Zac Johnson is CEO and Founder of MoneyReign, Inc. and an author of http://zacjohnson.com/. MoneyReign, Inc. is an online marketing company that was founded in 2000. Today the company focuses on a handful of site properties that focus on blog management, content creation and both B2B & B2C marketing.
Here’s what Zac Johnson had to say about his company and the future of digital marketing:
For those who aren’t familiar with you and your company, please tell us a little more about your company.
I first started making money online back in the mid 90s when I was in high school. In the beginning this was mainly through site creation, affiliate marketing and lead generation. As the environment changed, so did my business. I then went on to launch my first blog in 2007 at http://zacjohnson.com, where I share my stories, expertise and help others learn how to do the same. Last year I launched http://blogging.org, which is my latest focus and is aimed at helping people learn how to start a blog with purpose and how to stand out from the crowd.
Zac Johnson
What would you consider the most important development in digital marketing in 2015? What are your top 3 digital marketing trends that you think will dominate in 2016?
The most important development in the digital age is understanding how to create something amazing and getting people to find it. The problem most site owners have is that they think they can just create content and get a flood of people to their sites. Instead they need to realize that there are over a billion sites online and that it takes a lot of time, work and effort to not get lost in the mix.
Three trends to keep an eye on in 2016 are movements within Google and their future updates (knowing what works and how to protect your site). Building a brand that allows you to focus on your own growth and business, so you aren’t reliant on others. And lastly, using social media and mobile to expand your reach and engagement with your audience. All three of these factors are key to longterm growth and success.
Most business owners want to follow their competitors’ digital marketing strategies. Do you think this is a good or bad practice, and why?
If you see someone ranking at the top of the Google and you can look at their link structure and marketing methods, it makes sense to want to replicate them. However, in most cases you are only scratching the surface and not seeing the amount of time it built to create their links, authority, social reach, age of site / content and much more. Copying your competitors linking structures can definitely help, but it’s also definitely a long-term strategy that doesn’t bring success over night.
Zac Johnson
Today, a higher Google rank doesn’t mean you’ll get more organic clicks. What are your thoughts on this?
Site owners and businesses need to look at their site from every angle. If you don’t rank on the first page of Google, you might as well not rank at all. If you rank on page 2-10, then you need to focus on those rankings and improve them. On the flip side, you also need to make sure you are getting traffic from social media and paid ad campaigns. Organic search results are great, but only relying on this one source of traffic can put you out of business instantly if Google decides to change anything.
What’s the single most effective way marketers can leverage big data in their marketing strategies?
Create case studies, reports and infographics that can be shared with other experts and authorities within your niche. It usually takes a decent amount of time or money to create an infographic, but the long-term value, incoming backlinks and social shares from these campaigns can be huge. To compile such infographics, use your own data or “boring” data that is already out there. Everyone loves infographics, as they make boring information fun and easily readable.
Do you think the other search engines like Duck Duck Go / some other will stop Google’s Monopoly?
For the time being Google is king. They have a massive cash cow and can buy up any competitors that they see fit. However… if you were in this game long enough to remember, Yahoo back in the 90s and early 2000s… they were also the King of the land… time will tell.
