New data reveals the trends in the online marketing industry, the shifts in client demand and the never faltering popularity of Google’s and Facebook’s content management tools.
Moz, content marketing tool provider, conducted a survey of the online marketing industry in order to gauge the habits of over 3,600 online marketers.
According to the survey, 94% of online marketers offered search engine optimisation (SEO) and 83% also offered search engine marketing (SEM), with the most requested services by their clients being analytics and content creation.
When it came to the most used tools for these activities, Google branded marketing software stormed the competition, with Google Webmaster Tools, Keyword Planner, Alerts, Trends and Analytics consistently topping SEO, Content and Analytics tool categories. Moz writer, Dr Peter J. Meyers, commented, “For an industry that complains about Google so much, we sure do seem to love their stuff.”
However, when it came to social media, there was a whole different story. Only 62% of participants claimed to use Google+, compared to 90% using Facebook and 84% using Twitter for marketing purposes. When it came to analysing social media statistics, Facebook Insight was used by 58% and Twitter Analytics used by 40%, placing them in the top three, corresponding to the most used social media, suggesting that many online marketers prefer to use the analytic tools built alongside their chosen platforms. Surprisingly, social media management tool, Hootsuite, came second in this department, with 52% of participants using it.
From last years survey, conversation rate optimisation (CRO) was becoming increasingly more in demand by clients, but ‘link building’ and ‘link removal’ seem caught in a balance. While 30% reported an increase in demand for ‘link building’, 20% reported a decreased demand, and 20% reported an increased demand in ‘link removal’ while 17% reported a decreased demand. The online marketing industry is shifting to becoming more strategy orientated, with more diverse requirements and challenging tasks.