3 Little Changes That Will Make a Big Difference in Your Online Advertising

Online advertising has come a long way from the tacky, blinking banner ads of the 1990s. Today, sophisticated, highly targeted online ads are delivered through a plethora of digital channels, from search engines to mobile apps - and a growing number of marketers are reaping the benefits.

With the right strategy, savvy tools, and smart resource allocation, even the smallest of businesses can take on the giants of the online advertising world.

Here are a few small changes you can make to improve your online advertising and make your digital dollar stretch a little further:

1. Repurpose Your Content

From blogs to video tutorials, content marketing takes various guises, but it is all geared toward the same fundamental goal – to improve online visibility and drive traffic to your site. However, creating unique and interesting content on a regular basis is an expensive and resource heavy affair.

The solution? Repurpose your content.

Begin with a baseline of quality content that can be easily reworked and converted into different formats, for different audiences. This can be a great way to reinforce your branding through multiple but subtly different exposures.

2. Maximize Organic Social Media

What started out as a free medium has evolved into a multi-dimensional paid platform, where brands pay for nearly every interaction with their followers. This new focus on earning advertising revenue from social media has meant that the lifespan of organic posts has started to drop. From a couple of hours on Facebook to a few minutes on Twitter, organic posts have never had it so bad.

Does this mean paid advertising is the only way to go on social media? No! It just means you need to get creative with your posts. Here are a few tips:

• Work out what time of day your users are using social media, and publish your posts accordingly.
• Repurpose content that has worked well for you in the past to increase visibility.
• Publish posts that are slightly controversial – fans love to express their views and this will keep your content on top of users’ social media feeds.

3. Get Your SEO Right

More than 64 percent of traffic to a website comes from organic search on Google. This means that providing your site is easily findable by Google, you are assured a steady flow of visitors.

To improve your visibility, you need to ensure that you are leveraging your on-page SEO. How?

• Write page titles and meta descriptions that provide clear, concise descriptions of the page content.
• Use Alt tags for images with descriptions of what they represent to help search engines process the data more easily.
• Make sure your site is fast and easy to navigate. This will help keep distracted users engaged.

Note: Originally published on Clickz.com on February 26, 2015.