New year, new series. Introducing a quarterly digital marketing guide from our agency experts.

You don’t become a true Globe Runner without rocketing ahead of the curve. Trends help us navigate our client’s digital marketing trajectory and anticipate speed bumps. To do that, we have to crunch data from every part.

From new SEO strategies and PPC changes to social media algorithm updates and web dev trends, here are what have been fueling digital marketing plans in Q1 this year.

Technical SEO/Link Building:

1. tf/idf

Google makes huge computations to understand your web content. Keywords help some, but in the end, its numerical statistics are responsible for indexing and language processing.

If you’re trying to rank for a specific topic, make sure you understand how to operate within a Tf*idf framework. The acronym of this search engine ‘building block’ stands for “term frequency times inverse document frequency.” In short, it determines the relevancy of a word or phrase in a page or document.

2. Voice Search

Consumers aren’t strangers to voice-activated commands (think Siri, Alexa and the like). Where voice search was once relegated to our phones, smart assistants now live inside all types of tech devices including smart TVs, smart TV sticks (Chromecast/Amazon FireStick), computers and speakers.

During the 2017 holiday season, smart speakers were the big winners of Black Friday, offering far-reaching opportunities for businesses looking to advertise online.

3. Expanded Meta Descriptions

To provide more helpful context, the descriptions that accompany a Google search result are expanding. Where they once had a hard stop at 165 characters, they now casually cut off around the 300 mark.

Take advantage of the new character limit by prioritizing the highest traffic pages on your website. Work with your CMS or SEO specialist to re-optimize them, accommodating for the longer length limits.

Local SEO/Citation Updates:

1. Schema Mapping and Citation Optimization

You only get one chance to make a first impression. Microdata sounds small but has a huge impact on the authority of your site. Your branding may win over the customer in the end, but it’s Google that initially determines whether you make the ranks.

2. Q&A on Google My Business

Google My Business Questions & Answers gives customers a direct line to business owners where they can answer questions about the company. Content is kept in a knowledge panel where the crowdsourced FAQs can be boosted in ranking or flagged as spam with a thumbs up or down.

3. Replacing Google +

The idea behind creating a free Google My Business account is simple. Doing so allows companies to make updates and changes to how their business turns up in searches.

Now, the G+ replacement also offers a way to post events and promotions, which, done well, is very likely to increase your website’s visibility and CTR (click-through-rate).

Social/Content:

1. Facebook Algorithm update: “Engagement Bait”

Facebook has been systematically curating the order in which we see our content. What was once a simple first-come-first-served model has morphed into posts that are demoted based on complex algorithms.

Most recently, posts that make blatant calls for likes, shares, tags or comments get sent to the back of the line. Once again, your business needs quality content to compete for online exposure.

2. Facebook Newsfeed Changes

A second announcement to be aware of: as of January 11 of this year, Facebook will make changes to our newsfeeds. These could significantly hurt your brand’s social media marketing efforts, though business pages have been seeing this happen slowly over the past couple of years.

To show they’re all about connection, Facebook will now prioritize posts from friends and family. Content from brands and publishers will rank much lower; however, Facebook Ads appear to be safe for the time being. Proving once again, you need to pay to play on social media.

3. Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories has just celebrated its first birthday. Pioneered by Snapchat, the format is similar, allowing users to capture videos and photos of moments throughout their day.

Brands are no stranger to advertising on Instagram. Now, the ability to give consumers an intimate look at the highlights of their day is just one of the reasons Stories is so instrumental in social media marketing. You can add polls to your story and encourage users to share their opinion, and you can even save the story and make it a permanent ‘highlight’ that will live underneath your bio.

PPC:

1. Voice Search

If seeing Voice Search twice in one article has you scratching your head, open your ears instead.

The issue for PPC and voice search centers on segmenting and targeting voice search phrases. As a digital agency, our job is to understand how we can best use this data. By extrapolating these voice search phrases, we can include Broad Match Modifier terms related to “phrases” in question format. In short, we help catch voice searches, and that makes our clients show up in paid search results.

2. Google Home Services Ads/Local Services by Google

Need help managing leads? Google is here to help you. Though it’s been slow to roll out, advertisers offering services can now budget based on how many leads they want to receive. The format of the ads will look more like a digital business card than an ad, allowing potential clients to make contact more directly and immediately.

Businesses in the 17 cities looking to capitalize on local service ads need to undergo the roughly two-week verification process that includes employee background checks and certification.

