Spring has finally sprung, and consumers are looking forward to getting their homes ready for summer. Tasks like fixing air conditioners, opening pools and getting home exteriors pressure-washed are appearing on to-do lists around the country — and residents will soon start contacting local businesses to help them cross these items off. Though word-of-mouth and local advertising play a part in connecting consumers with your business, the value of local online directory listings and proper listings management cannot be overstated.

Search Engine Watch reports, "Searches with local intent are more likely to lead to store visits and sales within a day. ... 50 percent of mobile users are most likely to visit after conducting a local search, while 34 percent of consumers on tablets or computers will go to a store." If your store listings aren't displayed correctly, you could miss out on valuable customers this spring and summer. Here are three key benefits of proper online listings management:

In 2015, it's reasonable to expect that most small and medium-sized businesses will have a social networking presence and make regular posts about promotions, new products and more. But while getting the word out about your business is a big piece of the social media puzzle, there's an even bigger component you may be missing: online reputation management.

You might be tempted to ignore online reviews and focus your efforts elsewhere, but research from New York Times best-selling author Bill Tancer suggests this could be a serious mistake. Speaking with Marketing Land, Tancer reveals that 80 percent of consumers check online reviews before making purchasing decisions — and what's in those reviews matters more than you might think.

Here are three best practices for developing a good online reputation:

Both inbound marketing and paid search are important components of any digital strategy, but where and how they intersect with one another isn't always so clear. Inbound sometimes seems to function as its own campaign, separate from other strategies, whereas paid search often serves as the fraternal twin of search engine optimization (SEO).

But in the digital sphere, individual campaigns always get a boost when partnered with other distinct campaigns as a form of cross-channel marketing. A successful pairing of digital tools can bring significant gains, both in terms of leads and conversions. Here's a quick rundown of what paid search has to offer inbound marketing.

Paid Search Guarantees Visibility

Inbound marketing requires an audience, which is achieved through a number of marketing channels. Social, SEO, email and, yes, paid search all have a hand in driving traffic that creates sales opportunities, according to Search Engine Watch. When you attach paid search to an inbound strategy, you guarantee exposure for the content you're publishing while giving it viable prospects to work with. Paid ads also give you the flexibility to choose the type of content displayed.

What's critical to digital strategy and benefits SEO, social engagement, site traffic, sales and more? Content. Content can serve all of these purposes and more — but for companies to leverage its best attributes, they must first use it to build trust with their consumers.

Even in traditional marketing, the importance of trust is obvious: Consumers don't want to get scammed or ripped off, and they want to be able to believe in a company's products or services. Yet, trust carries even greater implications on the content front. Entrepreneur notes that the average Internet user sees five thousand ads per day, and with all of that noise, the best way to stand out is to create content that builds trust with your audience. A lack of trust among an audience can stifle not just conversions and engagement, but even the reach and impact of that content.

Content marketing strategy is heading in a new direction in 2015, largely due to ever-changing algorithms, mobile entry points and more demand by users for relevant content that meets their needs. There's no longer a single content solution or a single method of delivery that will lead you to success. Here are six do's and don'ts to see you through 2015.

DO Analyze and Adjust

A study by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) showed that 77 percent of B2C marketers have a content marketing strategy in place. The 60 percent of these with a documented strategy considered it successful because they can track ROI and use their metrics to tweak content and delivery over the long term.

There's no magical key to instant success in search engine rankings — but that means nobody else has one, either. Building an effective SEO campaign is all about putting in the work, slowly and steadily, over time. Maybe you've already noticed a drop-off in the effectiveness of a campaign designed to exploit some change in Bing, Yahoo or Google algorithms. Or maybe you want to get optimization right from the start. Either way, SEO should be part of your company's long-term strategy, taking users all the way from click to conversion. Don't focus your questions on search engines, but on how to effectively communicate with your customers so search engines can deliver the optimally qualified results.

These five tips to boost your seo strategy aren't quick fixes, but they will strengthen your search engine game.

Content marketing trends indicate more companies are using social media, e-newsletters and website articles to engage with customers, establish themselves as experts and build their businesses. With content curation, content discovery tools, personalization, optimization and storytelling requirements — not to mention changing search engine algorithms and paid advertising — implementing an effective content marketing plan as part of your overall marketing strategy seems like an ever-changing, if not overwhelming, task.

But help is at hand. As we move into 2015, work on getting your content in front of your target customer, building your brand awareness and increasing sales by aligning your content marketing strategy with these five trends:

1. Write It Down

A study by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs showed the top strategy trending in content marketing is perhaps the most obvious: Document it. While most marketers surveyed had a verbal strategy, 60 percent of those with a documented strategy found it more effective than a verbal one.

Social media strategy has become key as the millennial generation emerges with distinctive patterns of connectivity, values and spending. While they are mobile-centric — according to Nielsen, 85 percent of them own a smartphone — and are connected 24/7, reaching them has perplexed retailers, who have found that millennials don't respond to traditional marketing methods.

How do you connect with the most connected generation in history? Social media is their entry to the Internet, and it leads search engines in terms of content discovery — which means you need to develop a relationship with them on social media. Here are five steps to take.

1. Find Out Where They Hang Out

Different social networks serve different functions. Mashable notes that a report from Frank N. Magid Associates Inc. shows that teen Facebook usage dropped from 95 percent in 2012 to 88 percent in 2014. Twitter, meanwhile, saw an increase in adult users in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center. Tumblr and Pinterest are popular with women, notes FinancesOnline, and Pew reports that college graduates and higher-income users are generally found on LinkedIn. Find out where your millennials hang out and engage them there.

Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of content marketers quite like Google algorithm updates. Ever since Panda changed the game back in February 2011, marketers have lived in perpetual fear that the next algorithm update will be the one to kill all their traffic and send their site into obscurity. However, while it's easy to fall into this way of thinking, these updates don't have to be so scary. Here are three essential tips that marketers can use to get through these updates with minimal traffic impact.

1. Get Out of Bad Habits

The biggest things that affect website traffic after Google algorithm updates are what could be considered "spammy" techniques that have historically given sites with poor content an advantage over sites with high-quality content. Because these updates target broad practices such as keyword stuffing and link manipulation, some legitimate sites get lumped in with the poor-quality ones. Perform a self-audit of your current SEO strategies and try to scale down on bad habits regarding linkage and keyword usage that could flag your site during an algorithm update.

Holiday marketing season 2014 is already in full swing, and according to new data released by the National Retail Federation, consumer spending will be up this year. Marketers who don't take advantage of every last second of it will be left behind. Here are some content marketing tips to help you make sure that this holiday season is merry and bright.