The time has come for businesses to frame their search marketing in the context of a broader media landscape that includes all the ways people discover brands.
One of the implications of this is a new focus on location. Because “near me” mobile moments are experiencing a dramatic rise, brands must use the context of location across all their search marketing efforts — paid, earned and owned.
This reality hit home for me earlier this year when Forrester Research published its Wave for search marketing agencies, which is an evaluation of agencies such as 360i, Acronym and Ethology that provide search marketing services (Payment required for access to the full report).
I always read the Wave closely, along with other third-party research, such as the Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers Internet Trends Report by Mary Meeker, to identify what I call white spaces of opportunity for companies to grow their businesses through search, especially local search. And the 2016 Wave identified a number of those white spaces that remain relevant months later as the industry moves into 2017.
Wave author Collin Colburn made a number of observations about the state of search that have shaped my thinking throughout 2016.
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