This Week in Digital Marketing - September 10, 2021

As always, we’re here to fill you in on the latest digital marketing news that has the biggest effect on the digital marketing industry. This week, we’ve got SEO, B2B, the importance of accuracy in business listings, and more!

Bing Search tests a Skip To Web Results button
Microsoft Bing is testing a feature to let searchers skip down to the web results, past the ads and past the knowledge panels, direct answers, and people also ask boxes and just see those web results.

Apple has launched a new pop-up in iOS 15 to allow users to turn on or off personalized ads within the App Store and other Apple apps
“Personalized ads in Apple apps such as the App Store and Apple News help you discover apps, products, and services that are relevant to you,” says the pop up. “We protect your privacy by using device-generated identifiers and not linking advertising information to your Apple ID.”

81% of B2B tech marketers believe the importance of SEO has increased in the last 12 months
SEO budgets in B2B have reflected this increase in importance as over a quarter of B2B tech companies have increased their investment in SEO in the past year, according to data from FINITE, the global B2B technology marketing community.

However, with the increased emphasis on SEO and budgets related to it, only half of B2B tech has an SEO strategy. The report also found that most of the SEO efforts in this industry are being performed in-house: “Only 28% of B2B tech marketers rely on third parties to help with their SEO strategies.”

Attribution is a challenge even outside this industry, but FINITE’s data found that nearly half of all B2B tech marketers struggle to measure the impact of organic search. What were the other big challenges for the respondents?

• technical SEO (38%),
  
• link building (21%) and 
  
• content creation (21%)
  

Why we care: This information could help agency and in-house marketers looking to make the move to B2B tech/SaaS. Even more companies are seeing the value in organic search optimization , but are missing out on strategy and implementation best practices. Knowing this can help search marketers craft proposals and help these companies hone in on the best ways to improve their SEO.

63% of consumers say incorrect information on a business listing would stop them from choosing that business
A BrightLocal study of 1,141 US-based consumers found that, over the last 12 months, 76% of consumers said they have arrived at a business too early or too late because its opening hours were wrong online. An even greater proportion (77%) said that they found conflicting information on business information sites.

Why we care: Inaccurate business information has become alarmingly common since the pandemic began, and the newly established prevalence only adds to the frustration for customers. The study also found that 63% of consumers would be deterred from using a business if their listing contained inaccurate information. That’s a huge proportion of potential customers that your local business could be opening itself up to by simply maintaining accurate details across the platforms that audiences use to find them.

How to Structure Your Blog in 2021
If you have a large blog, you might want to consider re-structuring your blog to make it more user-friendly when navigating through it. People could be searching for specific topics, and this could make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for.

Digital Marketing Snippets

• TikTok users spend more time watching videos per month than YouTube users.
  
• Facebook has created their own version on Snapchat’s Spectacles. They named these smart-glasses, Stories.
  

That’s a wrap for this week! Do you have any marketing concerns, questions, or goals? Contact us for a consultation! Our team would be thrilled to create a custom strategy for your business.