Top Digital Marketing Articles of the Week

If there is one thing common among digital marketers, freelancers, and bloggers, it’s their non-stop busy schedule where they carry out different projects simultaneously.

WEEKLY BITE-SIZEDDIGITAL MARKETINGDOS

I know it’s hard to keep up the latest digital marketing developments. But, you can’t sustain the competitive marketplace without acquainting yourself with the ever-changing digital updates.

For maximizing your digital output, I have started weekly round-up series where I collect the resources for keeping you updated on the latest digital marketing developments.

I have categorized the topics to help you select the theme of your interest. Enjoy your week by loading your digital marketing arsenal with the following valuable insights:

Content Marketing

Here’s Why Video is the Future of the Content Marketing

One minute of video content is worth 1.8 million words. With 55 percent of people watching online videos daily and more than 10 million videos viewed by Snapchat users every day, it’s no surprise to realize the dominance of videos for deciding the future of content marketing.

Tomas explains how Facebook has predicted the future by spending $2 billion on acquiring Oracle’s VR, making 3D video posts on Facebook Spaces, allowing social media users engage in real time concerts or sporting events with Facebook Venues, and launching Facebook Watch for providing a dedicated space for the different type of videos.

Quora Marketing: Tips, Tactics, and Best Practices

Quora-an ultimate place to gain and share knowledge- is a wonderful platform for building your personal brand. The Quora for Business page believes in the power of sharing and caring. Barry Feldman has shared the best practices to win the hearts of your audience by solving their queries.

Quora

15 Content Marketing Lessons from ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

If you are falling short of content ideas, this post will change your perspective towards topic selection. Danielle extracts the learnings from the famous American Drama Series, Grey’s Anatomy.

She pulled out fifteen quotes from her favorite show for boosting your content marketing efforts. Apart from getting inspired for your next content campaigns, this post indirectly raises the main point:

Content is all around. You just have to connect the dots.

Search Engine Optimization

Has AI Changed the SEO Industry for Better or Worse?

Jayson DeMers raised nerve-racking questions in understanding the Google’s switch to an AI-powered search engine. Google has been experimenting with new machine learning techniques to automate the process. The author raises the critical question:

Were the rules even written down at Google anymore?

With search engine algorithms and their weightings decided by the continuously updated machine-learning system, Google’s search engineers can’t even explain the working of the search engine. Jayson also shared his concern for SEO professionals who can’t cope up with the continuous technical changes.

Windows Movie Maker Scam Uses SEO to Go Global

As marketers, we are always advised to take the right move at the right time. Some scammers took the same advice but applied it for fulfilling their purpose the wrong way. As Microsoft discontinued their free Windows Movie Maker, they built a fake site ‘windows-movie-maker.org’ asking users to pay $25.95 for the full version. With SEO knowledge, they ranked their keywords on Google’s and Bing’s top pages.

Kindly spread this information to people in your circle to help them stay away from this scam.

Should You Remove Low-Quality or Thin Content Versus Improving It?

Glenn’s post talks about the confusion prevailing over the low-quality or thin content. On the one hand, Panda update hunts sites with low-quality content. On the other hand, Gary Illyes, Google Webmaster’s Trend Analyst, says that removing low-quality or thin content won’t bring any changes from the quality standpoint.

The author advises to focus on “quality indexation” by indexing your best content and improving, non-indexing, or 404 the thin content.

Panda_Selection_Chart

Conversion Optimization

46 Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks to Increase Sales

Conversion occurs when the visitor completes the site goals. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) aims for increasing the percentage of website owners completing the desired action. Right from how users scan the website to the factors stopping them from achieving your site goals, CRO process focuses on converting your prospects into buying customers.

Jeff Weisbein came up with an engaging infographic to help you improve the conversions of your website. If you are running an e-commerce website, embrace these golden nuggets for skyrocketing your sales process.

5 Hardest Things in Conversion Optimization

It’s hard to keep up the constant technological changes and business’ expectation. Lindy Tolbert eases the burden by sharing the top experts’ views on the top challenges in conversion optimization. Don’t forget to read Brian Massey’s thought on HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) where he pinpoints the bottlenecks created by top-decisions makers in the company.

How E-commerce Microsites can Boost Conversion Rates

Have you ever thought about building a microsite? If no, Laurence’s post will give you adequate insights to understand the benefits enjoyed by smaller, more focused e-commerce websites. If yes, you’ll expand your learnings by going through the microsite architecture where she explains the difference between ‘Single-Database Approach’ and ‘Multi-Database Approach.’

Microsite_Architecture

Social Media Marketing

Facebook will Teach the Unemployed Digital/Social Skills in 30 Cities

If you want to know what makes a company distinctive in the competitive environment, learn the art from Facebook. Recently, they came up a new feature in India to increase blood donation in India. On October 1- National Blood Donor Day- they asked Indian Facebook users to sign up to be proud blood donors.

Now, they have announced ‘Community Boost’ for equipping unemployed with the digital job skills, internet literacy to people stepping in the startup space and customer growth lessons to small business owners. They will invest tens of millions of dollars by traveling to 30 cities around the U.S. in 2018.

Facebook’s Segmentation Abilities are Depressingly Impressive

Mark Ritson points out the fantabulous effort by Facebook’s American Marketing Team for sophisticated segmentation of the American Population. Last year, Facebook approached political parties for doing the hybrid segmentation and thereby encouraging advertisers to invest in Facebook advertising.

US_Political_Segmentation

The author breaks down the Facebook’s approach for enlightening marketers who lack the proper training in basic marketing. He stresses the relevance of segmenting before targeting. The following quote, mentioned in the article, signals the importance of focusing on the target audience:

While other media send media salespeople to sell media, Facebook sends experienced marketing executives to show how clients can make more money.

The Facebook Algorithm Explained for Marketers

Did you notice all the articles under this section revolved around Facebook updates? This reflects their dominance in the social media space. In this article, Michael Stelzner interviews Dennis Yu where he uncovers the Facebook Algorithm to help you understand the priorities behind different types of engagement and post content. Read it in parts because you won’t be able to digest the sea of information in one go.

Email Marketing

How to Run a Black Friday Marketing Campaign That Drives Serious Sales

With Black Friday just around the corner, this article will bring a big smile on your face.

Carlo Pacis shares the great takeaways from his campaigns which took him just 15 minutes to complete. He structures the content beautifully by laying down the principles along with the practical strategies. Arm yourself with social, email and ad strategies for conducting a blockbuster Black Friday campaign.

Risk-Free Advertising: Ads in Email Newsletters

With digital ads getting blocked due to ad blockers, earning revenue by selling ads in your emails might be an option. As the concept is still in early stages, it’s too early to decide the impact of ads in the email newsletters.

Ray Schultz points out the applicability by sharing the examples of Atlantic, Fatherly, Time’s InStyle Fashion email newsletters. As email is out of reach of the ad-blockers, email Ad platforms are eyeing on this undiscovered source of revenue.

8 Venti-Sized Email Marketing Statistics You can Steal from Starbucks

With more than 24,000 stores in 70 countries and $80B+ market capitalization, Starbucks is not just about coffee. More than coffee, it’s unique selling proposition revolves around providing larger-than-life experience.

Carlo pointed out how Starbucks engages their tens of millions of users with pre-planned email marketing strategies. Give major stress on ‘subject headlines’ and ‘personalized marketing’ section to see how Starbucks spill their beans.

Starbucks_Email_Marketing

Now, It is Your Turn

Share the link to your favorite digital marketing resource which you came across in the last seven days. Express the reason for sharing the particular link for educating everyone, including me.

Request: Stay away from self-promotion.