3. Purchasing from Shopping Ads

Transactions just got a whole lot simpler for customers. Now, consumers can buy products displayed within Google Shopping ads with the simple click of an ‘easy checkout’ button. They never even have to leave the Google-hosted landing page and can pay directly with the payments uploaded to their Google accounts.

Because buyers don’t need further information on the products before they buy from the platform, it’s a bold way for Google to assert, “people trust us.”

Website/Development:

1. Subtle Animations

These digital interfaces were all the rage towards the end of 2017 and showed no signs of slowing at the beginning of 2018.

Web developers should, however, emphasize implementation through their CMS. This creates a prime focal point as it transitions the responsibility away from the time-costly development teams to the content authors.

2. Managed Dedicated CMS Hosting
3. Website Push Notifications

If you thought push notifications were relegated to your smartphone, we have news for you: they’ve now caught up to the app space, allowing your WordPress site to keep your audience up-to-date with all the latest news and offers.

Creative/Art Direction:

1. Simplified Packaging

Most everyone in the industry has tried nice 4-color printing. Since it’s available in almost every kind of packaging, the current graphic design trend is oriented toward simplification. This allows clients to a) stand out and b) save money on printing.

We’re not advocating for minimalism here. Instead, it’s a high concentration of the core info, including graphics all laid out with a simple treatment that doesn’t dilute the message.

2. Authenticity

Consumers are responding more positively to authentic images, stories, and people. The takeaway here: if you’re looking for visual content, know your audience would rather see images and videos shot with a phone, as opposed to stock photos, especially if it helps tell the story. Of course, commercial photographers are still highly recommended if the marketing budget allows.

3. Fonts, fonts, fonts

Graphic designers see more hand-drawn fonts from designers. And why not, no two are the same! We can make graphics out of words alone and in whichever font we choose. Although it remains a beloved font with plenty of life left in it, really, this proves there’s more to life than Helvetica.

Stay tuned for more Digital Media Trends to blast off in 2018!

Have questions about anything we covered here? Make contact!

Year after year consumers spend increasingly fewer hours away from their devices. They work, shop and engage socially in online platforms, consuming digital media at a feverish pace. In one year, from 2015 to 2016, the number of hours Americans spent in front of a screen rose about 90 minutes. That average now tops about 11 hours of daily screen time.

Given our demand for digital, it does make sense to invest many ad dollars online, but writing off all non-digital media is a big mistake.

Think paper content is obsolete? We have news for you.

As we’ll see, multi-channel marketing strategies that utilize both can tap into the benefits of traditional print and paper advertising while leveraging the omnipresence of those online.

Multi-Channel Marketing Defined

Let’s start by laying the groundwork for what a well-rounded marketing strategy might look like.

Simply put, it’s a plan that uses on and offline avenues to get your brand in front of as many potential customers as possible. One strategy; multiple platforms. Dedicating yourself exclusively to digital marketing tactics may yield results initially, but utilizing analog channels like direct mail or print ads has the potential to target leads over the long-term.

Another way to frame it: multi-channel marketing makes your product or service available on the platforms your customers frequent, making it easy for them to make purchases when and where they want.

Deconstructing Digital Marketing

Don’t get us wrong. We are huge proponents of online advertising. It’s measurable, it’s malleable and it’s effective. Digital ads can be specifically targeted to your audience and changed as the data demands.

However, it’s important to remember that just because something’s more trackable doesn’t mean other avenues don’t have value in building and solidifying your brand.

Depending on the type of campaign you want to run, digital may fall short. For example, one study at San Jose State University found customers are more likely to browse your ad, scanning for keywords before quickly moving on. They’re consumed and processed more quickly. If your goal is to disseminate important and concrete product information, this selective reading and spotty attention span associated with some digital media could inhibit your sale.

The point is, the instantaneous access provided by an Instagram ad or Google PPC campaign is a powerful tool, and really, the benefits of a well-planned digital marketing strategy cannot be overstated. Still, they’re not always the best, and certainly not the only, way to play.

Investigating Print Ads

This brings us to the paper-based content that forms more traditional advertisements. Generally speaking, it requires less brainpower to process and is more memorable than digital media. Because it’s tangible, the brain tends to categorize physical material differently. Memories are created with more context–where you were, how it felt to hold it–offering a more sensory and emotional experience of the advertisement.

