Start off your week strong with our curated list of tips and inspiration around every aspect of the digital marketing world. This is the Mad Fish Catch of the Week.

SEO

Even if your company has got traction on SEO, that’s no excuse to stop improving. Nailed your local rankings? Claimed your local keywords? Researched keywords and started to optimize? Awesome. Now it’s time to take it to the next level and see results.

Making your website crawler friendly can be confusing, but using a structured data mark up makes it easier. Think of a data markup like this: it’s Google’s way of understanding what’s on your website, for instance, service pages, explanations of your company, and any content you may have created whether it be on-site or in blog form. The data will describe both written content as well as user rankings, summaries, and photos. Want more tips? Here are three trends to watch in 2017.

PPC

Here at Mad Fish, we’re well-versed in higher education PPC. Want to elevate your university’s efforts? These do’s and don’ts could make a difference. For instance, you may think that advertising year-round is overkill, but because of the long lead time for higher education, it’s important to ensure prospective students are having their interests reinforced as they debate different programs and schools. You don’t want to drop off people’s radar, and remarketing campaigns are a great way to continue keeping programs top of mind for your audience.

Another major key? Skip out on the campus photos and opt for people instead. You’ll always see better results.

Design

While evolutions in design may usually be flashy (hello Virtual Reality), we’re loving these simple designs from Swedish designer Viktor Hertz. His hobby has resulted in a collection of beautifully simple visual puns representing popular music tracks. If you need a little inspiration (and a reminder that sometimes less is more), check them out.

Social Media

Live events like the Oscars are prime fodder for social media antics. Whether it be collective adoration for Taraji Henson’s stunning red carpet look, Jimmy Kimmel’s classic Mean Tweets segment, or, a scandal no one could have predicted: #EnvelopeGate. The uproar regarding an envelope mix-up that resulted in La La Land mistakenly being awarded Best Picture when, in fact, Moonlight had won was a shot that resulted in “What Just Happened” trending.

This kind of live event continually pushes social media managers and brands to move faster, puts more pressure on presenters and performers, and reminds us that everyone looks a little more human in the face of a mistake. Get the lowdown on the rest of what’s trending this week.

Content Marketing

If you feel like your content marketing strategy is tired, or you’re thinking… what strategy? It might be time to reevaluate. While targeting keywords, integrating branded content, and regular output may help you get your content off the ground, it’s integral to a successful strategy that you truly understand your audience.

How do you move from impersonal keyword research and targeted markets to a comprehensive content marketing strategy? Empathy might be able to help. If you’re able to utilize a combination of brand terms, user search intent, and genuinely informative and compelling information to entice a reader to engage with your content you are getting them one step closer to conversion. Focusing too much on sales and leads immediately may dilute your ability to gain their trust. It could also reduce their connection with the services you offer if you are always on the offensive for selling. After all, in 2015 branded content output increased to 35% per channel… but engagement dropped by 17%. Get more tips here.

Culture

Got tension in your office? While you may be seeing high turnover or anxiety over raises, your situation is likely to feel low-key compared to the turmoil that Uber is publicly experiencing. From the tumultuous #DeleteUber hashtag to recent news coming out about disregard for employee safety in harassment cases, the lack of leadership on the HR side as well as management is clear. How did they get there – and how can you avoid ever seeing your company go the same way?

A lack of defined values, ineffective HR, and refusal to take responsibility for the company’s actions may all be contributing factors. Does your company have values they don’t own? If you’re able to say something (or change them yourself) performing branding exercises could help you reprioritize and get things on track. Remember: helping your office be a better place to work makes everyone happier and more productive.

Productivity

How much do you believe you can accomplish? One’s understanding of their own potential to succeed is called self-efficacy. Improving your own understanding of your abilities and empowering yourself to do more is a key way employees can improve productivity, improve creativity, and stay organized.

So, how do you improve self-efficacy? One theory is that reflecting on your own experiences and perform self-reviews you can gain a better understanding on what you’ve done. It logically follows that with that information you’ll be able to more accurately gauge your performance. Knowing what you excelled at, what could use improvement, and what new ideas you’d like to test is the first step. Ready to get started? Start performing self-evaluations and reap the benefits.