Here’s the latest instalment of Digital Marketing Reads, a roundup of some of the more interesting articles we’ve read lately in the digital marketing world.
Introduction to GIF Engine Optimization (GEO)
You can optimise images and videos, so it was only a matter of time, really, before it’d be possible to optimise GIFs.
GIFs are not quite images and not quite videos, but just as important and entertaining as both. In fact, the GIF search engine GIPHY is the second-most popular search engine after Google, serving up “over 10 billion GIFs daily across messaging and social media apps”. And just like Google, GIPHY has its own algorithm to determine which GIFs show up when users are searching. It takes into account things like number of views, uses, and click-through rates when determining which GIFs to rank for each keyword.
And if you’re wondering, what’s the point in optimising these silly little animation files, consider the fact that GIFs are essentially ads that don’t look like ads. They can be very effective at promoting brand awareness in a creative and entertaining way.
Domains Ending in .Com to Reportedly Get More Expensive
We hate to break it to you, but chances are you’ll be paying more the next time you renew your domain.
According to this article, Verisign can charge domain registrars (such as GoDaddy) up to 7% more per year in the next 4 years. Worst case scenario, it’ll be 7% in 2020, 2021, 2022, AND 2023 before prices are frozen for 2 years. They may not reach the max increase every year, but it’s a good idea to be aware of the possibility just in case it does come to fruition.
While there’s nothing we can do to avoid the price hikes, we can get frugal and renew our .com domains for a longer period of time instead of just year by year. That way, we lock in the lower price until the next time our domain is due for renewal.
TechTarget cites technical SEO issues as reason for 25% decline in Google traffic
If your website experienced a significant drop in organic traffic after the October 2019 BERT update, you’re not alone. Even larger companies felt the pain of this last big Google update, like TechTarget (a B2B marketing company).
TechTarget claims they suffered a 25% drop in organic traffic in November due to what they suspect is a “technical SEO issue”. Though there’s no way to prove this caused the drop, they’re moving forward by focusing on revising older content, increasing site speed, and tweaking their members-only area. All of these will aid in enhancing the user experience, which Google is always about no matter what updates and algorithm changes are made.
Photo via Search Engine Land.
7 mistakes to avoid when optimizing your Instagram account for SEO
Sure, you’ve engaged the SEO services of a digital marketing agency like Rock Solid Marketing to optimise your website… but did you ever consider optimising your Instagram account?
This article sheds some light on what to do and what NOT to do when optimising your Instagram. For example, did you know you can add alt tags to each image you post? Pretty nifty!
Other tips include how and where to use keywords – some of these we’ll bet you didn’t know about already.