As anyone involved in the digital media industry will be aware, things change quickly. Actually, that\’s an understatement – things can change so considerably fast that it can be difficult to keep up with exactly what\’s happening unless you take the time to continually keep your knowledgebase up-to-date.
One of the most confusing aspects of the industry, particularly for those not involved in it regularly, is that the meanings behind some of the most common phrases can change. What can mean one thing one year can mean something different the next – not necessarily something completely different or which changes the actual basic meaning of the phrase, but enough change to warrant the need to update your understanding.
And so, looking at 10 of the most popular phrases in digital media, here we provide an explanation of just what the phrases meant previously and what they mean now.
1. Building backlinks
On the most basic of levels, building backlinks still means what it always has done – gaining links from other websites that point back to yours.
However, whereas once the focus was effectively on quantity, today it\’s very much on quality. One link from a relevant, high quality, respected website is going to be considerably more beneficial than 10 links from any website, irrelevant of whether it\’s in the same industry as you are.
2. Anchor text
Whilst, like backlink building, the definition of anchor text hasn\’t changed, what has changed is what you should include in it.
For the past few years, people have automatically filled their anchor text with keywords. Today, the text needs to be as natural as it can possibly be – if that means including one of your focused keywords in it, that\’s fine, but if it would be much better with something else (such as \’click here\’, \’contact us\’ or \’our recent blog post\’), then you should undoubtedly head down that route.
3. User experience
What\’s interesting about the term \’user experience\’ is that although it\’s been bandied around the industry for years, it\’s only been in particularly recent times that its true meaning has been understood.
When you\’re delivering any type of digital activity, from designing a website through to making a tweet, you need to consider the experience the user – i.e., a potential customer – will go through. If you don\’t, you could easily find you\’re investing in activity and not satisfying your audience, which in turn could make it difficult to see any success and ultimately, any return on your investment.
4. Guest blogging
The process of having your content published on other people\’s blogs has always been a popular process, but it\’s increased massively so in recent times. However, it\’s vitally important that if you want to see success from it moving forward, you need to follow the \’quality over quantity\’ rule.
If you\’re creating content and publishing it on any blog possible, littering it with links back to your own website, you\’re going to see only minimal positive results – if any at all. Should you take the time to research your audience, find suitable blogs and create content that\’s first and foremost for the reader, however, the benefits are very likely to be plentiful.
5. Keyword research / ranking
Although there\’s not one set phrase here, we basically want to highlight the fact that today, it\’s difficult to work with any set keywords when we\’re looking at a SEO strategy.
Up until relatively recently, it was possible to see search volumes for keywords, which keywords people were using to access your website and in many ways, base the success of a strategy on where you ranked in the search engines.
Whilst all of this is still possible to a certain degree, considering that SEO strategies should now focus on the customer experience more than ever, it\’s much more beneficial to move away from focusing purely on keywords and instead, look at things such as increased website traffic.
By focusing on keywords, you could miss what\’s actually important – your customers\’ experience with you – and as a result, end up delivering a service that is no where near as effective as it could be and doesn\’t produce a suitable ROI.
We\’re sure most would agree the world of digital media is a particularly interesting one, but there\’s little doubt it\’s also one that\’s complex and intricate, with so much to take into consideration – and here we wanted to give an insight into just this, showing how so much can change, seemingly on a small level, but which can have a huge impact on a digital strategy.