Goodbye SEO! Rank and Convert Everywhere with DMO
Discover Digital Media Optimization and improve your search engine rankings, conversions, and revenue
Listen Time 23 Minutes
Every digital marketer knows that a web campaign’s success relies on a robust SEO strategy.
Or does it?
To some extent, SEO remains a crucial part of a successful digital presence. But what if there’s more to ranking and converting on platforms than the perfect keyword placement and SEO strategy?
Myrna Daramy is re-envisioning the digital footprint with DMO (Digital Media Optimization), a new, holistic method to appear and rank in search results on every platform. DMO relies on a strategy-first approach to content that prioritizes accessibility, developing and maintaining your “digital home,” and achieving conversions across platforms. Rather than narrowly focusing on keyword research and ranking, DMO relies on creating a strong brand identity capable of dominating an industry niche via multiple touch points.
If you’re ready to rank, convert, and increase sales on every platform, join host Courtney Tyson and Myrna on episode 14 of Smart Route podcast to learn the four elements of DMO and how to apply them to your business.
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Additional Resources:
- Check out Myrna’s accessibility application overlay. As a special thank you for joining us, listeners can use promo code SMARTROUTE for $50 off the installation on the Base package!
- For more great tips, follow Myrna on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
About Myrna Daramy:
Myrna Daramy is a Marketing Technologist and the founder of Myrna & Co, a technology coaching firm specializing in digital media marketing strategy, analytics, and ADA Compliance. Over the last 15 years, Myrna has educated over 500,000 professionals and transformed countless small business brands’ digital footprints. Myrna’s clients often call her the “Tech Whisperer” or the “Oprah of Tech” for her unique ability to translate ‘tech talk’ into simple and actionable concepts that make sense to even the most non-technical business owners.
Episode Transcript:
Courtney
Hello and welcome to episode 14 of Smart Route. I’m your host and strategic partnership manager at CallTrackingMetrics, Courtney Tyson.
The web is ever-evolving as we know and for the past decade marketers have been scrambling to optimize their web presence with SEO tactics. During this episode, we’re actually going to discuss a different optimization concept. Digital media optimization referred to as DMO and why it’s the new SEO so Myrna Daramy is here to educate us and prepares for the shift in optimization focus. Welcome Myrna and thank you for being here.
Myrna Daramy
I am so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
Courtney
We’re we’re excited to chat with you and before we dive in want to share a little bit more about you with our listeners. So Myrna is a marketing technologist and she’s the founder of Myrna and co a technology coaching firm and specializing in digital media marketing strategy analytics and ada compliance. The past fifteen years Myrna has educated over 500,000 professionals and transformed countless small business brands digital footprints her clients often call her the tech or the Oprah of tech which I absolutely love those nicknames as are some some pretty cool nicknames to have.
So so Myrna , tell us a little bit more about your business. and tell us a little more about what DMO is as well.
Myrna Daramy
Okay, so my business It’s so funny I Kind of just happened I wasn’t even planning on going into business I Just naturally had a knack for advising people providing suggestions I would say.
How to better optimize or better Market themselves, and so I just found myself oftentimes just in these conversations with I didn’t know at the time we’re business owners but it would just be that I happen to be actually like just talking about you know? oh you know how awesome would it be if you just blah blah blah and given and give them. And example and then next thing you know I would be consulting with them in executing. So that’s kind of how I fell into the world of marketing I mean prior to that I was ah in the world of architecture. I was a senior project manager for construction company.
And I was in the process of getting my and Mba but I didn’t know what I was going to do with it yet. So that’s kind of how I kind of stbled on this and when it comes to DMO. It’s my own coin freeze or acronym. It’s digital media optimization because again I’ve I realized very early on that I had this love affair with optimizing things like so I would walk into a nail salon and I would look at how they’re marketing or like what messages they’re giving me when I’m in the space and how I even found them and next thing you know like I said I’m sitting there talking about how it could be even more optimized or better to get a better result so optimizing has always been a thing for me so I coined the phrase digital media optimization because we live in this digital Era Now where most content that people are receiving are in some digital form.
And I think it’s important for business owners today to understand how to better optimize the content that they’re putting online in order to get a better return on it. You know why are you doing it in the first place and of course the goal is hopefully to either create engagement.
Generate more revenue and get more customers or you know just to have some kind of connection and I think ah it’s important in doing that that you are doing it to the best of your ability.
