Overdrive Releases The 2021 Search Marketing Map

Below are the categories you can find on the map, as well as new and top-performing resources.

Analytics

Having accurate analytics allows marketers to benchmark and measure their KPIs and deliver the sought-after ROI to the client. Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools. It allows marketers to see how many people are coming and going on their site, bounce rate, user demographics, and user behavior. All of this is important information to know when you’re planning campaigns.

App Search

These days, there’s an app for just about anything you can think of. Whether it’s gaming, scheduling, or shopping, chances are there are countless apps for it. On AppPicker, users can browse and purchase hundreds of iOS apps for iPhone and iPad. To get your business’s app discovered on app search sites like AppPicker, you’ll need to focus on keywords in your description, ratings, and backlinks.

B2B Search

If you’re looking for products or services for your business, B2B search engines can help you find them. Kompass is a B2B search engine that lets users search by activity, company, products/services, and locations. Users can also search by category, like electrical or leisure and tourism.

Local SEO

Some businesses need to target their marketing efforts to specific geographic locations. Certain apps and websites let you do that easily. Yext has tools to help businesses monitor reviews, track consumer insights, list your business on other discovery sites, and more.

Forum Search

Forums are a place for people to discuss their interests with each other and ask questions. Reddit is a forum site where brands can insert themselves into conversations relating to their market. They can also answer questions that may come up about their product/service. It is a great place for marketers to engage in a meaningful way with their customers.

Social Media Search

By now we all know how important social media is in a business’s digital marketing strategy. Social is a great place for advertising and monitoring trends. Talkwalker is a website that can measure your social media efforts, compare your results to your competitions, and see how people are talking about your brand on social platforms.

Infographic Search

Infographics are a creative way to teach your audience something relating to your product or service. Infographics are also a good way to grab your audience’s attention by making them eye-catching. Don’t have a creative team? No problem. Sites like Visual.ly can create these graphics for you.

SEO Tools

Your SEO strategy can be affected by a range of factors that change all the time. It’s not easy to keep track of everything that goes into it. That’s why there have been several tools created to make it easier for you. Moz can help you optimize your content and figure out what’s working content-wise for your SEO strategy.

Image Search

Not every business has a photographer to utilize, which can make it difficult to create a content bank for your website or social media posts. Websites like Unsplash can help you find a stock photo for any project. The best part is that all images on this site are free.

Keyword Tools

Keywords are an important part of SEO strategy, but how do you find the right ones? Keyword research will help you find keywords related to your company that are ranking. Wordtracker helps marketers discover trending keywords and the competition for ranking with those keywords.

Events 

It can be tough to keep up to date on the newest trends, techniques, and tools in marketing. Events are a great way to learn more about the constantly changing industry and stay ahead of the game. Right now, events are still going on virtually. For example, the Search Marketing Expo will include six virtual learning experiences in 2021.

Voice Search

Alexa, why is voice search important to marketers? The use of voice search continues to increase, and so, it’s important that SEO works with both written and voice queries. Several companies, including most cellphone providers, have their own version of Apple’s Siri. It’s worth looking into all of them, like Google Voice, to optimize your site for voice search.

Browser Extensions

Browser extensions can help keep your marketing efforts efficient by creating an easier workflow. For example, Majestic Backlink Analyzer can point out low-quality or broken backlinks to help you quickly improve your SEO efforts without even leaving the page.

News Search

Stay up to date and keep your fans up to date. Using current events in your marketing efforts is a great way to pick up on the traction of the event, and to help your brand come off as more personable. Popurls pulls news stories from a variety of websites and populates them on a single page so users can quickly browse headlines.

Tag Management

Tag management can be time-consuming. Tagcommander helps marketers A/B test and optimize their tags, track visitor behavior, and manage data. Tagcommander can save time and give marketers a better understanding of the performance of their tags.

Paid Search Tools

Utilizing paid search can help your company get ahead in search results when consumers search for one of your keywords. Clickable is a paid search tool that consolidates all of a company’s paid search data sources and allows them to visualize analytics in a customizable dashboard.

Scholarly Search

Sometimes, you just need to know that the information you’re getting is accurate. Scholarly search provides users with actual research, studies, and journals. This can be important when trying to present information to a client or build a new strategy. However, in a world of blogs, it can be hard to find trustworthy sources. Sites like Google Scholar are the place to go when you want to find scholarly journals and articles.

Search Education

If you’re a marketer, you know how often the marketing industry changes. A slight variation can completely alter your strategy. Staying up to date is crucial, but not always easy. Following sites like the Google Ad Blog can get you updates right from the source.

Landing Page Testing

Landing pages need to be functional, consistent, engaging, and motivate the consumer to take action. Crazyegg generates reports to let you see how users interact with your webpage. It can show you where people click, if users are struggling anywhere, and helps you A/B test your landing pages.

Video Search

Video is an important piece of digital marketing, as the amount of video consumption online increases yearly. Because of this, marketers need to know where they can post their video content. YouTube continues to reign supreme for video content, but Twitch is becoming a large streaming platform for gamers.

Search Engines

It can be easy to ignore most search engines, as Google dominates the space. However, there are many other search engines that marketers need to at least be aware of. Around 126 million people use Bing, so search marketing strategies should take Bing’s algorithm into account.

Shopping Search

If you’re trying to find coupons or browse selections from different brands, there are several shopping search sites for you. RetailMeNot is a source for consumers to find online deals and coupons for their favorite stores.

Archival Search

Many archival search services allow you to search a variety of historical topics. Internet Archive is a digital library of websites and digital artifacts from audiobooks to images. There are billions of pages, so search away.

Travel Search

It’s become easy to plan a whole vacation from your couch. There are several sites where you can search for flights, hotels, and even things to do on your trip using different criteria. If you’re in the travel industry, or just planning a trip, check out Tripadvisor or Trivago.

Interested in learning more? Download the Search Marketing Map with live links here. Please feel free to post any images related to the Search Marketing Map on your blog or site. All we ask is that you link back to this page.