Tuesday, October 27, 2015

What are the best practices for establishing a digital presence?

In order to help Sam we want to come up with the best ideas about how to establish a digital presence.  The best companies in the world that have a problem to solve or a goal to accomplish look for something called "best practices".  In other words, in a specific industry, such as the CPG industry, a company will try to see what are some standard or common ways of doing things that maximize efficiency and minimize cost that stand out above other methods.

Digital Marketing best practices vary widely depending on who you ask.
For the top 10 areas to aid digital presence that we picked as part of our effort to help Sam we want to look at best practices in each area.  However, we also want to keep in mind that technology best practices may change rapidly.  Below are the first 5 areas and some of the best practices that we found.  Next week our blog will cover the remaining 5 areas.

1. Website design for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The best way to understand SEO would be to be an insider at each search engine company.  However, even though we aren't we've still found an upcoming best practice for SEO.  Currently Google is not claiming to use social media as part of their algorithm to determine SEO.  However, we think that Google and other search engines will begin to start counting social media mentions as part of their calculations to come up with a list of search engine results.  Sam's should take advantage of posting to as many social media platforms as she can handle to take advantage of it as an upcoming part of SEO.

New companies are trying to offer services for mobile SEO

2. Blogs

Sam should have a website that also has a blog.  A blog is a unique opportunity to publish content that might not fit elsewhere on Sam's webpage.  A fundamental blogging best practices is to keep your blog in line with the company or brand that is associated with the blog.  This includes having the voice and tones of the blog match the company or brand.  Another best practice is to leverage collaborations and guest blogs.  By having industry experts contribute to Sam's blog she could gain advice for her company and she could also help influencers in her industry take notice of her and her company.

3. Mobile optimization and mobile marketing

One of the most useful best practices of the future will be to optimize Sam's website for mobile user intent and for mobile search engine optimization.  Mobile is becoming increasingly important and Sam will want to make sure that any mobile marketing campaigns will have content that is clearly seen by mobile screens.
Tips for web design on the iPhone 6

4. Paid search vs. organic search

It is common in the CPG industry to use paid search. For the purpose of this blog post were going to assume that Sam will use paid search because she wants to work with the CPG industry. AdWords is a paid search service owned by Google and we recommend that Sam consider using it instead of only using organic search.

The best practices for using AdWords relate to the set up of the account structure. The first level of Adwords account structure is campaigns. It is best practice to set up your campaigns based on your budget for each campaign.  Under campaigns are Ad Groups where you will target your campaign message. Under Ad Groups are keywords which are terms you hope people will enter into the search engine in order to find your campaign.  It is best practice to use the keywords planner tool to help you find the best keywords for you. Ad Text also falls under Ad Groups and it's best practice to follow AdWords guidelines or your ad could be rejected. And last, but not least, are Landing Pages.  It is best practice to have landing pages with original and useful content that are easy to read and to navigate.
AdWords account structure

 

5. Interacting with potential consumers - posting to online networks like Facebook

The first and possibly most important best practice for interacting with potential customers and posting to online networks is to follow your company's social media policy and any corporate customer communication strategies.  People have been fired from companies for going against company policies or for posting on social media networks without getting approval.  Sam will need to establish a digital presence that is compliant with common corporate social media policies to demonstrate that she can handle interactions with potential customers appropriately in the digital realm.

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