Courtney
Okay, so in a sense DMO is this concept of how everything you’re doing digitally online ties together and contributes to the journey of of a buyer right.
Myrna Daramy
Exactly I mean I feel like a lot of people spend so much time thinking about certain silos of it. They think about social media and you know how they’re you know, showing up on Facebook or Instagram or some of these these platforms they think about SEO. When it comes to their website but the reality is all of it works holistically together in order to optimize your whole entire footprint because you know I I make jokes about this but I always say like your website is your daily home that is the one place that you know you have the most ownership of online.
So taking care of that and when you have guests come to your home. What kind of hospitable elements. Are you providing them like you know so I have this whole like analogy of you know if you’re going to have content online and you’re going to utilize it to communicate connect or establish some kind of community.
Courtney
Interesting.
Myrna Daramy
The best thing you can do is just realize that it needs to be as optimized as possible to make that connection even more impactful. So yeah.
Courtney
It’s all got to tie together so in a sense DMO is different from SEO because it’s this holistic approach but does it differ in other aspects.
Myrna Daramy
Ah, yeah, so it differs in other aspects in that you know SEO and it’s so funny I’m actually going to be talking about this today at the conference I’m at SEO is one of those coin phrases that I feel like people throw it around like crazy I mean it’s very convoluted complicated.
I mean people call themselves SEO like they’ll say get yourself an SEO. So I say all that to say that it has gotten so blown out of proportion as to what it is that I feel like it’s something that needs to be better differentiated and and definitely broken down differently. So it differs from SEO in that when I speak of SEO I’m pretty much talking specifically what it is which is search engine optimization if you have content as going to show up on a search engine that you want to optimize it.
When I say digital media optimization I am saying any type of content you put online whether it’s something that will end up on a search engine or not you have certain tactics and strategies that you can use in making that type that content that’s digital more optimized.
So it’s definitely looking at it more from a holistic higher level approach and understanding that you know you’re having this end in mind first mentality of when you’re putting something online. You’re being very intentional as to what you’re doing it for and why you’re doing it I feel like a lot of people just do things to do and not necessarily having that thought process of well the goal of this is because of X and because that is the goal. We need to pretty much put it up accordingly or or you know incorporate certain elements accordingly.
Courtney
I just think this this is so interesting because when I think of search engine optimization. That’s exactly what I think of is how is a website ranking right? when I go into Google and I do my keyword search like that’s what I think of as SEO whereas. Your concept that you’ve created DMO is is the holistic approach of everything you’re putting out there on the web. How is it supporting one another. But then how also does it contribute to your rank. That’s a factor of it right? But like how is everything supporting one another and helping helping you know how are the elements helping one another to drive that buyer.
Myrna Daramy
Exactly
Courtney
To convert drive that buyer to engage with your your company. So let’s talk a little bit about like a social media. , what does DMO and SEO for that matter look like for social media. So for example, you. Can DMO be used by smaller teams in lieu of bigger content lifts, such as blog posts and ebooks?
Myrna Daramy
Yes, so it can be used in all assets so in in terms of when you’re thinking about the content you’re going to put up. It’s either going to be copy visual stimulation like an image or video or it could be audio right? So these are kind of like the the main types of content that you can place online and when you are putting it online. You think how is it that I’m going to either 1 expand the reach of this content and 2 make it so that it’s easily found right?
You know when it comes to say for example, copy that you’re going to write whether it’s a blog post whether it’s a social media post whether it’s a Twitter post. You know, kind of thing. , you have to consider again if the end in mind is you want to expand the outreach of that and you want to make sure that. It connects to as many people as possible. What are you going to do in order to do that and of course depending on the media. It may be hashtags. It may be keywords. It may be alternative text. It may be subtitles so it does depend on each one of the different types of content on how you can optimize it and then from that of course if there are search engines involved because again like if we think about it like Instagram for example, people will search based off of a Hashtag or you know the the algorithm factor actually organizes content based off of a Hashtag. You want to make sure you’re incorporating the proper hashtags to your content when it comes to your website. You have keywords that also should be placed in key element areas in order for the search engines themselves to be able to understand and decipher and put context to the cop to the content that you’re adding on the website.
It’s actually like looking at this from a very granular approach making it very simple to say oh I’m just connecting the dots and that was how I approach you know DMO so it actually does go across all different genres here and all different platforms. But it actually makes it so much more simpler because if you think how do I connect this dot. It makes it so much more streamlined.
