Spring cleaning your business strategy: 4 digital marketing habits you need to give up

Cherry blossoms are blooming, Easter eggs have been eaten, and the sun is shining; it’s time to pack Winter away and say hello to Spring. New seasons offer new beginnings, so just like decluttering your home, it’s time to give your digital marketing some needed spring cleaning.

From letting your website’s content gather dust to overlooking your customers' wants and needs, bad habits can harm your website’s ranking, user experience, and engagement. Just like chocolate and coffee at lent, it’s time to give up these 5 bad habits and spring clean your digital marketing.

Worshipping the algorithm, not your audience

Here’s a fact: so many digital marketing strategies spend too much time worrying about algorithms.

Here’s another one: audiences become an afterthought, as strategies sprint the SEO marathon.

How about one more? It’s time to stop worshipping the algorithms – from search engines to paid social – and start loving your audience. Believe it or not, the algorithms are your audience.

Last year’s Helpful Content Update from Google rewards websites offering “original, helpful content made by people, for people, rather than content made primarily to gain search traffic”. And Meta’s algorithms for social media are set up to help the users find what they want and need, not what you think Meta wants and needs.

So, make like big time YouTuber Mr Beast and stop churning out content like you’re running a butter farm. Make the content your audience wants instead. Start worshipping your audience, not the algorithm, now.

Leaving user experience to last

We’ve all done it: left your Christmas shopping to the last minute. Dashing through department stores grabbing every gift under the sun can be easily forgiven by loved ones. It’s the thought that counts right?

In digital marketing, it’s different. Leaving your user experience to last whilst you chase conversions and leads will leave your customers confused. Or worse, clicking elsewhere.

Disneyland can deliver the most magical paid advertising campaign on the planet, but if there’s long lines, loads of rubbish, and less time hanging with Mickey and Minnie, they’ll turn around and leave.

Digital marketing isn’t one platform at a time. Just like running a theme park, spinning plates is perfectly normal. Having a conversion-creating PPC campaign won’t actually work if your user experience isn’t up to scratch. If we ignore how our customers consume the content they’ve come for, they’ll walk away. Check out your Core Web Vitals, make sure you’re optimised for mobile, and create a customer journey through your site that flows like Pimms at a wedding.

Stop window shopping your data

Digital marketing doesn’t need a PhD, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand data. And like strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, digital marketing and data goes together.

But too many of us just look at our data, we don’t touch it. Spending your morning sipping coffee and scrolling through Google Analytics sounds nice. But you’re heading into that monthly performance review with nothing but vanity metrics.

Ever wondered about the method behind the madness; why does that keyword create more conversions, why is that TikTok ad being watched more, why aren’t my conversions on Google coming through as real leads? It’s not so hard, just shackle up your data with behavioural science for a more sophisticated digital marketing strategy.

Behavioural science is a little like a cheat code: combine it with your data to get to the human problem behind your business problem. With data, you can find patterns and predict how people might act, but humans don’t always play by the rules.

Behavioural science aims to understand the unpredictability, and with data behind it, can help you create a strategy that takes your brand to the next level. So, stop just looking at your data, and start getting to grips with it.

Letting your content gather dust

You’ve found a gap in the market, created a service we all need, and now you’re out in the open offering it. But other than a case study, some contact information, and your history, your website’s like old books gathering dust on a shelf in your spare room.

So many businesses try to build a brand on word of mouth alone. Sure, it can work. Tesla doesn’t do advertising; they believe they’re worth talking about.

But we can’t all be Elon Musk, and we’re not all selling smart cars – so keeping up with the Kardashians content is an important part of the puzzle.

If you want your business to appear at the top of search engines, quality content is your currency. If you’re letting an opinion you wrote back in 2018, be the last thing on your website’s blog, you’ll fall faster than a dog for a new bone.

Firstly, you’re forgetting your customers; the content isn’t helpful, relevant, or useful (the cornerstones of SEO). Secondly, you’re not adapting to change – whether it’s the algorithms, your audience’s behaviour, or simply technology – and that’ll damage your ranking, your authority, and your performance. And it’ll let your competition leapfrog you.

Stop letting your content gather dust. Start creating audio, visual, and written content your users want and need. And watch your rankings climb.

Need a helping hand spring cleaning your digital marketing strategies? Get in touch with us today to see how we can support you with your goals.