KPI measurement, and the fusion of technical expertise, user understanding, and engaging content. Outperform your competitors with Saffron Edge—a leading digital marketing company that creates and implements custom SEO strategies for B2B clients. Saffron Edge focuses on true growth and scalability, offering a diverse approach for long-term sustainable success for your SaaS brand. Partner with Saffron Edge today! ...
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Move Over Traditional Display Advertising, Go 'Programmatic'
If you are a seasoned player of display advertising, you must be well aware of the fact that traditional buying and selling of display advertisements is a cumbersome process that takes a lot of time to execute effectively and with precision. Also, tracking metrics of your ads placed through traditional advertising is often difficult and a task of its own. Did I forget to mention that traditional advertising is usually followed by a contract between the advertisers and publishers regarding the exact number of banner ads to be placed and the tenure of it, nothing more, nothing less and if your ads are not performing well, you are left with no other choice other than to watch all your money go down the drain. In short, there are a lot of hiccups when it comes to buying some ad space on websites. But Programmatic is here to change all that and more. If you are hearing the word ‘Programmatic’ for the first time, don’t worry, we will walk you through everything there is to know about this new (kind of) method of buying ad spaces and how it can radically change your ROI when it comes to display advertising. So, what exactly is ‘Programmatic’? Programmatic advertising is nothing new but has recently started to woo top level marketers who have now realised it’s true potential. Simply put, programmatic advertising is the automated process of buying and selling of display advertisements by making use of DSP’s, SSP’s, DMP’s and Ad exchanges. Are all these abbreviations going over your head?Let’s look at what they actually are and how they are an integral part of programmatic advertising - DSP’s Source DSP’s or demand side platforms help advertisers buy available media spaces on websites (publishers) by connecting them to various SSP’s and ad exchanges. SSP’s SSP’s or supply side platforms help publishers sell available display advertising spaces on their website by connecting them to prospective buyers through DSP’s and ad exchanges. Ad Exchanges Ad exchange is where the actual buying and selling of advertisement space happens through RTB (real time bidding) or direct buying. Real time bidding is when advertisers place bids on SSP’s for ad spaces of publishers they want to place their advertisements on. Publishers, on the other hand, accept the highest bids from advertisers for their mentioned ad space, all of this happens on Ad exchanges in real-time and inventories are sold and bought in real time through AI. On Ad exchanges, publishers fill up their inventories with impressions and advertisers select a publisher with impressions that appeal most to them and their budget. DMP’s <!-- --> Source DMP’s or data management platforms are an integral part of programmatic advertising as they provide you with the needed insights on audiences. The main role of DMP’s is to collect data from a range of offline and online sources, segment them into audiences and use those audience segments to let buyers and sellers make better informed decisions about the type of ads they should place for a particular audience type. Usually, DSP’s and SSP’s also serve as DMP’s via third party integrations and most of them have it. Knowledge of all these different platforms is vital to start your programmatic journey, but what exactly are these platforms and how many are they? There are a lot of different platforms out there that are specifically demand or supply side and there are platforms which are one-stop programmatic shops which take care of all the verticals. I would suggest you to not dive deep into all that fluff and simply trust Google DoubleClick for all your programmatic buying, selling and insights. They are the leaders at it and are the most trusted. But why go for Programmatic advertising? Ok, so now you know exactly what programmatic advertising is and where you need to go to try your hands at it. But, is it worth the effort? Absolutely! Programmatic advertising has been called the ‘future of display advertising’ and is not just limited to fancy banners on websites. Video ads, mobile ads (apps and websites) and all other forms of advertising imaginable can be purchased via programmatic and it also allows advertisers with some great retargeting options with the help of DMP’s (Google’s DoubleClick has that as well), which is great for garnering the right exposure. Apart from being instant, there are a myriad of benefits programmatic advertising provides over traditional advertising, which are - 1.Transparent Pricing As we talked about before, prices on ad inventory is totally based on impressions. Auction-based media pricing model increases impression-level price transparency and there is no way you can game the system. Publishers can’t ask for what their heart desires from advertisers in programmatic advertising. 2.Granularity In programmatic, advertisers can cherry-pick publishers based on impressions and selectively choose only those publishers who align with their target audience. 3.Insights Advertisers can track how their ads are performing in real-time and optimize accordingly, which is great as nothing of this sort was available in the traditional model of advertising. Advertisers can also make use of detailed campaign reports that most DSP’s provide to make better informed decisions in the future. 4.Scale You can spread the marketing wings of your campaign as much as you want with programmatic, ofcourse it all depends on the budget you’ve allocated for display advertising. With programmatic, it can be done easily with a click rather than contacting different publishers for ad space, which was the norm in traditional advertising. 