5 Key SEO Tactics and Trends in 2019

Looking ahead to this year’s upcoming online marketing trends can be daunting and exciting in equal measure. Visualising your success and planning your strategy, though also accepting you are not in for an easy ride.

Nevertheless, the better idea you have of what is to come, the better your chance of making it work in your favour. With this in mind, here is a brief overview of the five key SEO tactics and trends to keep in mind going into 2019:

1. Increased Visibility Competition
The first entry is also the most obvious and arguably the most important of all. Every year, visibility competition grows at its fastest rate. And 2019 looks to be no exception. The search engines are evolving and space at the top is becoming ever more confined. In online marketing stakes, the phrase
survival of the fittest” has never been more appropriate.

2. Old School SEO Tactics Will Lose Value 
You will still need to have a strategy with your on-page SEO, but relying exclusively on old-school methods is just not going to cut it in 2019. Instead, it will be more about the all-round customer experience and the level to which you can foster a sense of genuine engagement with your web audience. On-page SEO will always play a role, it is simply a case of accepting you cannot rely on it alone.

3. Growth of Voice Search
As far as the industry watchers are concerned, more than half of all online searches will use voice search by 2020. Which is only a year away. Which should be a concern for anybody who is yet to give any thought to voice search optimisation whatsoever. Incredibly, the most popular voice assistants on the market today have achieved an understanding accuracy of more than 90% on average. If you are not yet giving thought to voice search, you are in danger of falling behind.

4. Mobile-Optimised Websites Will Gain Value
What this means is that Google and the other major search engines have begun the process of assessing pages and websites firstly from a mobile perspective. This essentially means that if you want your website to rank higher in 2019, you will need to give mobile SEO more time and focus. If you don’t, your content will not add as much value as it could and your SEO performance will suffer.

5. There Is Life Beyond Google
Last but not least, it has never been more important to realise the fact that Google is not where the buck starts and stops when it comes to SEO. It is the biggest and most important by all means, but it is not the only search engine at all. What is more, Bing has started gaining significant traction by occupying a bigger share of the search market in 2018. Therefore, you may want to stop putting all your SEO eggs in the same proverbial basket.

Six SEO Myths to Ignore

SEO may have been around for decades now, but the concept remains a subject of confusion for millions of businesses worldwide. Every year, we’re bombarded with a completely fresh set of ‘rules’ and ‘best practices’ that can supposedly maximise the value of an SEO strategy.

Not to mention, all manner of myths and untruths – some of which are downright dangerous.

So just to illustrate how things are looking from a 2019 perspective, here’s a brief rundown of six dangerous SEO myths that are still doing the rounds with gusto right now:

1. Quality content alone is more than enough

First up, you cannot and will not achieve SEO glory without plenty of outstanding content. Nevertheless, you cannot run an effective SEO campaign on quality content alone. Content matters – and matters a lot – but is nonetheless just one of many components you need to address. Try to avoid putting all of your eggs in the same proverbial basket.


2. It’s all about the keywords

Likewise, getting too bogged down with keywords in general isn’t a good idea. Keywords are a critical element of the successful SEO strategy, but cramming in as many as possible and damaging the quality of your content in doing so is a risky tactic. Not to mention, the kind of tactic that doesn’t tend to curry favour these days with any of the major search engines.

3. More pages = better rankings

Contrary to popular belief, more pages will not necessarily guarantee more prominent SERP positioning. Unless the pages add genuine value and quality to your website, they won’t do a great deal for your SEO profile at all. Creating more pages simply for the sake of it is a common tactic, though one that’s unlikely to do you any favours.

4. Pictures are pointless

Just because search engine spiders cannot yet crawl the content of website pictures doesn’t mean they’re without value. The reason being that all major search engines now take into account various aspects of the user experience, which includes the provision of a rich mixture of media. What’s more, SEO-rich file names and alt-tags can and should be used to your advantage.

