Posted by Mike Pantoliano
Ah, the "year-end," "best-of," and "what-to-look-forward-to" posts. Love it or hate it, it's a great time to both reflect on 2012 and glimpse into the New Year for what possible stories will dominate our industry. I'm never one to dwell in the past, so I'd like to focus on 2013.
Instead of a simple 2013 predictions list, I'd like to frame this discussion as a New Year's resolution list. What are the things that we should focus on improving? Some of this is based on where things are trending, while others are based on areas where I personally feel like a lot of us could make improvements.
Mostly, I'd just like to spark some discussion about what may be important in 2013.
We will continue to think of the big picture
Most of the time I blog or speak at conferences, I talk about SEO's bordering disciplines - analytics, content strategy, marketing campaigns, PPC, conversion rate optimization, etc. I've done this intentionally because it forces me to dwell on a specific subset of the whole web marketer.
With these new tools in our web marketer's tool kit, we're (hopefully) able to think bigger and ask better questions.
- Do I really want to be building links to these pages at this time when I know they'll never convert? Perhaps a portion of my budget should be spent on CRO.
- Should this "link bait" campaign be supplemented with some social paid advertising? What might that look like in terms of expected cost and ROI?
- How does this content strategy I've developed fit with my clients' company-wide goals and prioritizations? Perhaps I could fast-track my strategy's implementation by more closely aligning it with a broader marketing campaign that's already in process?
One of my goals in the early months of 2013 is to develop a full marketing plan for one of my clients. A marketing plan in which nothing is off the table - video, mobile, display advertising, and even more traditional offline advertising. How are you planning to keep the big picture in mind?
We will learn more about Mobile/Video/Schema/Local/SOMETHING
There are a million things in web marketing that can be learnt. Time isn't unlimited though, so sometimes you have to pick your battles. Most of my career, the things I've learned about have been dictated by my (sometimes potential) clients' needs. For choosing a battle, you can make a case for leveling up in mobile, video, schema, local, and a lot more.
My personal choice is mobile. To this point, I've not yet been solely responsible for work on a mobile SEO audit, mobile strategy, or otherwise. Based on the undeniable shift in importance of mobile, I want to preempt clients' needs. There are two aspects of mobile that I'm most interested in:
Mobile Search
Maybe 2013 is the "Year of Mobile Search." These sorts of things don't happen in a single year, though. More than likely 2012-2015 will be the years of mobile search, much like 2009-2012 were the years of social.
Now would be a great time to dive in, develop an understanding, and maybe get some ROI benchmarks for the future - especially when it comes to paid mobile advertising (as CPMs will likely never be lower).
Mobile App Analytics
Google Analytics has clearly been hard at work on improving their mobile app tracking. With apps becoming an increasingly common piece of any brand's content strategy, the need for engagement measurement will only grow.
What do you think about this one? Which aspect of web marketing should we be focusing if we want to stay ahead of the curve?
We will read MORE/LESS industry blogs and publications
Three years ago or so, I began to cull my SEO-related Google Reader. Just give me the essentials! This eventually culminated in the complete abandonment of RSS about a year later. The thought was that anything super important would surely come across my eyes and ears via Twitter, email, or real life discussions.
This was largely a success; I've spent much more time doing, and less time consuming others' work. Still, I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far to the other side.
This one's a really personal one, so I won't dwell on it, but I think the overall idea applies to everyone: I want to read just enough to keep me informed, but not too much that distracts me from what's important; the work.
We will accept (not provided) and adapt as necessary
What's that orange line? A successful link building project? Sadly, it's not (provided).
(not provided) really does suck. Whatever methodology we've chosen for overcoming the increasingly frustrating loss of our keyword data, it will never quite be as nice as it was before October 2011. 100% keywords are a luxury we no longer have, and by the end of 2013 we might be lucky to be working with 20%.
Adaptation is our only option. I've chosen to spend more time in my landing page reports. Some may choose to work on extrapolating known data. It's up to you. The worst choice is to do nothing at all.
We will continue to closely watch G+ and its effect on search
Oh Hai. To ignore me is futile! :)
Love or hate G+, the search engine that commands ~75% of the search market share has thrown a colossal amount of weight behind their social network. That's reason enough to listen.
What are your New Year's Resolutions?
Everyone is at different stages of their web marketing careers, so I don't want to pretend that all of my resolutions apply to everyone.
What are you expecting from 2013? What areas are you looking to improve the most?
Happy New Year!!
Lastly, on behalf of all of the Moz bloggers I want to wish you all the best in 2013!
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