"what have you learned" text overlayed on a photo of a man wearing a suit with a smartphone in his handThis year has taught us valuable lessons in the world of digital marketing. From GA4 implementation and Core Web Vitals to attribution models and the importance of content creation, periscopeUP’s experts have gathered insights from the past year to provide an in-depth look at how marketing trends have shifted and how to adjust your business and marketing strategies to succeed in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Read on for quotes from our specialists about the lessons they’ve learned in 2022.

 

“Being mindful of attribution doesn’t mean you have to live and die inside of complex attribution modeling.

For small businesses, creating attribution models to inform changes to channel strategies may be too time consuming and costly (and there may not even be enough conversion data to make it worthwhile!). However, without discussing attribution, small business owners feel they should choose between SEO and PPC or between email and social media marketing, etc. But more often than not, their leads are arriving as a result of multiple touch points. Using even the most basic report, like Top Conversion Paths in Google Analytics demonstrates the importance multiple channels have as our client’s prospects evolve from a new site visitor to a customer.”

-Eric Kronthal, Founder & President

 

“Core Web Vitals was a major change in our 2022 website technical audits. We created our own separate Core Web Vitals Audit in April 2022 and have been utilizing it and expanding on it throughout the entire year. I learned so much more about how to configure and setup WP Rocket along with how the plugin and code of a website are impacted by the slightest adjustments to how they are loaded on a website.”

– Jacob Evans, Director of Digital & Development

 

“As always, content that is high-quality, informative, and relevant to the user will continue to be important for SEO. This includes using header tags, subheadings, and other formatting techniques to make the content easy to read and understand. Also, doing valuable keyword research for long-tail terms and creating content around those terms has influenced our clients’ SERPs and continues to be a signal to Google of relevance and authority. It’s tricky to get our clients to focus on content sometimes due to competing priorities, but time and again, this is the difference between “winning” online or not getting any results at all.”

– Stephanie Parnell, Senior Account Manager

 

Google Analytics has never been 100% accurate. And with more and more users denying Analytics cookies, we as marketers have to accept the concept of modeled data over observed data. Machine learning has always been part of Google Analytics, but the way machine learning works is becoming more advanced with the implementation of GA4.

Without cookies, machine learning provides marketers with better insights into how people are engaging on their websites and with their marketing campaigns. This gives a considerable advantage to those who understand how to use the data effectively. And as machine learning continues to improve, the insights marketers can glean from GA will improve along with it.”

– Paul Mancini, PPC Acct. Manager & Google Analytics Analyst

 

“The importance of local SEO is greater than ever. Small businesses like electricians, fashion boutiques, dentists, etc. have always wanted to get their businesses in the local 3-pack of GMB results. And this year I structured a winning strategy that seems to be much more influential than previous efforts. It includes GMB optimization, NAP consistency, creating and sharing GMB posts, getting consistent quality reviews, and a range of other things. I’ll be breaking this strategy down into a full blog post soon.”

– Rakesh Sharma, Senior SEO Analyst

 

Google’s recent addition of ‘Experience’ to their E-A-T criteria (now making the abbreviation E-E-A-T for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) highlighted the importance of writing content that incorporates the writer’s unique experience, providing readers with an assurance that they are reading authentic and reliable information. Over the last few months, I’ve seen content with original images, video, and audio rise to the top of many search results pages, and I’m confident this type of content will become increasingly important for SEO success in the future.”

– Chelsea Bagley, Content Specialist

 

Capitalizing on your digital marketing strategy is still essential to ensure success for nearly any business, and investing in the right agency now can help set yourself up for success in 2023.

If you’re looking for an expert to help you make the most of your digital marketing and website efforts, reach out to the team at periscopeUP today.

Call us at (443) 475-0787 or email info@periscopeup.com and we’ll get started on a digital strategy that will work for you.

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