5. Mobile focus is overrated

If anything, it’s the exact opposite. Evidence suggests that not nearly enough business owners worldwide are yet giving mobile focus the attention it deserves. With mobile web traffic having comfortably overtaken desktop traffic, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the importance of mobile SEO focus.

6. It’s not necessary to hire help

Last but not least, it’s highly unlikely that any in-house effort that lacks extensive specialist expertise is going to get the job done properly. It just isn’t going to happen. Contemporary SEO is an infinitely more complex and challenging concept than it was even just a couple of years ago. You can’t make things up as you go along and expect to get by – nor can you rely on a half-cooked strategy to deliver positive results. If you’re serious about making the most of your SEO strategy, hiring help comes highly recommended.

Smart Content Marketing

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to content marketing is the following:

Every web user presently online around the globe is online for a specific reason.

There is a surprising number of businesses that assume that every second web user is online with no specific purpose in mind whatsoever. Drifting around with no requirements or intention, thus wide open to their tempting offers and suggestions. The reality, however, is much different.

Whether it is for socialising, entertainment purposes, seeking services or researching products of any kind, there is always a reason for going online. This in turn means that to some extent at least, there is something specific every person in question is looking for.

Exactly who fulfils their requirements and expectations comes down to one simple thing and one thing alone – quality content.

Value and Quality

Online webmasters and businesses in general can throw all the hype they want at their target audiences. But without genuine value and quality to back it up, it is an exercise in futility. Above everything else, the crucial thing to remember when implementing a content marketing strategy is that web users will always respond best to websites that are providing them with some sort of help.

It can be help filling some minutes with quality entertainment, help with researching services and products, help with buying services and products and so on. Web users in general like to know that after each engagement or experience with an online entity, they come away better off.

Which is exactly why the most successful content is that which delivers benefits and value of some kind. How-to guides, tutorials, infographics or pretty much anything unique that can’t be found elsewhere.

Web marketers who exist for the sole reason to separate consumers from their hard earned money rarely find success – those who try to satisfy the needs of their audience usually perform much better.

The Psychology of Selling

Studies and the experience of millions of online businesses worldwide remind us that strong customer relationships could be forged if you help them solve a problem. If you’re willing to offer support and advice that is relevant, useful, transparent and accessible, you will stand a greater chance of standing out as a leader and authority in your field.

This means that next time they need any support or help along the same lines, they will most likely gravitate in your direction.

In a way, it is the classic example of selling without really selling in practice. Rather than bombarding your audience members with marketing materials, you are instead focusing on what they really want. And by doing so, you stand out from the crowd as an authority in your field.

So rather than focusing on and investing in the kind of hype that will most likely lead to nothing, think about how your business and your website could provide valuable and genuine help, for the benefit of your web users.

Why Buying Web Traffic Is Rarely a Good Idea

All websites could benefit from a little more traffic. Irrespective of how successful your online business may be, more is always better. After all, no right-minded business owner would happily turn down the prospect of additional sales.

With competition in all sectors at an all-time high, businesses worldwide are resorting to various weird and wonderful tactics to boost web traffic. One of which being to buy traffic in bulk.

 

On paper, it sounds like a relatively simple tactic with obvious appeal. You hand your cash over to a service provider, who in turn sends a predetermined number of visitors your way. It could be 5,000, 50,000 or even 500,000 visitors – a quick, easy and affordable boost that could make a huge difference.

Or at least, so it seems.

Think of it this way – if it was really so easy and effective to buy web traffic, wouldn’t we all be doing it? Or to put it another way, if it was possible to buy all the web traffic you need at an affordable price, why waste money on conventional marketing and advertising?

The short answer is the obvious answer – it isn’t quite as easy as it seems. In fact, it’s comparatively rare for buying web traffic to be an advisable course of action.

The following four reasons going some way to explain why:

1. Zero targeting

First of all, there’s nothing to gain by sending a whole bunch of entirely untargeted traffic to your website. Sending hundreds of thousands of visitors your way is all well and good, but what if not a single one of these visitors have any real interest in what it is you do? Unqualified prospects are about as much use to your business as no prospects whatsoever. Hence, any traffic you buy that isn’t meticulously targeted may prove to have zero value.