Courtney
Okay, that makes sense and I guess social media is a great way to to connect those ads is this great way to put so many different forms of content out there right and share so many different stories about your business.Let’s talk to about web accessibility and inclusivity. , you know what should SEO specialists be thinking about in terms of web accessibility and inclusivity and I guess how does that kind of go hand in hand with with DMO strategy as well.
Myrna Daramy
I I love this question because accessibility is like the new SEO and why the reason why I say that is because you know but I’d say Twenty Fifteen 2014 back in the day you know that’s like eons ago at this point I feel like no one really knew about SEO like they knew of it.
But they didn’t really know what it meant they just you know it was like what is this ah SEO thing. Fast forward to now I feel like a lot of businesses are aware. They’ve heard it. They know that they need it. They know that it it can convert and so they are more adding some elements in to make sure that they are. Benefiting from you know the strategies that SEO can bring. But now we have web accessibility which is kind of like the next level up and when you think about it. Web accessibility in the general terms of things is basically gearing towards making sure that the content that you’re placing on the web is more accessible to all right? and when we say all we’re meaning that it’s inclusive incorporating not just ah, people who may have disabilities or may be deemed as having a disability but also to everyone who will use itizes the web. And so I feel like you know people always say you know when it comes to SEO. You know you have to think about how to make it you know easy for Google to find you or Google to connect those dots with accessibility. It’s now opening it up the floor. The floodgates to say. Now, you’re giving people options on how they’re actually going to engage with your content and you’re making it easier for people who might have differently abled skill sets to access the information so that is how I think it’s really important and when it comes to SEO. Especially. Adding accessibility features into the media that you post online makes it more optimized if you think about it with an image. You have the option of adding alternative text or adding captions or even having the file name be specific with keywords all of that optimizes the website you know or optimizes your your actual image you know in in terms of SEO even though it’s an accessibility game to do that so they kind of go hand in hand. It’s literally like the next evolutionary step in making content more optimized period. So I love it and I feel liken definitely SEO specialists need to be thinking about how they can make the content and everything on the web more accessible as a whole.
Courtney
Does does Google take , accessible content into account when it comes to SEO ranking right now like is that something that’s it. Okay I didn’t know that and if it was like a okay, that’s good to know.
Myrna Daramy
Yes, like the perfect example like I said with images for that’s a big example there if a an image is named properly meaning that it has proper keywords so there’s context in the file name if the image has alternative text to provide context to a search engine to understand what the image is about because let’s face it Courtney I see this all the time with businesses too. They can have the same exact image. You know a woman walking in the park. But if they’re selling sneakers. obviously you would want the sneakers to stand out. There’s no way Google or a search engine could make context that to sneakers is what context they should have unless there are some alternative text to back it up.
Aside from the content that’s around the image as well. Like you know if it’s on a web page. It’s about sneakers Google’s Ai could possibly infer that this image might have to do with sneakers but it’s one of those things where if you make it easier. It will definitely go a long way. So yes to answer your question accessibility 100% does help in optimizing and making it easier to have some strong SEO for sure.
Courtney
Gotcha. Okay, so that’s in terms of what you know someone should be doing to kind of start this DMO journey. That’s that’s probably 1 thing you would say right is is important. Let’s let’s start you know making all of your content accessible inclusive that’s going to help. . What are I guess 3 steps that that someone could take to start their DMO journey I guess that would kind of be 1 of them right? But , what else?
Myrna Daramy
Got it and yeah, exactly that is one of them. So I break DMO down into four elements. So the first is content management strategy right? So it’s like once you’re thinking about creating content online. Let’s create a strategy around it whether that be that that. Strategy is that that content’s gonna live on a web page. It’s gonna live in social media. It’s gonna be specific to a certain blog that you’re writing whatever the case may be starting at that top of the tree so content management strategy is like the crucial more important part from there then you can think about SEO and how you can optimize. For a search engine in terms of that content and then from there you can also think about accessibility. So that’s kind of like the second step of SEO for me and then we also have social media strategy because I think a lot of people you know, definitely from a business standpoint understand how powerful of a tool social media can be in marketing and leveraging their brand online so you want to make sure that you’re incorporating a strong social media strategy. So that’s the third element and then the fourth is if you’re going to actually pay for anything pay to play the search engine marketing piece. So this is something again as a strategy works but you just need to be very much on the pulse of how the roi is working. So if I were to say okay, what are the the first things that I would think about in terms of getting DMO ready and like going on this DMO journey I would say first things first. Think about your plan and you know begin with the end in mind. First if you’re going to create content online where are you going to place. It are you going to have it where it’s in multiple spaces meaning if it’s going to show up on a blog post also on a social media post if you’re going to you know, reference it on a third party. Platform that kind of thing think about the content first from there then you should determine. Okay, whatever content I’m going to do whether it’s a blog post or like all words an image a video audio. How do I optimize this content to make it so that it’s more accessible. And more inclusive. So that people can reach it and then you go from there and that’s kind of like the the step so accessibility is kind of like the second step first step is lo and behold know your strategy like have an end in mind first think of the plan before you just start creating content.