5.Control Programmatic advertising puts you, as an advertiser or publisher, in the driver’s seat as you have the option to select the publishers or advertisers you want, the number of ad spaces you want to buy or sell, the price you’re willing to pay or get for each ad space and if the performance of your bought ads isn’t performing upto your expectations, you can always pull those ads in an instant. With so much of power and publishers at your disposal, it’s quite easy to come across a fraud inventory and misplaced ads. According to WARC, the international authority on media and advertising effectiveness, the fraud rate (assumed) on programmatic spend was as much as 30%. There are basically two major types of frauds which have currently plagued the programmatic advertising industry with an estimated loss of around $6.5bn, according to the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), which are - 1.Ad misplacement Misplaced ads are a great threat to a brand’s image as your ads can be displayed right next to some objectionable content which you’d really not like your brand to be associated with. In the past year, as much as 43% of marketers claimed that they were already facing some reputational problems with programmatic advertising as most of their ads were placed right next to undesired or objectionable content and 37% of them pulled their ads as soon as they found out about it. And it can have some serious repercussions with your target audience as well, as one in five consumers (19.5%) state that they would likely take some direct action against a brand if it’s advertising appeared alongside objectionable content either by completely boycotting the brand (10.5%) or being local about it (9%), according to ANA. 2.Ad fraud (clicks impressions) ANA’s data show that almost 3 out of every 4 clicks on programmatically purchased 300*600 ‘half page’ ads are fraudulent. On an average, 1 in every 3 clicks on programmatic ads across all platforms and sizes are fraudulent. And this data doesn’t even count fake impressions! ANA also states that the estimated loss of $6.5bn could have been reduced to just $700 million if the entire industry had adhered to their safety guidelines. By following these guidelines, marketers can make use of the full potential of programmatic advertising and save themselves from getting stuck with hollow metrics that portray a fake image of your digital campaigns. As this industry matures further and big players like Google entering into the market, we think that it will be a lot safer for marketers to initiate their programmatic endeavours without any risk of deceit and fraud. If you’d like some more information on programmatic advertising, feel free to contact us . <!-- --> ...
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How Can You Improve Your Website's Content for Better SEO?
Marketers worldwide understand the unyielding challenge of crafting high-quality content that resonates with the audience and drives valuable page views, shares, and conversions. This is an age where visibility is paramount, and the quest for useful, engaging, and easily discoverable content becomes imperative. The essence of high-quality content in this digital realm hinges on the delicate equilibrium between the artistry of writing and a finely tuned approach to optimization. Each piece of content birthed into the domain of your company's website demands meticulous consideration through the SEO lens before it graces the digital world. Why, you may ask? Integrating a search-centric perspective into your content strategy holds the key to not only aligning your content with the customer journey – the foundational pillar of your strategy – but also unlocking cost efficiencies that ripple throughout your marketing endeavors. Embarking on a journey that prioritizes SEO from the outset will aid you in reaping multifaceted rewards. One noteworthy aspect is the enhancement of Google AdWords scores, translating into reduced cost-per-click (CPC) rates in paid search marketing. This, my fellow marketers, is a siren call that resonates profoundly with the C-suite, for cost savings are eternally cherished. In the ensuing article, we shall unravel seven indispensable tips, guiding you toward harnessing the full potential of your content in the vast ocean of digital content. When judiciously applied, these strategies have the power to elevate your content and bolster your digital presence through SEO excellence. 7 SEO Strategies to Improve Your Content and SEO Content is King Creating outstanding content is a process that begins with careful planning and thoughtful consideration. Before diving into content creation, it's essential to undertake thorough groundwork. This entails understanding your audience's needs and recognizing your unique expertise, positioning you as a valuable resource. Start by identifying the topics that align with your customers' interests and your area of expertise. Determine the key messages you wish to convey and strategize how, where, and when your audience will engage with your content. To maintain a structured approach, it's highly beneficial to develop an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar serves as your organizational compass, guiding your content creation efforts. While the evolving consumer landscape may necessitate occasional adjustments, having a plan in place ensures you stay on course. Once you have a well-defined calendar outlining your content requirements, it's time to set up your writers for success. Providing them with comprehensive content briefs is a sound practice. These briefs should clearly outline the user intent or questions your content aims to address. In addition to content briefs, a streamlined process with well-defined roles and responsibilities is crucial. It's essential to recognize that subject matter experts may not necessarily possess the writing skills required for content creation. Writers, on the other hand, can excel in editing but might face challenges when it comes to self-editing. Therefore, it's imperative to have a publication plan that leverages each team member's strengths. Content manifests in diverse formats, and crafting content in various forms can broaden your reach and engagement. You can explore an array of content types, and for inspiration, refer to resources like the article highlighting 100 content types with illustrative examples. Regardless of the chosen format, maintaining a clear and intuitive structure is paramount. A well-structured piece typically