2014 Trends for Business Websites and Online Marketing – Part One

Confused about how to effectively promote your business on the Web?
Confused about how to effectively promote your business on the Web?

As a online business marketing provider and small advertising agency since 2001, this post is about my identification of trends that will impact online visibility and business for 2014.

Google AdWords

Everyday I am getting more calls from old clients who state – “Our business has lost placement. We’ve been doing some things ourselves over the past years and now we know we need professional help. We seem to have simply fallen out of the Google index and need to get fast exposure and leads. Can you help us?” In fact in the last 10 days alone I have had five calls just like this.

What Google did in 2013 is now bleeding over into 2014; with businesses being pushed right into AdWords to get exposure and sales leads. Many prospects ask “Isn’t there a better way to get sales other than paying for them in pay per click? Won’t blogging get me sales?” Hands down the best way to increase revenue is to get into pay per click. Although for some clients Bing may be the right place to start, typically it is best to start off in AdWords.

Organic Placement and Blogging

The new SEO model is not about anchor text, volumes of links, or even article marketing – rather the new SEO is about relevant, unique, quality content for your website and blog. I am seeing very few clients invest in blog postings with a three day a week frequency, rather the preferred trend is to buy longer more authoritative blog posts with a one post per week frequency.

Although I am still getting clients that want keyword density, keyword anchor text links, and think they want article marketing, using these tactics now for placement on Google may actually push your site into one of Google’s filters that looks like a penalty.

Tune in Thursday for our trends on Google+ Local and You Tube.