Now the click-bait grabbed your attention…
In digital marketing, things move fast. We work in an industry that’s constantly evolving, expanding into other areas, and sometimes, doing complete 180s – and there’s no sign it’s slowing down anytime soon.
At Kwasi, we’re constantly trying to learn, research and discover more so we can create success for our clients online. Since improvement is always front of mind for us, we’ve collated the best digital marketing articles the team has been reading recently in one spot – so you can benefit too.
In one way or another, these articles have been helping us become masters in our fields. From learning how to dominate content marketing, to becoming Agile and getting back to basics, you’ll get to see everything that sparks our team.
So, without further ado.
Index:
1. 5 Trends to Know in SEO & Content Marketing
2. 8 Content Distribution Ideas to Meet Your Brand’s Goals
3. How to Use Quizzes in Your Marketing Strategy
4. Links as a Ranking Factor
5. Link Building 2019: Get by With a Little Help From Your Friends
6. Google Smart Shopping: Everything You Need to Know
7. How I Grew My Dying Facebook Traffic
8. Meet a CEO: Simon Marmot
9. Rand Fishkin’s 3 Ingredients For More Healthy Team Dynamics
10. Agency Agile: 10 Agile Methods For Agencies
11. Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Technical SEO
12. Why You Should Understand the Top 5 SEO Factors in 2019
13. Matthew McConaughey: Being a Hero
14. How Much of Google’s Search Traffic is Left for Anyone But Themselves?
14 of the best digital marketing articles of 2019
Dominate content marketing
1. 5 Trends to Know in SEO & Content Marketing
Content still reigns supreme in SEO (which is no surprise). While “fluff” or filler content was perfectly acceptable years ago, it’s not the case anymore. As content marketers, we need to move beyond the superficial stuff. After all, content isn’t just about improving rankings or making Google like us – it’s about the real people reading it.
This article reinforces the idea that we need to be more creative, dig deeper into topics, and produce something that goes beyond an SEO piece. Basically, it needs to offer more than just getting a click for our clients – it needs to resonate with their audience.
Bek
2. 8 Content Distribution Ideas to Meet Your Brand’s Goals
Compelling copy is really only a part of the story when it comes to producing content for clients. In my role as a content strategist, I really have to think about what our client’s goals are, how to plan their content, and most importantly, how to distribute it well. With so many diverse clients, this is especially key for me.
This Moz article is a super simple breakdown of some of the things we use in our own content strategies – and it’s interesting to see content syndication at the top because we’ve just started working on that again for some of our clients.
Tammy
3. How to Use Quizzes in Your Marketing Strategy
When it comes to content in 2019, it’s all about pushing boundaries and being different. While it’s the norm for brands to have a blog nowadays, there’s so much more to successful content marketing than the occasional blog post or social media share.
At Kwasi, we’ve been experimenting with quizzes for some of our clients lately, and I can’t wait to see the results! This blog simplifies and explains the concept really well, plus it gives readers plenty of ideas for their own quizzes, and evidence of brands already using them to great effect.
Jojo
Better, high-quality links
4. Links as a Ranking Factor
Ahh, link building. This article is a cool way to understand link building through another pair of shoes (and that pair belonging to our friendly and incredible advanced, machine learning robot, Google).
We know links are valuable, there’s no doubt about that. This article breaks it down further: links are a material investment made by you (they take real human time), you are making a static public endorsement (they take real human reputable sacrifice) and lastly it is literally asking people to leave your site (they take real human faith).
Marie
5. Link Building 2019: Get by With a Little Help From Your Friends
I’ll always have a soft spot for link building. Like anything else in our industry, link building is constantly on the move – things change, processes get ditched or upgraded, and as Google evolves, new tools are introduced.
Despite all of this, there’s always been two constants – link building is about building relationships and it’s a slow process. Let’s say it again for the people out the back: link building takes time. Yes, you can spam people to the cows come home, but that’s neither valuable nor beneficial. The thing that resonates with me the most with this article, is that being authentic in your link building outreach is key. If you want that tumbleweed to keep on tumbling in your inbox, by all means, send out those ‘copy and paste’ outreach emails. If you don’t, it’s time to start building meaningful relationships with your prospects.
Caitlin
Win with PPC & Facebook Messenger
6. Google Smart Shopping: Everything You Need to Know
Google shopping is all about those revenue gains, and lots of them! I’m talking Arnold Schwarzenegger pre-competition type gains. Using AI & machine learning, Google Shopping is a smarter, new way of Google reaching and targeting e-commerce customers. At Kwasi, we’ve recently been learning Google Shopping’s dark, magical ways to get the most out of our client’s shopping accounts.
