Digital State Consulting

Digital State Consulting, digital marketing agency Wilmslow, Cheshire.

You‘ll be pleased to know that, unlike what seems like the whole of the internet, I will not be talking about llamas or about optical illusion dresses in this week’s review.

That’s not to say that there are no lessons to learn.  Indeed, in a moment of serendipity, there’s a great article that was published today that highlights how to “newsjack” – that is, use a timely news story to give your article/product/service/whatever the added boost zeitgeist – and it’s true that if the relationship between the news event and your promotional target is valid, it can represent the perfect storm for a marketer.  Saying that, if the relationship is weak, you could end up looking dim and desperate.

OK, I lied – I did talk about it, just a little bit. Apologies.

Leaving viral madness behind us, however, what’s the big news this week?

Well, quite simply, it’s something we’ve been resolutely (and unrepentantly) banging on about for ages and ages here – the power of mobile SEO.

This week, Google made a formal announcement regarding the incorporation of mobile-friendly factors into its mobile search results.  Whilst, these sorts of factors (for example, responsiveness, load speed and navigability) have been considerations in the past, it’s clear that this announcement marks a step-change in their attitude and, if you didn’t believe us before, you should us now – the clock is ticking on making your site appealing to mobile users!

To add a little more meat to the bones of that announcement, Barry Schwartz provided screenshots from John Mueller’s presentation and there’s some good information on why Google has stepped on the gas and what, conceptually, it means for their (and our and your) vision for site development in the near future.

So, what to do, what to do?

Firstly, if the rise in mobile traffic has passed you by as a phenomenon, you may need to reshape your thinking about what your website should be attempting to do.  If that’s the case, here’s a well-considered set of observations to help the process.

Secondly, you need to prioritise your activity so that April 21st represents a good watershed, rather than a bad one.  A good starting point is to run through this brief checklist of the factors you should focus on from Smart Insights.

Thirdly, you need to speak to your Web Dev or your Search Marketing Agency (or indeed us – if you don’t have either!) and get a plan in place for the next couple of months.  Bon chance!

In other news, I’ve got a very good article about influencer marketing.  If you work in an industry that doesn’t seem to lend itself to bloggers – or possibly not bloggers you want to engage with (or, worse still, don’t want to engage with you) – you might regard the idea of blogger outreach as a dead end for development of link authority.

Alternatively, you may be better off establishing yourself as voice of authority, rather than piggy-backing others.  Coupling this with valued community engagement and you’re suddenly in the heart of influencer marketing.  If you have something important to say and you can engage with others, your authority will blossom.

And lastly, here’s a great article from @simmonet.  As an example of shoe-horning a set of observations into a narrative, it’s not the smoothest but, hey, it’s Monty Python so who’s complaining!