2. Heavy penalties

In most instances, those who sell bulk web traffic provide their services by way of automated bots. Or to put it another way, the visitors that come your way aren’t in fact visitors at all. At least, not the kinds of human visitors of any real value to your business. Not only does this mean little to no positive impact, it also leaves you and your website wide open to heavy penalties. When the likes of Google and the other major search engines detect these kinds of tactics, they’re not in the habit of letting them go unpunished.

3. Scam potential

This is also an area of the digital marketing spectrum that is rife with scam tactics. Find yourself at the mercy of a substandard service provider and the consequences could be catastrophic.

4. No guarantees
Along with all this, there are absolutely no guarantees that you won’t be wasting every penny of your investment. They may promise to deliver hundreds of thousands of profitable visitors, but there are no guarantees they’ll deliver even one. And if you’re unhappy with their services, there’s precisely nothing you can do about it.

If you want to drive more visitors to your website, there are hundreds of safer and more effective avenues to explore. Nevertheless, if you do decide to go ahead and buy website traffic in bulk, you need to be extremely careful when choosing a provider.

The Five W’s (and One H) of Perfect Product Descriptions

By its very nature, the term ‘product description’ is misleading. The reason being that one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to simply describe your products, rather than communicating their primary selling points.

When you think about it, you can describe almost any product in minute detail, without describing any of its benefits or applications. Realistically therefore, product descriptions shouldn’t be used to describe your products, but instead sell them by way of merit.

One of the best ways of penning perfect product descriptions is to focus on the Five W’s approach. Call it cliché, but it’s a consistently effective way of ensuring you communicate everything that matters to the prospective buyer.

Irrespective of what it is you’re selling and who you’re attempting to sell it to, these are the Five W’s (and One H) that can ensure you get the job done right:

WHO

First up, you need to clearly communicate who the product has been designed for. What kind of demographic are you targeting? What are the interests, expectations and priorities of your ideal buyer? Your product description should be tailored to both appeal to your ideal customer, while clearly communicating the benefits of the product to their demographic.

WHAT

You’ll then need to give a concise yet compelling account of what it is your product does and what sets it apart from comparable products on the market. Along with its basic attributes – features, dimensions and so on – your product description should communicate the purpose and value of the product in question.

WHERE

Slightly simpler, this refers to information regarding where the product can or should be used. Has it been designed for use in a very specific scenario, or is the ability to use it anywhere and at any time one of its selling points? Help build a mental picture of the product in use for your customers, by communicating where they’ll be using it if they buy it.

WHEN

The same also goes for when – what would be the ideal time for using your product and why? Has it been designed to maximise convenience or enjoyment while travelling? Is it an everyday household essential they’ll be using on a daily basis? Or is it something altogether more special for an altogether more special occasion?

WHY

The last of the W’s is also the most important – why should they purchase your product? What will it do to improve their life? Does it solve any specific problems? What makes it both unique and superior to anything else currently on the market?

HOW

Last up, the nature of the product you’re selling will determine whether you need to detail how it works. In the case of technology and gadgets in general, at least a brief overview of its method of operation could be useful.

And there you have it – five simple steps for coming up with concise yet convincing product descriptions. Once again, it’s a good idea to get out of the habit of simply describing the product itself, focusing instead on its benefits and unique selling points.

Yes, You Do Have Time for Creative Writing

Some writers insist that their busy schedules get in the way of their creativity. Rather than focusing their efforts on quality content, they’re instead left with little to no time to write anything at all. Hence, the copy they come up with isn’t exactly their best work.

The thing is though, if creative writing is part and parcel of your profession, you need to make time for it. Irrespective of how busy your schedule may be, there are countless avenues to explore for freeing up a little time here and there.