This article is a great summary of Smart Shopping, and it gives some hands-on examples on how to setup a campaign and maximise returns on the platform.
Oscar
7. How I Grew My Dying Facebook Traffic
As social media platforms and search engines evolve, we have to evolve with them. This means welcoming new tools and not being afraid to try new things – which is exactly what this article is about.
Beyond the statistics alone, there are two overarching reasons why Messenger is such a powerful marketing channel. One is strategic, the other is tactical. Facebook Messenger marketing is one of the most influential tactics available to marketers today – it’s conversational, interactive, and instantaneous. A very interesting read if you want to see how Neil Patel utilised Messenger himself!
Vici
Work better & faster
8. Meet a CEO: Simon Marmot
This article has helped me tremendously as I grow as an account manager – it helps me not to lose sight of the bigger picture.
In our industry, we’re working with the client to solve their issues, and to pave the path between their business and the customers that need them! The biggest (and strongest) connection between those two parties, is that emotional bond – no matter the form of advertising. Simon Marmot explains that humans have three brains: in our head, our gut and in our hearts. When a client can crack this with their customer market, they’ve unlocked the key to good marketing!
Marie
9. Rand Fishkin’s 3 Ingredients For More Healthy Team Dynamics
“99% of the time, it’s about having a great team at the foundation of every single thing you do…”
This couldn’t be truer. A healthy team environment is all about fostering psychological safety, bringing together a diversity of people and sharing core values and beliefs. As the head of operations, I love finding new ways to make our workplace even more awesome. Knowing how to build a great team and a great company culture, for any business, is the key to success – when our team is happy, we can smash client goals.
Greg
10. Agency Agile: 10 Agile Methods For Agencies
The points in this article that resonate with me the most, are about measuring work both quantitatively and qualitatively, and limiting your work in progress (WIP).
Five months ago, Kwasi started its Agile journey. As we’ve continued to learn and grow, our ability to measure quantitatively and qualitatively has developed progressively. With each sprint, we’ve been able to successfully extract valuable information that has helped improve our performance. Even after five months, I genuinely think limiting the WIP can play a vital role in setting expectations and meeting goals.
While the three principles I mentioned resonate with me the most, I recommend thinking about the others to anyone interested in implementing Agile into their working environment.
Amin
Get back to basics
11. Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Technical SEO
As the new kid on the block, one of my biggest things this month has been learning and growing. What better way to brush up on my skills than with Moz’s guide to technical SEO?
When it comes to your site, it’s all about getting your foundations right – same goes for building a solid foundation of knowledge. At the end of the day, you should never be afraid to get back down to basics and make sure you know every nitty-gritty detail.
Monty
12. Why You Should Understand the Top 5 SEO Factors in 2019
I am new to the world of SEO – only knowing the very basics through what I’d heard and seen through the Graphic Design/Marketing Industry.
Whilst doing the SEMrush SEO Fundamentals Course, I was sent this article – which was great timing! It’s helped me understand some of the terms and strategies used in the course and where they were used out there in the real world (and not just in a training scenario). Still lots of learning to do, but this article just helped me relate back to everything that I had just been learning.
Katie
Being a master
13. Matthew McConaughey: Being a Hero
Instead of picking an article, I’ve gone for a modern approach and chosen a video because well…who doesn’t like breaking the rules when it comes to advertising and digital marketing. This 54-second clip is from Matthew’ McConaughey’s Academy Award acceptance speech for his role in Dallas Buyers Club.
I’m taking his reference to ‘hero’ as a metaphor for master. He perfectly describes what it means to be a master to me. As Matthew says in the film Wolf of Wall Street, it’s a “fugazi, fugazi it’s a wazi it’s a woozi” if you believe otherwise. The point: if you keep chasing (chasing, chasing, chasing) that value of being a master, and always striving to learn and be better, you most certainly will achieve a level of mastery within your professional and personal life.
Tom
Where are we at with search?
14. How Much of Google’s Search Traffic is Left for Anyone But Themselves?
We’re in a world where Google is scraping information from websites to provide a better result. This means that searchers no longer need to visit a website as they accomplish their tasks within Google’s very own search results pages.
This article shows how “Zero” clicks (how searchers don’t visit a website after typing a query into Google) are on the rise. In particular, mobile zero-clicks are over 60% and desktop 34% meaning we need to start considering what we let Google scrape, ensure we are featured in all Google properties and review our multi-channel strategies.
Woj
There you have it – 14 of the best digital marketing articles we’ve read (so far) this year. If you have any more article suggestions, comment them below – we can’t wait to read them!
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