One 2009 study conducted by Bangor University and branding agency Millward Brown found that print ads and paper content increased the brain’s connection to internal feelings, implying that customers were more likely to “internalize” the ad.

Another study conducted for the U.S. Post Office found:

• Viewers engaged with paper ads for extended periods of time.
• Respondents were able to recall more information from the ad (including company name) more than a week after they first viewed it.
• The centers of the brain that are responsible for regulating value and desire were highly active when viewing physical ads.

Essentially, it’s like the difference between receiving an email or Facebook message on your birthday, and getting a hand-written card in the mail. Both are special, but one stands out more than the other.

Planning Consumer Oriented Content

Without question, when planning your outreach efforts, go where the consumer is. This may vary based on your market.

If they have a preferred channel, you need to be on it. This may mean reaching out more than once so you catch them at the right time, in the right place and with the right message.

Make sure you’ve researched your target audience thoroughly to find out where they dwell both online and off. Create customer surveys to collect data. Use buyer personas in-house. Rely on A/B testing to measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing collateral.

You may find some products like luxury items or brands with unique services lend themselves better for print materials. Others with less emotional motivation or merchandise with more SKUs than visuals might be more effective for online channels.

A Message to Marketers

We live in a digital world, but that doesn’t mean the world is entirely digital. Your advertisements shouldn’t be either. Print ads still hold power. When paired with the right online marketing initiatives, they’re likely to drive digital sales. Mix up your media to broaden and bolster your brand experience.

Need a little help? Let’s strategize together.

If you’ve decided that you’re not a marketer or simply don’t have time for it (you’re an attorney, after all, and are focused on billable hours), you may have decided it’s time to outsource your digital marketing efforts. It’s a big decision.  Your time, reputation and hard-earned revenue are at stake. Consider the following factors when selecting the right marketing partner.

Beware the Auto-Renewal Contract

Everybody knows about the auto-renewal contract.  They’re not exclusive to consumer contracts, like those for health club memberships, video-streaming services or computer software. That’s right, auto-renewals are often included in marketing agency contracts.

Make sure you look out for any auto-renewal clauses, euphemistically called evergreen clauses. If you contract for 12 months of marketing services, but you fail to provide advanced notice of cancellation as stated in the contract (usually 90 days), you’re locked in for another 12 months. So, if you’re not happy with the agency you’ve hired, well…

The auto-renewal contract can be so punitive that 22 states have statutes that limit auto-renewals. In 2017 alone, there have been over 50 auto-renewal related bills in state legislatures. When the government gets involved, there’s an issue. One New Jersey legislator dubbed them “zombie clauses” because they never seem to die.

Make Sure You Own Your Own Content

You might be thinking, Of course I own my own content, it’s my content, I paid for it! That sounds logical, I know, but you’ll definitely want to discuss content ownership prior to entering into an agency contract. Here’s the rub on content generated by some agencies: unless you’ve negotiated a specific provision in the contract, the agency might own the rights to their work even after you’ve paid for it.

What does not owning your own content mean? It means that if you move to another agency or bring your marketing in-house, all of the content on your website is gone. Pages of content will have to be reconstructed and optimized, blogs the agency has written on your behalf can’t be utilized, and months, maybe years, of analytics information is gone. So, basically, you can expect to have zero online presence for weeks, maybe months.

Be Sure to Target the Right Kind of Leads

A recent conversation with an estate planning attorney who had utilized a lead company disguised as a digital marketing agency can be summarized with this statement: “The leads were junk.” Sure, they’d delivered him one hundred “leads” per month as promised, but he soon discovered they were little more than respondents to a “check the box” survey. He spent hours contacting them, only to learn that their definition of a lead was little more than a name and a phone number. Those aren’t leads.

What Does a Digital Marketing Agency Bring to the Table?

A reputable digital marketing agency will sit down with you to fully understand your expectations, your business, and your style, then put together a comprehensive game plan based on your budget that will utilize any or all of the following elements:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)―sure, you’ve got a website, but can anyone find it?
• Content Management―are you providing valuable and educational content?
• Social Media―are you finding and keeping potential clients engaged?
• Reputation Management―do you monitor, manage and act on your online reviews?
• Listing Management―are you managing your online presence?
• Paid Search―are you reaching your audience online, at the optimal time, through targeted search engine advertising?

Remember, marketing is about developing, over time, a demand for a product or service by fulfilling a customer’s need. Can marketing generate leads? Of course, it can. But great marketing finds prospective customers that are well-informed, educated and who understand how you differentiate yourself and your practice from the rest of the marketplace.

