By now, we know that marketing strategies are a necessity for growing a business online. But, with so many SEO practices and tools available, Google’s (News - Alert) constant new updates and other trend changes, it can be difficult to know how to create an effective marketing strategy from scratch.

So, what is a marketing strategy? A marketing strategy is essentially a plan that helps businesses promote and sell products or services by identifying and reaching the target audience. The ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to increase awareness for your business, or whatever product or service you are trying to sell.

There are a number of tactics and channels to use, from email marketing campaigns and social media to content marketing and paid advertising - but whatever you choose, you first need to ensure you are reaching and engaging with the right audience.

Let’s take a closer look at what a future-proof marketing strategy might look like in 2023.

What Does a 2023 Marketing Strategy Include?

Putting your marketing strategy together usually involves in-depth target market research to understand your audience, their buying trends and where your business comes in, as well as competitor analysis to see how your main competitors are doing compared to the industry standard. 

You can include a variety of practices to reach and engage with your target audience, but some of the best marketing tools and practices will likely include keyword research, market research and competitor analysis as a starting point.

These initial actions can help you gain insights into your target audience needs, industry topics and what your competitors are doing, which will then help you to create more effective marketing campaigns overall.

However, the key here is knowing your business goals, understanding which content works best for you, what your audience wants to read or hear about, and being a consistent and trustworthy source of information.

Content marketing is a vital component in your marketing strategy. This includes creating and sharing consistent, reliable and relevant content that educates, entertains or inspires your target audience to connect with your brand.

The secret to creating a content-rich marketing strategy is research and consistency. It should include high-quality, keyword-savvy content that is relevant to the website's target audience and can boost the number of backlinks to your website.

This might include content such as:

• Blog posts
• Articles
• Press releases
• Infographics
• Ebooks
• Whitepapers
• Downloadable reports

SEO is typically included in marketing strategies because it helps improve the visibility and search engine ranking of a website, in turn increasing the likelihood of attracting more organic, targeted traffic. As part of an overall digital marketing plan, SEO helps businesses reach their target audience, increase brand awareness, and drive more qualified leads and sales.

Why Is It Important To Include SEO in Your Digital Marketing Strategy?          

Digital marketing allows you to use digital channels such as social media, email marketing, and search engine optimisation to reach and engage with your target audience. This includes various forms of SEO tools such as advertising, display ads, social media ads and video ads, to reach and engage with your target audience.

SEO typically focuses on making technical, structural and content-based changes to a website to enhance its visibility and accessibility. It might also include building backlinks from other high profile and relevant websites to further increase authority.

Below, we touch on some SEO tips and best practices to strengthen your marketing strategy:

• On-page and off-page optimisation both have equal importance. On-page optimisation includes making changes to the website's design, content, and technical structure to improve its relevance and authority for specific keywords. This also helps ensure your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed.

Off-page optimisation includes building backlinks from other websites to improve the website's visibility and authority. This can include things like guest blogging, social media marketing, and link building.

• Technical SEO ensures your website is technically working, and can be easily crawled and indexed by Google. This usually includes things like fixing broken links, creating an XML sitemap, and making sure the website is free of any technical errors.

• Local SEO can also be extremely valuable. The strategy includes optimising your website for local search queries and making sure your business is listed in directories like Google My Business.

However, despite the various types of strategies you can implement, it again goes back to knowing what your business goals are and which are the most useful to focus on.

Some businesses will only need to focus on local strategies, whereas others will want to align their efforts more with growing their brand online organically, which means including technical SEO as well on-page and off-page optimisation.

How Can Google's Changes Affect Marketing Strategies?

One of the major effects marketers may face with Google’s changes is that advertisers will no longer be able to use third-party cookies to track users and deliver targeted ads in Chrome.

This means that advertisers will have to adapt to new methods of tracking and targeting users, such as relying more on first-party data, perhaps through sign-up forms or questionnaires.

As third-party cookies have traditionally been used to track user behaviour across different websites and deliver targeted ads, without this ability, marketers may have a harder time reaching their desired audience with relevant ads.

Goodbye Universal Analytics, Hello Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is due to replace Universal Analytics (UA) in July 2023, and unfortunately, marketers won’t have access to previous relevant UA data. Perhaps now is the time to make the switch so you’re not caught out!

While you can’t see historical data, there are of course many benefits to GA4 such as the way it allows marketers to better understand their target audience and tailor their marketing efforts accordingly. Furthermore, GA4’s traffic analysis allows you to track the number of visitors to your website, where they come from, and how they interact with your site.

Ultimately, Google Analytics provides a wealth of data that can be used to improve the effectiveness of marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions.

Final Thoughts

As the future of SEO changes, so does the way marketers approach their marketing strategy design.

From initial scoping to data collection and reporting, there are a lot of new elements to keep in mind. But remember - this isn’t necessarily a bad thing! These changes can provide more accurate and efficient results in a shorter space of time.

About the Author: Berna Sponca is a content marketing and Digital PR strategist with The Brains. With years of digital marketing experience, Berna specialises in building high-authority links and connecting with high-profile publications to boost brand awareness.