comprises an introduction, a body where the primary content resides, and a conclusion. Think of this structure akin to the approach employed in news reporting: introduce the topic (introduction), delve into the core content (body), and recap the key points (conclusion). By adhering to these strategic guidelines and fostering a collaborative approach, you can elevate your content creation endeavors to deliver valuable, engaging, and impactful content to your audience. Visual Variety While you've diligently considered the structural aspects of your content, it's equally crucial to contemplate the visual experience you offer to your audience. Visual diversity plays a pivotal role in enhancing the quality of your communication, especially across various platforms and channels. Elements such as text layout, effective utilization of whitespace, and judicious incorporation of headings, paragraphs, and imagery all contribute to shaping a visually engaging experience for your readers. Let's delve into some essential aspects of the visual experience: 1. Layout andWhitespace:A clean and well-organized layout contributes to an inviting reading experience. Adequate spacing between paragraphs and the careful use of whitespace enhance readability. 2. Headings and Subheadings: Structuring your content with descriptive headings and subheadings aids readers in swiftly navigating through your material. It simplifies the content's flow and helps users pinpoint specific information. 3. Paragraphs: Each paragraph should encapsulate a single idea or topic. This practice maintains conciseness and clarity. Additionally, it allows for seamless integration of relevant links to further information (more on this later!). 4. Incorporating Images: Visual elements, such as images, infographics, charts, process diagrams, or impactful quotes displayed with varying font sizes and styles, significantly enrich your content. They serve as effective tools to elucidate complex subjects and provide a welcome respite from text-heavy sections. Now,regarding images, here are some essential considerations: 1. Alt Text: Ensure that all images are equipped with descriptive alt text. This not only supports accessibility for users reliant on assistive screen readers but also assists search engines in comprehending the content on your page. 2. File Naming Logic: Opt for straightforward and readable image filenames. These filenames can double as alt text, enhancing both user experience and search engine optimization. 3. Size Matters: To maintain a nimble and user-friendly website, optimizing your images is imperative. Aim to keep image sizes below 500 KB and restrict overall page sizes to less than 5 MB. This optimization promotes faster page loading, contributing to a smoother browsing experience for your audience.You can augment the overall quality of your content and create a more engaging and informative encounter for your readers by keeping in mind these considerations. Optimizing the Right Way When it comes to optimization, it's not just about images; your entire page demands careful attention. The structural layout we've already discussed offers ample opportunities for optimization, and it's vital to focus on the right strategies. Back in 2011, Google introduced the Panda update, designed to combat black hat SEO tactics. To put it concisely, black hat SEO involves tactics to artificially boost a website's or page's search engine ranking by circumventing search engine guidelines. These tactics often employ tricks like hiding text (just one example of many). The good news is that effective optimization doesn't require clever tricks. Simple and ethical approaches yield the best results. Here's where to start: 1. Site Information Optimization: Concentrate on optimizing essential site elements, including the site title, site description, page descriptions, and page and title formats. Keep these descriptions clear, concise, and relevant. A character count of 50 to 300 characters suffices to provide a readable and pertinent overview of your site's content and individual page content, using straightforward and context-appropriate terms. 2. Content-Length: While Google tends to favor longer articles, your primary focus should always be your audience. Strive for a minimum of 300 words per topic, which can naturally expand into a 1,000-word article. However, avoid overwhelming your readers with excessively lengthy content. A balance must be maintained. Excessive keyword stuffing, which neither benefits your audience nor pleases Google, should be steered clear of. Your content should deliver genuine value to the reader while aligning with your specific objectives. Keywords and Topical Alliance When it comes to keywords, conducting thorough research is paramount. SEO insights essentially mirror your customer's voice in real time, making keyword research a critical step before diving into content creation. User searches serve various purposes, and understanding what terms your audience is searching for and the intent behind those searches allows you to tailor your content for optimal search results. Here's how to approach it effectively: 1. Diverse Keyword Mix: Use a mix of long-tail keywords and head terms. Long-tail keywords are specific phrases that address searcher intent. They often have lower search volumes, face less competition, and tend to yield higher conversion rates. In contrast, head terms are popular, broad search words covering general topics. Your keyword strategy should incorporate both types to maximize your reach. 