The Best Digital Marketing Blogs From December 2017!

As you know by now, every month our team reads a vast variety of articles and posts related to all things digital marketing. With 2017 coming to a close, we wanted to share some of our top picks for this year’s final month, and hopefully shed some light on some speculations by industry experts for what is to come in 2018.

SEO

Every business strives to increase visibility, traffic, and of course ROI (among others). In his article, Ryan Shelley covers how you can fulfill these three very essential business goals with a strong SEO strategy.

With the new year literally just a few days away, it would be a good idea to keep a lookout for, and leverage, emerging trends before our competition. In this article by Kyleigh Fitzgerald we take a look at 8 easy SEO best practices for 2018.

For those who wanted something a little more in-depth and with real-life examples, here are 6 effective SEO strategies for 2018 [with case studies] by the folks over at Kaiserthesage.com

SEO best practices have constantly been evolving to cater to businesses and user alike. These days, perhaps the biggest focal point is the shift towards user experience (UX) consideration. Join columnist Sherry Bonelli, as she explains how SEO and UX work together to help both search engines and users.

For those of you who want to sit back and just listen, be sure to check out this Q&A webinar recording of Hootsuite’s Zak Ramdani. In this #SEJThinkTank webinar, Ramdani shares how Hootsuite was able to surpass their organic traffic metrics for seven consecutive months and how he deployed an SEO mindset throughout all communication channels within the company.

Content Marketing

Guest blogging is an excellent way to increase your visibility and show your authority, but as Ann Gynn states “Following your host’s lead is the key to being a good guest at someone’s home, and the same applies to guest blogging”. Join Ann Gynn as she goes over guest blogging best practices and etiquette in her article“17+ Guest Blogging Rules All Blog Managers Wish You Knew.”

During 2017, we saw a plethora of practical, well-written content marketing books for marketers of all levels of experience and expertise. If you want to learn more, join Roger C. Parker as he reveals his top picks in his article “11 Insightful Content Marketing Books From 2017 for Newcomers and Seasoned Pros.”

By now it is common knowledge that duplicate content is harmful to your rankings, but how can you overcome this issue? In this article, columnist Chris Long shares how he addressed duplicate and similar website content to ultimately improve his clients’ organic search performance.

Differentiation is one of the most important things you must achieve in order to make your brand, business, blog, and offerings stand out in today’s saturated market. But how do you know you are indeed unique? You conduct a competitive analysis. This is exactly what Ellie Mirman focuses on in her article “How to Do a Competitive Content Marketing Analysis.”

According to Smart Insights, content marketing was rated as the most important technique for driving incremental sales in 2017. In this article, we explore the most prolific content marketing trends of 2017 and their potential to carry over into the new year.

Social Media Marketing

LinkedIn is one of the largest social networking platforms. However, misused by users confusing it with just a platform to display their resume. Here’s 20 LinkedIn Marketing Tips To Help You Grow Your Business

Creating custom audiences is without a doubt a very powerful tactic to enhance your sales process and outcome, but it can sometimes be tricky to master. Join Michael Stelzner as he interviews leading Facebook Ad strategist Amanda Bond on the topic of utilizing custom audiences for Facebook and Instagram Ads.

Social media marketing is exciting, and if done correctly, it can be very prolific. Getting it right, however, can often be hard, stressful even. In this article, Jeremy Goldman tries to make our lives a bit easier entering the new year, as he takes us through the steps for an efficient and effective social media marketing campaign.
Visual marketing saw great success in 2017 and it is anticipated to perform greatly in 2018 as well. If you are considering adding video to your current strategy, or wish to enhance your existing strategy Lisa D. Jenkins has you covered in this post.
Continuing on the 2018 speculation bandwagon, Jessica Wade takes us through the top 5 social media trends you will want to be leveraging in the new year. As an added bonus she also adds 10 predictions by industry experts regarding how social media marketing will change in 2018.

Retargeting campaigns are a great addition to any sales and marketing strategy but can often become time-consuming and costly. In this article by David Christopher, you’ll discover seven ways to organize, analyze, and optimize your retargeting campaigns for more effective and efficient results.

Lead Generation

Once you capture a lead, it’s important to push them through your email funnel. However, a lot of business struggles. Here are 13 Email Marketing Tips for Killer A Campaign.

Buyer behaviors and technological advancements have a significant impact on the evolution of lead generation trends. With changes to social and content marketing being anticipated in 2018, it is very likely that we will see alterations to lead gen trends as well. Join Salesgenie, as they share their take on what might be coming in the new year.

For those that might just be starting out or are still familiar with the philosophy of lead gen, Marketo has created a simple but in-depth guide, concisely covering all you need to know about lead generation and its tactics.

We hope you all had a great year, and wish you all the best for a prosperous 2018.

For more reading on how you can make an impact with your online marketing, see the links below:

Digital Insight for Business Marketing