Three of which you’ll find outlined below:

1. Cut Down on Social Media Time

If you’re anything like the vast majority of people these days, you’re probably spending far too much time on social media. Even if it’s only a few minutes here and there, it can quickly add up to several hours per week. Hours wasted doing nothing productive whatsoever.

It’s not a case of quitting social media entirely, but instead focusing on a strategic cut-down. Particularly during your working hours, when these kinds of distractions should be avoided entirely. As important as it is for you to stay connected, you can always check those non-business messages a little later. Facebook isn’t going anywhere, so there’s no rush!

2. Always Carry a Notebook

Why rely exclusively on technology to enable your craft? It can be far better and more enjoyable to go back to basics, carrying a notebook and making use of any spare time that comes your way. If it takes you 30 minutes by bus to get to work, that’s five hours a week you could dedicate to creative writing. All without the usual distractions creeping into the equation.

It’s also worth remembering how therapeutic traditional writing can be. Rather than straining your eyes staring at a screen, give the paper option a shot and see how it works for you. You never know when and where inspiration might strike – Harry Potter started out with nothing more than a pen and a napkin!

3. Schedule Creative Writing Time

Last up, if creative writing is part of your job, surely it’s worth bringing it into your schedule. If it’s a genuine priority, don’t simply cast it to one side until time permits. Bring creative writing into your schedule, ideally getting into some kind of effective routine.

If your current schedule is already full, think about which duties are more or less important than creative writing. Even if you simply slot 20 minutes of creative writing time into your lunch break, that’s more than one and a half hours per week. Or, more than 75 hours per year. A small price to pay to get those creative juices flowing and ensure your talent doesn’t go to waste.

In a nutshell therefore, it’s always possible to find at least some time to dedicate to creative writing. It’s simply a case of weighing up your priorities and focusing on what really matters.

Five Steps for More Engaging Infographics

The fact that infographics are so uniquely powerful and influential really is a godsend. From a business perspective, being able to pack so much concise and relevant information into such a small marketing material is no less than fantastic. Not to mention the fact that close to half of all people are known to respond better to visual information than plain text alone.

So you understand and acknowledge the power and potential of outstanding infographics. But how to go about creating them?

Well, the good news is that regardless of what line of business you happen to be in, there are certain standards and conventions to stick with. In fact, work in accordance with the following five guidelines and your next infographic could be your most successful to date:

1. Identify your message and stick with it

As is the case with any good story, you need to first consider what your overall message is. Just like when penning a blog post, consider the purpose of the infographic and the relevant theme. Once you’ve made these decisions, you need to make sure you stick with them from start to finish. The closer you remain tied to the primary message and theme, the more convincing and engaging the infographic will be.

2. Work hard on your headline

If you want anybody to bother reading the content of your infographic, you first need to create a compelling headline. Once again, this is no different to the usual standard with any other kind of content creation. The key lies in providing the reader with a good idea what the infographic is all about, though without giving too much away. The idea being that they are compelled to continue reading the rest of its content from top to bottom. If you can create a sense of intrigue, you’re golden.

3. Keep it simple

The more complicated an infographic appears at first glance, the less likely anyone is to bother reading it. It’s a bit like when you come across an unbroken passage of text, as opposed to a passage punctuated by imagery and other breaks. Whether it’s too many visuals, too much text or simply too much of everything crammed into a small space, clutter and crowding can be extremely off-putting. Focus on the basics and keep things simple.

4. Light-hearted visuals

Although there are exceptions to the rule, most infographics benefit from visuals that are relatively light hearted. As you’ve probably noted by now, infographics tend to contain visuals that are somewhat cartoonish, entertaining and highly simplified. They very rarely contain complex, formal or distracting visuals of any kind.

5. Push and promote

Last but not least, perhaps the single most important rule when it comes to creating effective infographics is to push and promote them as vigorously as possible. It’s best to look at infographics in the same way you would view a press release. It represents a marketing material in its own right, but nonetheless needs to be marketed to have any real value. Always keep shareability in mind when deciding on the content for your infographics and do your best to get the process of sharing underway.