We often write about things you should be doing with your digital marketing efforts: tips, tricks, trends, hacks, and other topics any digital marketer should know. But, what about the things you shouldn’t do? Or the things you should be doing but are ignoring. There are many tactics that are ineffective and can be damaging to your brand. And there are tactics that digital marketers don’t even include in their strategy, which is a mistake on its own.
When it comes to digital marketing, there’s no shortage of examples of what not to do. We’re going to touch on the mistakes and tactics that digital marketers shouldn’t ignore or make in 2015. You may have read our 10 Digital Marketing predictions for 2015, but here we are going to focus on 12 mistakes digital marketers shouldn’t make in 2015.
1.) Ignoring mobile and putting desktop first
As of 2014, mobile overtook desktops for the primary device people use to access the internet, which means desktop should no longer be the first thought marketers have when developing a website or new content. You can remedy this by leveraging responsive design, to avoid putting in more work than necessary on your website. You’ll also be able to have content be easily digestible for people who primarily use their mobile device to browse the internet.
2.) Ignoring Facebook’s new algorithm change
Facebook is changing, again, but this time the change will affect the way the news feed works for its users and how businesses use their Facebook page. This change will take place in January 2015, and if digital marketers choose to ignore this algorithm change, you’ll not only ruin your Facebook organic reach but, you’ll be making one of the biggest social media mistakes of 2015.
Some tips to remedy this change are:
- Know your Facebook audience
- Don’t focus on selling on Facebook
- Post your best content on Facebook
- Empower your employees to engage with your Facebook page
- Don’t forget to engage with your Facebook audience
3.) Using low quality images
Photo sharing platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest, all deserve high quality photos but so does the rest of your audience. One of the easiest ways to turn off your audience and lose followers is by uploading low quality images. You can refrain from doing this by investing in a camera for your business or a smartphone that takes good quality photos. You can also use photo editing apps like Afterlight or Photoshop.
4.) Stuffing keywords in your content
The way Google ranks your website has changed, again. The major thing to note on the changes Google has made is they way you use keywords. You should already be aware of this change, if you’re not, this is something you should know before going into 2015. You can read up on it here.
To remedy the changes Google has made, Rand Fishkin from MOZ hosted a great webinar that goes over SEO in 2015 and how the days of exact match are gone and how it’s about grouping keywords by intent. Using synonyms to show up for exact match keywords and making your content more user friendly. Google can now see through content that has been stuffed with keywords and are looking for content that is both useful and relevant to people.
5.) Forgetting to track your digital marketing initiatives
If you’re already measuring and tracking all your marketing initiatives, high five! If you aren’t, then listen up, this could be the biggest mistake a digital marketer can do in 2015.
The importance of tracking and measuring your digital marketing efforts goes back to achieving your marketing goals and objectives, and proving it.
For example, if your goal is to prove what kind of content performs well on your blog, then you need to track the number of blog posts you’re publishing. You can start by having a spreadsheet that tracks the publish date, the blog title, and blog URL. The reason this simple task is important is because when you start measuring the performance of those blog posts in analytic tools like Google Analytics, you’ll need to know when they were published, their URL, and then when you’re done pulling numbers the titles will allow you to know what type of blog posts performed well or didn’t perform well.
6.) Driving your audience to irrelevant landing pages
Whether you’re using social media ads or search ads, if your ad has a call to action for people to click on a link that takes them to a landing page, make sure that landing page is relevant to the ad they clicked on.
For example, if your ad talks about “red heels,” if people click on your ad, the page they see should have red heels. Doing this enhances user experience, as well as increase conversion rates.
Ignoring this detail can cost digital marketers lots of money with high cost per acquisition, and lose out on opportunities to drive online sales. To combat this, create landing pages or drive people to a relevant part of your site after they click on the ad. If your ad says, “Red heels shoe sale,” then your landing page headline should say, “Red heels shoe sale.”
7.) Creating your registration and login process without the user in mind
If your 2015 goal is to boost sign-ups and registrations, then how people sign-up and register on your site should be a priority.
The internet is shifting towards creating a better user experience online. Just like how we’ve had hundreds of years to create a better life experience on earth, the online world is our next move to improving our experience with technology.
Improve your user experience for sign-ups and registrations by using social login to remove multiple steps and make it into one. In fact, 73% of users prefer to log in to websites using their social media profiles.
8.) Not testing new things on your site
We have talked about this before, and we’re bringing it up again, ignoring A/B tests is a mistake digital marketers shouldn’t make in 2015. A/B tests are a way to scientifically test your ideas on how to grow your business and improve your marketing efforts.
For example, you can take your homepage, launch two versions side-by-side, and see which version tests better. After your test you’ll move forward in using the version that performed best and grows your business the fastest.
As Lars Lofgren said in The Real Impact of A/B Testing on Conversion Rates, “What works for one website won’t necessarily work for another,” so it is important to test on your own site and with your specific audience.
9.) Not having a social media marketing plan
A social media marketing plan is your handbook to social media success. This plan is the summary of everything you are wanting to achieve with your social media networks.
It should be composed of your goals and objectives and all the tools and tactics you’re going to use to achieve those targets. Being specific in your social media marketing plan will allow you to effectively implement it because you don’t want to set yourself up for failure by not including every important detail.
10.) Writing tweets that aren’t searchable
Did you know that Twitter changed its search engine? Well, now you do. The way you craft your tweets in 2015 will be more important than ever.
The reason for this is because if you want your tweets to show up in Twitter search queries, you will need to optimize how you use those 140 characters. This change in Twitter’s search engine achieves one of Twitter’s long-standing goals of allowing people to search through every tweet, ever published.
Similar to Google, including the right keywords in your Tweets will allow you be more visible in search queries. Using the right hashtags, links, and images will set you up to be more optimized for Twitter searches.
11.) Not investing in social media videos
Photos are great, but videos are better. With the rise of Instagram videos, Snapchat videos, YouTube, and Vine, there’s no doubt that social media videos are here to stay.
Social media videos allow brands to create shareable and valuable content to their audiences. Digital marketers who haven’t looked into adding video into their marketing strategy next year will miss out on the opportunity of growing their brand and business.
For example, if you’re business is trying to increase awareness in Asia, did you know that in Asia they use YouTube videos to learn about new products or how to do things, like creating a digital marketing strategy? Use social media videos to educate and to market your product so you can improve engagement and brand awareness.
12.) Forgetting to take time to learn
I saved this mistake till the end because I want to remind all digital marketers that digital is always changing. If you don’t take the time to learn, to read blogs, or to go to conferences, you’ll be making the mistake of not staying up to date with the new digital marketing trends and updates, therefore losing out on opportunities to reach your digital audience. Make learning a priority in 2015, so you can ensure your digital marketing efforts are effective and of a high standard.
To Conclude
Digital marketers have the important job of always being in the know of what to do and what not to do online. This list of 12 digital marketing mistakes is just a handful of tactics you shouldn’t make and shouldn’t be ignoring. To get you started on the right foot in 2015 these mistakes should be prioritized of what not do in 2015.
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