According to The National Law Review, 96% of people seeking legal counsel use a search engine. But here’s the best part― almost 75% of them contact only one attorney prior to securing their services. What does this mean? It means that your online presence better be optimal.

If you’ve decided that your practice could use the expertise of a digital marketing agency that specializes in the legal profession, contact Accelerate Online Marketing today. We make digital law firm marketing easy, and we do it while closely adhering to the Texas Bar Association’s Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.

The company website is the new business card. It’s the face you present to the world – a digital handshake, your first impression. As a mission-critical part of any digital marketing plan, getting it right is important.

Maybe you’re creating one for the first time. Perhaps your site simply needs a little updating as part of a brand rediscovery.  Whether you’re building it in-house or using a digital marketing and web development firm, you and your team need to speak the same language.

This glossary of basic web development terms will help.

• CMS or Content Management System– WordPress and Drupal are popular examples of a CMS; a software system focused on web content. It creates an easy way for users to make text and image updates to their site without using HTML and allow your development team to add advanced features.
• HTML or Hypertext Markup Language- These are the building blocks of your site. Each web page has a markup language that structures the content therein and has the ability to describe it. Search Engines recognize this as the most basic language on the web, followed by CSS, PHP, ASP, Javascript, jQuery (see below).
• CSS or Cascading Style Sheets- This file tells browsers, mobile phones, tablets, projectors, and other devices how to display your site. Where HTML pages create a foundation, a CSS denotes how it should be styled. This includes regulating the consistency of essential elements like logos, fonts, images, menu pages, etc.
• IA or Information Architecture- Without well-designed, organized text content, your site is nothing but pretty pictures. IA ensures your site is easy to navigate and displays the top features using a planned sitemap and wireframes for each page.
• JavaScript- Programming language #3. This one comes to us from Sun Microsystems Corporation. Web apps use this language for motion elements like drop-downs, scroll-overs, or simple animations. Search Engines are still unable to read Javascript files, but they’re important for your user experience and branding.
• jQuery- This open source JavaScript library uses common functions to accelerate development with complex client-based JavaScript applications. It’s the most popular JavaScript library among programmers, allowing them to easily navigate everything from documents and animations to plug-ins and widgets.
• MySQL- Another open source database management system used in many web applications.
• PHP- Once classified as “Personal Home Page,” today, PHP is understood as an open source, C-like, programming and server-side scripting language. Dynamic websites use them to power millions of open source projects.
• Sitemap- According to our own web development expert, Daniel Edwards, “Sitemap can be a difficult keyword to decipher. It’s both technical and conceptual. Conceptually, it helps drive a site’s navigation and approach. From a technical standpoint, xml feeds illustrate the concept of a website and inform Google how large or small the site is.”
• UI or User Interface/UX or User Experience– Anything a user can view and manipulate on your site or app makes up the user interface. These include the screen itself, cursors, and keyboards as well as the menus. Conversely, the user experience (UX) has to do with a person’s emotions, attitudes, and ease-of-use accessing your website. Improving the UX Design of your site, improves the user experience of your site, making it easier for them to interact with your product or service.
• Wireframe– This “skeletal” foundation of your site is a visual representation of its content sans design. It’s more concerned with the layout structure than the text or graphics that will eventually flesh it out.

Even if your job never requires you to become fully fluent in web design, it’s good to have a basic grasp of the language. The sooner you get your site up and running, the sooner you can focus on driving more web traffic to it.

Have you ever thought to yourself, half of my marketing works just don’t know which half?

It’s a common problem that marketers run into and owners definitely face. Some have tried to conquer that problem and I will say there are a lot of things that can be done to figure out which half of your marketing is working.

I would like to go deep on that topic and figure out what we can do to track marketing better and determine what’s actually effective and what is a complete waste of money.

Call Tracking

Some of the tools that we use are call tracking, so what we like to do is track every single phone call that comes in to the business. Ideally we put a dynamic call tracking number on the website. That way each individual user that makes a phone call gets a different phone number. By showing them a different phone number, we know exactly which user triggered the call. By knowing the user, I know which campaign they came in through. The other thing we can do is separate out last click attribution from original click attribution.

