Approaching the new year and closing out a busy 2017

It’s incredible how fast this year has gone by, and how little is left. The holidays are nearly upon us (and the music we’ve been playing in the office certainly reflects that!), but there’s still so much left for us to do.

Here are just some of the things our team is working on before it’s time to pop champagne and ring in the new year.

#1. Rolling out marketing plans for our clients

We have big plans for our clients in 2018, and we’ve developed specialized plans for each of them to take their campaigns to the next level. These marketing plans outline what we’ll be doing in the next 12 months, and what our expectations for their campaign are.

Of course, no (good) plan should ever be etched in stone—especially in this field. These marketing plans are always ready to change, based on business conditions and new developments in search, paid advertising, and more. However, they’re a blueprint for our team to build off of in 2018.

These plans are getting delivered to our clients in a monthly snapshot email that contains information about their campaign, upcoming projects, and things we need from them. Neat, right? These snapshots are being sent to clients on their maintenance days.

#2. Updating client websites

It’s not just planning. We’re actively making improvements to client websites this month. Not only are we creating and improving pages, but we’re working on the backend of the site to make sites more effective and secure than ever. We’ll have a blog on these exact changes coming soon!

Led by our web developer Alexander, we’re putting together new widgets that add new functionality to our client’s sites in the new year. These new features will boost user interaction with the site—one of the web design keys we wrote about this fall.

These changes are being rolled out to clients at various points determined by their marketing plans.

#3. Keeping tabs on recent changes in search

Just because it’s the holidays doesn’t mean that Google is slowing down. Just this week, they increased the character limit on page descriptions, which could have a major impact on how we build sites and pages.

At first glance, this might seem like a minor change. However, long-term, this change could have the potential to depress click-through-rates from Google to the site, since the user would have a greater chance to get the information they need through the snippet. We’ll be keeping an eye on this to see how it impacts our clients.

Other recent developments in this area include the continuing surge in voice search we wrote about two weeks ago (fueled in part by purchases of the Amazon Echo and Google Home this Black Friday) and new celebrity video responses to specific searches. Ok, so that last one doesn’t have too much of an impact on what we’re doing currently, but it could be something that sees wider usage in 2018.

It’s been a busy year for search, from the debut of Google Posts to Google Q&A. We’re excited to see what 2018 will bring, and we’ll be sharing some of our predictions for the year ahead in an upcoming blog post.

#4. Reflecting on the past year

2017 has been such a big year for us.

In February, we moved from our former office in Gilbert to our new space in Tempe (although it already feels like we’ve always been here!). We met some cool new neighbors, including Relentless, Inc., who we’re doing work with in the coming year. And we have certainly settled in when it comes to enjoying all the local food that Tempe has to offer.

March and April saw the launch of major new projects. In May, both Alexander and our social media manager Natasha joined the team. By the summer, project manager John had completed the first of many projects to spruce up our office, the latest of which—a larger-than-life desk lamp—debuted a few weeks back.

We piloted a boat. We melted ice cubes on the hottest day in the year (here in Phoenix, that’s 117). We started a new tradition of drinking root beer floats on Fridays. We watched an eclipse and celebrated National Beer Lovers Day.

It’s been a good year.

#5. Preparing for a great 2018

Of course, the end of the year is the perfect time to be planning for the one ahead. We’re all excited for where 5 Fold is headed in 2018, and our team is brainstorming and developing ways that we can deliver even more value to our clients in the new year.

What are your plans for the new year? Share them with us by connecting with us on Facebook.