Courtney
It’s nice to have like an actual journey mapped out for our listeners is like a takeaway. So I think that’s that’s extremely helpful and so I think that’s that’s great for our listeners who are just kind of starting this this this DMOs journey that. Strategizing. They’re starting to think about their you know SEO picture on a larger scale. , let’s talk a little more about like what businesses can do right now to improve their DMO, that might be different from what they’re doing to improve SEO.
Myrna Daramy
Right? So I would say what I think you should do overall to improve your DMO is take a look at your digital footprint like where are you showing up. Do you have a website. Do you have a digi home is that digy home. Representative and reflective of where you currently are in your business. Yes, or no because a lot of times I feel like people will always say oh that web you know my website I did it two years ago and I haven’t really updated. It. So I would say start at your digi home and just making sure that it is the most relevant. Representative of your business today and then from there I would say okay, let’s look at all the different areas that you are showing up online and decide one is it working for you and if it’s not remove it or don’t send people there. Or 2 if it is working for you. What can you possibly do to make it even more impactful or effective and then from there step step 3 would be okay now that you kind of know where you’re gonna live online now. Let’s just that now let’s try to decide how you’re gonna live online meaning. Any type of content that you do upload to the web. What are you going to do to try to make it more optimized and more accessible.
Courtney
Okay, the the end goal always has to be yeah where is your content going to live and how are you going to live. How is everything going to tie together and supplement one another in order to provide the best experience for your end user.
Myrna Daramy
Exactly.
Courtney
So, Myrna,I think it’s awesome that you’ve you’ve developed this concept right? You’ve had such great success in your career and love that you’re this kind of natural consultant right? always coming up with these great ideas. , how are some. Some ways that our listeners can dive deeper into this topic.
Myrna Daramy
So definitely connect with me because I feel like yeah this is one of those things. That’s so funny people think you know when they’ve heard of DMO and then they don’t realize like I created this thing out of you know, just working with so many clients over the years and realizing that you know.
There’s a thing like I think it’s good to have a roadmap or just a way to looking at how you’re putting content out there online. , and so the ways to connect or just get more information on it is connecting with me, you can always find me on all the channels for the most part. But my digi homes my more I guess I would say the the most easiest way because you could always just send me a message on there because I do do sessions with people like I could do like a little strategy session with you and I can consult and work with people as well on just optimizing themselves as a whole. The other thing I would say too when it comes to accessibility I had teamed up with a development company that created an application overlay that allows for websites to be more accessible so that’s another way that you can connect with me as well. It’s called Activeada and so I do have courses too just to you know, kind of give a heads up on that where I teach people about DMO and also accessibility as well.
Courtney
Fantastic. That’s great so far our listeners check out http://mernodaremy.com , all the ways in which you can get in touch with Marina you can do so through her website and then also check http://outactavta.com as well. Her accessibility application overlay so we’ll be . When we when we send out more information about the this episode we will include that coupon code in there which is Smart Route. so that’s for $50 off the installation of the accessibility application. So this is. And super interesting. Myrna. Thank you so much for joining us and educating us on DMO how it differs from SEO. So for all of our listeners out there I think best message really is. It’s time to start thinking about some to start to stop thinking sorry about how to optimize content individually. Of course continue to do that but take it to the next level and think about how all of your your pieces out there. How your digital media footprint is all you know, tying together to one another. How are all of your your pieces of content out there supporting each other as one holistic approach. So thank you very much Myrna this has been great, we’ve learned a lot and again for all of our listeners please get in touch with Myrna she’s got ah a lot of great knowledge to share about this concept and how to kind of think about your digital media optimization approach holistically.
Thank you to our listeners as well for listening in and supporting smart route. We very much appreciate with appreciate you keep in touch with us on Twitter Smart Route Pod we will talk to you soon
Myrna Daramy
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been really fun.