Click Attribution

So let me break that down for you. What I mean by that is last click attribution is the last thing that they did before they made a purchase. I attribute that campaign with the visit. Let’s give an example. If somebody saw an ad that you were running on Facebook and came to your website but did not purchase, they left your website and came back a week later and made a purchase. But when they came back, instead of coming through Facebook, they came from google search. Which one of those campaigns actually drove that sale?

Was it the last click or the first click that purchaser made? Well they are both important actually. But I would really like to know whether or not my Facebook campaign was effective and generating more awareness that then brought that customer back later. I would like report, and what we do today is implement some very sophisticated marketing software that allows us to tie back the original time that a visitor came to my website. We know exactly when they came to the website first. When they do identify themselves by making the purchase, I can connect the dots between the final purchase and the first time they visited us.

So now we know the entire life cycle. and we can report back, last click attribution and initial awareness, or first click attribution.

Those are just 2 methodologies that we use to report to clients how we are performing as an agency and which campaigns are performing which ones are winners, which ones are dogs.

Naturally, with the essential nature of online marketing, thousands of digital marketing agencies are out there offering their services to companies around the globe. As with any business, their levels of competence and reliability vary, so you need to search carefully to find an agency that will work. To help you tell a reliable agency from less reliable ones, here are five things you should look for:

1. Transparency: If PPC, SEO, responsive design, and other web marketing terms are gibberish to your ears, they certainly shouldn’t remain that way. A reputable digital marketing agency will not only make sure each aspect of your online marketing strategy is well executed, but they’ll also make sure you understand exactly how it works.
2. Continuing partnership: The right agency won’t set everything up just to leave you to your own devices afterward. They will act as reliable consultants to make sure your new traffic converts into clientele.
3. Holistic approach: Your audience is everywhere, and you’ll need multiple strategies to reach potential customers. A reputable agency understands this and will employ a wide variety of digital marketing methods to attract traffic.
4. Awesome track record: Naturally, a reputable online marketing firm will have a strong history of pleased clients. Take a look through their reviews and see how they’ve helped other companies build a strong online presence and boost revenue.
5. Rockstar-grade skill: To be successful in online marketing, skill and expertise are vital. The right agency for your company will employ digital rockstars with the skills, education, and experience needed to implement their strategies effectively.

Transparency, continuity, experience, and customer satisfaction are all important factors to consider when choosing a digital marketing agency to handle your online strategies. Accelerate Online Marketing strives to fulfill all of these qualities, but don’t take our word for it—check out our portfolio, browse our client reviews, and contact us to see how our team of digital rockstars can help you.

People are using their mobile devices more than ever before, and not just for casually browsing the web or actively shopping. Mobile users are highly likely to pull out their smartphone when faced with a dilemma or problem, such as when making purchasing decisions at the store or finding a place nearby to eat. These moments when people use their smartphones for small, everyday tasks, are being referred to as “micro-moments.”
The Research

Research by Google indicates that micro-moments can be divided into four categories:

• I-want-to-know: These are instances when people look up information on their phones, such as something they might have seen in a commercial.
• I-want-to-go: People will look for nearby businesses on mobile devices.
• I-want-to-do: “How-to” searches and consultation with the web for ideas are moments included in this area.
• I-want-to-buy: Prior to making a purchase, people will use their smartphone to evaluate their buying decisions.

The research also indicates that these instances are becoming vastly more common, making it important for businesses to take advantage of these moments.

Micro-Moments Marketing

These micro-moments mean that consumers are more likely to make decisions and try to solve problems in the moment. This has given rise to micro-moment marketing strategies that take advantage of the tendency consumers have to consult the internet at a moment’s notice. To properly take advantage of this phenomenon:

• Make sure your online content is quickly searchable and digestible
• Understand your customers’ needs, including “in-the-moment” needs
• Determine in which moments your brand should come up
• Consider location, time of day, and other contextual elements in developing content

Using these effectively will lead consumers to choose your brand over others by providing helpful information on how it can help them right in the moment.

Using Micro-Moments

Designing content and implementing marketing strategies to make effective use of micro-moments is a task that requires careful planning and keen online marketing expertise. Accelerate Online Marketing can help you put together actionable strategies that will reach your audience right when they need you most, so contact us today!

At Globe Runner, we’re constantly presented with marketing tools to review and hopefully adopt. As we soon discovered, there  are hundreds of marketing tools for every conceivable purpose but only a select few are the ones that we just can’t live without. Following are the marketing tools that Globe Runner has perpetually open on browser tabs:

AdWords Editor

PPC Lead Stephanie Bradam says AdWords Editor is “constantly open” on her browser. The tool allows users to make changes in bulk and across multiple accounts, even offline. Apart from the convenience, it’s free — instant brownie points.

