It’s no secret that SEO trends are constantly changing from month to month or even week to week. If you want to help your business thrive, keeping your internet marketing strategy up to date is an absolute must. But where do you start?
These top SEO experts weighed in on what trends to look for in internet marketing in 2019. Here’s what they had to say about how you should be handling your SEO this year.
Multi-Channel Marketing
As people look for a greater multimedia experience in their time spent online, companies are going to have to shift to accommodate. This means integrating more types of content into your online marketing strategy; everything from videos on Youtube to podcasts and more can be unique ways to build up your online presence.
“This year we will see the rise of digital video and audio,” said Christopher Romero of Full Scale SEO. “Content that can be consumed from any device with multiple variants that answers your users’ main questions and focuses on intent will be king.”
While your business may normally focus on blog posts as a means to boost your search engine results, don’t forget about up and coming forms of content creation as well.
“In 2019, digital marketing has to be thought about from a full-service approach,” said Jonathan Bentz of Direct Online Marketing. “Every business may have one channel that outperforms another or an area of their campaigns that needs specific growth, but businesses that are looking at leveraging one channel are missing the big picture.”
So, when building your online presence, don’t forget what platforms your customers will be using. Different platforms specialize in different types of content; for example, using Youtube to spread video content relating to your products and services.
“Companies must chart a path to engage on all digital channels where their target customers interact,” says Sterling Wahl of MWI. If you know your target audience has a strong presence on a particular platform, consider catering to their needs with that platform’s specialized medium.
And according to Ayokay’s Jack Shepler, personalization is key. Essentially, you must know your customers in order to properly market to them.
“Stop thinking of your customers as a list that are all interested in the same things — they’re not! We can learn a lot about each customer individually from their browsing patterns, purchase history, and how they interact with your brand — then automatically deliver personalized content based on that,” said Shepler.
Mobile-First
While not new to 2019, mobile searches are going to continue to be important in securing your keyword rankings this year. More internet and search engine users are looking for information via their smartphones, and being prepared for this will help put you ahead of your competition.
“I believe that in 2019 there is going to be a major focus on [accelerated mobile pages],” said David Abraham of Bluesoft Design. While right now it seems like AMP is something of a buzzword in SEO with uncertain implications for your business, it will be important to watch in the coming months.
“I believe that Google will begin penalizing sites that lack AMP pages rather than just favoring those that have them in the SERPs,” Abraham claimed. “It’s all about speed, ease of use and engage-worthy content.” If your mobile site is looking a little lackluster, now might be the time to give it the refresh it needs to boost your rankings.
Ranking Factors
Google’s algorithm is a mystery to us, but that doesn’t stop marketers from taking their best educated guess at what factors carry the most weight. For 2019, our experts pinpointed three specific areas: brand authority, business listings, and long tail keywords. Of course you can find people who are experts when you ask those who outsource SEO services consistently.
Anthony Atkins of CixxFive: “SEO in 2019 will keep shifting towards authority. Meaning, the days of exact match keyword domains will continue to fade into the past while growing a real brand will matter more for organic rankings.”
Leonard D’Souza: “Google is now providing most of the information in their SERPs itself, keeping an eye on Business Listings and optimizing for business listings is going to be important in 2019.”
Maqsood Rahman of SEO Audit Agency: “Long Tail keywords will be even more essential to SEO success in 2020 … for the voice search.”
But that’s not all. Brazos Valley Marketing’s Dustin Ogle added that the ” top digital marketing trends of 2019 are 1. content marketing 2. machine learning/automation 3. website experience and conversion rate optimization.”
And what about the technical side of SEO? Jason Parks of Cleveland Marketing King said that his company places great value on technical audits.
“Before implementing an on-site and off-site SEO strategy, it’s important to have a developer and SEO expert work together to try and find SEO deficiencies based on technical errors and issues with a site,” said Parks. “We like to use SEMRush and DeepCrawl to find this information. The technical items get overlooked because it requires a developer but they are extremely important.”
Voice Search And AI
In what truly feels like a technological marvel of the twenty-first century, more and more people are skipping over traditional searching methods entirely, instead using voice-recognition and artificial intelligence to find the results they’re looking for. Technologies like Apple’s Siri or the Amazon Echo are enabling users to search simply by asking a question aloud, completely changing the landscape of online searching.
In order to succeed in digital marketing in 2019, it’s important to have your webpages optimized to show up in these voice search results. “AI, […] voice search, and other zero-click SERPs are all going to get a lot of attention in 2019,” says Kyle Alm of SEO Bandwagon. “Zero-click is here to stay. And frankly, there is no good reason to click on a search result in Google to find out what time it is in another time zone.”
Voice recognition technology is changing how people are making use of search engines and online webpages. In order to capitalize on this technology, rather than be hindered by it, make sure you’re using it to encourage clicks to your page. People are more likely than ever to completely skip on clicking search engine results, so pay extra attention to keep people clicking on your links.
2019 is likely to be a big year for many businesses looking to strengthen their SEO and internet marketing campaigns. Paying attention to trends like multi-channel marketing, mobile device use, and artificial intelligence will help your company succeed online this year. Whatever method you choose to take, focusing on your online presence is a must for your business to thrive in this digital world.
