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Online marketing is one of the chief ways businesses compete and leverage the playing field. Larger corporations may not think twice about adding staff members with salaries, health insurance benefits, and vacation packages. Yet, for a mid-sized business, each additional employee could affect the company's bottom line and ability to grow. At the same time, they cannot afford to sit idle as the competition lurches ahead. Outsourcing some of these marketing duties becomes the obvious choice, says Mandy McEwen, founder of Mod Girl Marketing.

More than half the websites out there are powered by WordPress. With an abundance of free resources online, business owners may be tempted to create their own site on the platform. However, there are many reasons why business is still booming for WordPress consultants like Mandy McEwen from Mod Girl Marketing, a digital marketing firm based out of Southern California.

With an estimated 288 million active monthly users, Twitter is a beacon to marketers that can't be ignored. Not all of these users are prospects, of course, which poses a challenge for marketers who wish to find people who would be genuinely interested in their offerings, as well as people who are further along the purchase cycle and ready to buy. In last week's blog, Mandy McEwen, founder of social media firm Mod Girl Marketing, offers eight helpful tips for more effective Twitter lead generation.

How does a business owner choose the best SEO company when all the websites look so similar? Subtle differences can save entrepreneurs tons of money and aggravation, says Mandy McEwen, CEO of Mod Girl Marketing, an online marketing firm based out of San Diego. The worst part of trying an SEO firm that doesn't pan out isn't even the lost money – but the lost web presence over all those months and the stress of being strung along, she adds. In last week's blog at modgirlmarketing.com/best-seo-company-tell-good-bad-ugly/, Mandy McEwen discusses how to tell a good SEO company from a bad one.

It's natural for business owners to question their investment after months of posting blogs and receiving little or no comments from readers. Detailed analytics to show traffic statistics helps, but without clearly expressed goals, B2B blogging can feel like a futile effort. Mandy McEwen, CEO of Mod Girl Marketing, explains eight reasons why blogging is worth the investment.

Just like the consumer app market, the digital marketing tool landscape is super saturated, making it difficult for marketers to find the right solutions for their businesses. Perhaps that is why more than half of marketers say they do not have tools in place to monitor the financial impact of their social media marketing efforts. Mandy McEwen of Mod Girl Marketing offers a personalized, direct approach with her digital marketing consulting to help businesses find quick and effective solutions to their most pressing concerns.

Research shows that organic search accounts for 64 percent of website traffic, according to Search Engine Land. However, most companies get hung up on paid search, which typically only brings in 6 percent of a site's visitors.

Every once in a while marketers do what Upton Sinclair describes as "aiming for the public's heart and hitting them in the stomach." This year, website building company GoDaddy did just that by teasing a Super Bowl spot featuring a golden retriever who falls off the back of a truck and goes on an epic journey back home, only to find that he has been sold online.

Matt Cutts wasn't the only person leaving Google behind in 2014. Mid-year, auction site eBay switched its mobile search ads from Google to Bing. In late November, Firefox ditched Google as the default search provider, replacing it with Yahoo. Rumor has it, Apple is considering making a switch from Google to Bing or Yahoo on its Safari browser for iPhones and iPads.

The year 2014 brought many exciting twists and turns to the digital marketing industry. Mobile content consumption surged. Ad retargeting technology got much, much better. Google's Pigeon update changed the face of local marketing, placing increased emphasis on review sites. Mandy McEwen, digital marketing expert and founder of Mod Girl Marketing, says many of these trends will continue, but a few big changes are afoot for 2015.