Asana

This task management tool is perpetually up on our screens. Asana acts as the central nervous system for the agency, the platform from which we assign tasks, determine work capacity and record time.  “It’s great for listing and tracking tasks as well as figuring out what’s going on,” said account manager Jenna Yoder. One fun feature of Asana is the occasional unicorn that appears when a task is checked off.

Canva

“Just about the easiest way to whip up banners, collages, social media headers and what-have-you” is how director of brand strategy Alicia Kan described Canva. The platform offers excellent pre-sized templates, easy drag-and-drop functionality and, if you’re lacking pictures, the option to buy good looking visuals for $1.

CODA2, Dreamweaver and Atom

Our web developers Daniel Edwards, Johnny Rodriguez and Jeff Baker use these “integrated development environments” (their words) on a daily basis. “All of them are like multiple programs rolled into one,” said Johnny. “It’s just a matter of preference on which tool to use. Since a visual interface is easier for me, I tend to use Dreamweaver.”

Google Analytics

Given that Globe Runner’s core competency is SEO, Google Analytics is always one of the first tools we check everyday to look at the status of clients’ websites. Their performance on Google Analytics tells us whether the strategies and tactics we’re employing are working, whether that be visitors to the blog or sales from e-commerce. Installing Google Analytics on a client’s site is always the first priority whenever we onboard a client, in order for us to work from a common baseline and to provide tangible metrics going forward.

Google Sheets

Sorry Bill Gates, but the sharing capabilities of Google Sheets give it the edge over Excel. “You can share [files] in real-time, with hardly any need to send emails back and forth,” said Ashley Bonner, quality manager. We’ve used Google Sheets for various purposes, from silo documents to content calendars like this one we made for 2016.

Hootsuite

According to Globe Runner’s head of content Zain Haidar, one of Hootsuite‘s main benefits is the functionality for planning and rescheduling social media posts across multiple accounts. “You can plan posts weeks in advance which is great,” he said. (Now if only Hootsuite could improve a rather clunky interface, our joy would be immeasurable.)

Moz.com

Apart from having various tools for 0nline marketing, Moz has an excellent video series we follow called Whiteboard Friday (usually over a Friday team lunch, like the one we’re having in the picture). Topics covered in the videos range from the latest ranking trends to male programmer dress tips. 

Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO is still one of the best introductions to the field to be found. Which is why Globe Runner staff are tasked with reading this guide as part of their onboarding.

PandaDoc

A fairly recent addition to our favorite marketing tools list, PandaDoc eliminates the drudgery and hours involved in proposal writing. The tool allows users to create a library of commonly used content, create templates and automate sending. “It makes it easy for me to collaborate [with others] on a proposal,” explained Globe Runner CEO Eric McGehearty. “It also organizes my sales pipeline.”

Passpack

Before Passpack, we were like every other business: Storing passwords in a common file that could be accessed by multiple internal users. After one too many ‘who changed the password!?’ conversations, we settled on Passpack to be the official repository. “Whenever I forget a password, it’s Passpack to the rescue,” said digital strategist Donnie Hanes. Not only is it convenient, but Passpack’s two-step login gives us an additional, reassuring layer of security.

RGB to Hex

Ever had to recommend colors for websites? Recreate palettes using online logos? Using Pantone colors as a guide is great for print but when it comes to websites, hex codes rule. So if you and your developer can’t agree on the exact shade of blue, use hex codes as a common basis for discussion. RGB to Hex is a simple calculator where you enter the RGB values and it spits out the hex code.

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is an SEO tool that crawls websites for data such as title tags, meta descriptions and external links. The data is served up in spreadsheet form so a user can easily find errors and issues at a glance instead of manually combing through a site. It’s especially useful for larger sites with hundreds of pages. Screaming Frog is an essential part of every SEO audit we do for clients.

SEM Rush

A must-have for any SEO, SEM Rush shows a site’s organic and paid traffic, keywords it’s ranking for, backlinks, competitive set and more. “It’s invaluable in researching keywords and identifying keyword opportunities,” said quality team lead Brian Meller. SEM Rush also allows domain comparison for up to three properties for quick top-level competitive analyses.

What marketing tools are must-haves in your position? Share them below as a comment.