2. Keyword Optimization: Building on our previous optimization insights, using targeted keywords, synonyms, and related terms is a winning strategy. Search engine algorithms assess your content's topic by examining these keyword elements. It's essential to ensure that your content offers genuine value to users, aligning with the principles Google's Panda update emphasizes. Think of this process as crafting a recipe rather than just listing ingredients. While your keyword list represents the ingredients, it's the content that provides the real value, delivering the necessary context for a complete dish. 3. Understanding Search Intent: Delving into search intent is crucial. Identify whether users are seeking informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional content. By researching keywords broadly and comprehending how your content fulfills user needs, you'll optimize both the user experience and your Adword budget. SERP Analysis: Pay attention to Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) features by keyword. Align your content to compete effectively with the top-ranking results. This approach ensures that your content can stand out in search results and deliver the right information to your audience at the right time. Meta Descriptions Meta descriptions, those brief snippets displayed on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) just below the page title, may not have a direct impact on search rankings. However, they play a crucial role in optimizing click-through rates (CTR). When it comes to meta descriptions, consider them as more than just brief descriptions. Treat them as copy, akin to crafting compelling ad copy. Crafting a well-written meta description is essential because it can entice your audience to choose your listing over others, ultimately boosting CTR. Here are some key considerations: Clarity and Conciseness: Your meta description should provide a clear and concise summary of your page's content. Avoid vague or misleading descriptions. Engagement: Make your meta descriptions engaging. Create a sense of curiosity or value that encourages users to click on your link. Consistency: Ensure consistency in your meta descriptions across your entire website. This contributes to a unified brand voice and tone. Optimal Length: Aim for a meta description length between 156 and 165 characters. This ensures that your description fits neatly within search results. While optimizing meta descriptions site-wide may seem like a small task, it's an opportunity to showcase your writing and editing skills while maintaining a consistent brand identity. For a more in-depth exploration of meta descriptions, their significance, and winning examples, refer to this article. In summary, keep these seven tips in mind for effective meta-description copywriting: 1. Understand your competitors' strategies.2. Map out your customer's journey.3. Incorporate your brand's unique voice.4. Use relevant keywords strategically.5. Stay updated with industry trends.6. Tailor descriptions to specific user intents.7. Regularly refresh and refine your copy. Relevance At its core, search engines analyze web content to determine whether a specific page contains information relevant to a user's search query. To harness the power of relevance, we must place ourselves in the shoes of our users and understand their needs. Efficient search engine operation relies on assessing a user's query based on key factors. As a result, relevance is inherently situational, and so should be our optimization goals. In essence, you cannot cater to everyone's needs. Google shares key ranking factors, including query meaning (intent), content quality, usability, context, and setting. While the specifics of SEO can be complex, we can simplify our approach by thinking about our content's relevance in the same way we desire personalized search results that cater to our unique needs. Consider yourself as your own artificial intelligence. Assess your environment, and focus on the areas where you are most relevant to maximize your return on investment (ROI). Ranking systems are intricate, consisting of multiple algorithms designed to sort through vast amounts of content and provide the most valuable results to searchers. These systems evaluate the terms used in search queries, source expertise, and even geographical location. Location information, in particular, presents a significant opportunity for niche businesses with high-quality content. Organizations can enhance local brand awareness by establishing themselves as reliable sources within specific geographic areas and producing timely, insightful content on trending topics. Click-through rates become a vital performance indicator in this context. Use Your Links Before we dive into the intricacies of backlinks and internal links in SEO, let's address a common misconception: it is indeed possible to perform well in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) without relying solely on backlinks. Even Google's John Mueller acknowledges this fact. Now, with that clarification in mind, let's explore the significance of Domain Authority. Domain Authority is a metric that predicts a website's likelihood to rank in SERPs. It's influenced by the credibility bestowed upon your content by other reputable sources that link to it. You can gauge your Domain Authority using SEO tools like Moz and Ahrefs. While we've been discussing external promoters, it's essential not to overlook the value of internal links. Ahrefs provides tools for measuring your internal linking efforts, offering insights into your site's structure. Optimizing your site structure for internal links is not only an SEO consideration but also a vital aspect of enhancing the user experience. A well-structured site allows users to navigate according to their information needs, aligning with their preferences and interests. In Conclusion The importance of great content cannot be overstated. It's integral to a wide range of client experience strategies, from marketing and client acquisition to public relations and SEO optimization . To truly excel in content marketing and improve SERPs ranking, it's crucial to consider all facets of optimization, not just the body copy. Investing time and effort in SEO optimization, coupled with a deep understanding of your audience's needs, is worthwhile. It ensures that your content resonates with your customers and brings value to your digital budgets. As you consistently follow proven optimization techniques and commit to delivering customer-centric content, you increase the likelihood of your improved content appearing on the coveted first page of search results, attracting potential clients. Ready to take your content marketing to the next level and boost your SERPs ranking? Explore our growth content marketing services at Saffron Edge, where we specialize in delivering top-notch content marketing solutions as well as world- class SEO services. Elevate your digital strategy with us today and seize the opportunities that await. ...
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