Every year there are new and improved strategies in the digital marketing world. With new strategies, comes challenges for small businesses to keep ahead of the curb. We’ve reached out to the best local digital marketing experts to inform us what we should expect in 2019.
Diversify Your Strategy
“Our company focuses on digital marketing for local service based businesses,” says Rebekah Richards of JuceBox Local Marketing Partners. “With so much of the traditional page 1 real estate being taken up by ads and other Google features that push down traditional ranking spots, often below the fold, we focus on getting featured in four ways:
1) The Google Maps pack. Our clients need to show up in the top 3 and they must have Google reviews that beat their competition. Reputation marketing and SEO now go hand-in-hand.
2) Ranking YouTube videos for common questions in their niche as well as branded searches. The YouTube thumbnail really helps them stand out and videos that feature the business owners and their employees or customer testimonials increase trust and rapport.
3) Featured snippets. Content that is created has a heavy focus on answering questions and we use the FAQ schema to increase the likelihood of our answer being selected for the featured snippets. There is nothing quite like being featured at the very top of the Google search results.
4) Google Posts. By posting to Google we generate more organic clicks for our clients. Since Google posts come with CTA buttons visitors are encouraged to take action off the post.”
Create In-Depth Content
“Give readers and Google what they want to see; in-depth content. There’s been a bad habit circulating of sites writing blogs that seem to say the same thing post after post,” says Kelly Rossi of Marketing Magnitude. “What we’re finding now is that writing longer content with better information is performing better with visitors and on Google.”
Find A Reputable Marketing Company
“Work with a company that keeps you informed. Your digital presence is paramount, and can be your largest asset if utilized properly,” says Kelly Shoumate of AdCaffeine Marketing.
Don’t Forget About Technical SEO
“SEO used to balance on-page and off-page, but now technical SEO is a big piece of the pie,” echoes Shane Griffiths of Clarity Online. “We focus heavily on page speed, caching and rendering, Schema, site structure, and other technical factors when optimizing a website.”
Page Speed
“One of the most effective SEO strategies I have seen in 2019 has been optimizing page speed,” describes Tyler Rice of Animas Marketing. “The speed of a website not only influences customer behavior but is also becoming a larger ranking factor for Google and other search engines. It is becoming important to consistently monitor websites with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, and GTmetrix to keep up with the fastest speeds possible.”
Old Trends Stay Relevant
“Some of these have been used for a while but they are definitely growing in digital marketing. The process is different, and finally the client is paying attention,” says Gabriella Sannino of Level343.
- Artificial Intelligence
- Chatbots
- Personalization
- Video Marketing
- Voice Search
- Marketing Automation
- Next-Generation SEO
Long-Term Game
“There isn’t a “magic bullet” with SEO. Each situation is different. Sometimes a client comes in with a mess that we can show improvement on rather quickly,” says Nick Fitzgerald of AuDSEO. “Many times, it’s the long haul. However, cleaning up messy technical issues and then doing some solid white hat link building work will always prove successful.”
Be Specific
“Specificity.”
“Be specific about what you want. I mean really hone in on what you want to happen,” says Jon Tsourakis of Oyova. “Do you want more traffic? Of course, but how much? Do you want to rank for a specific term? Perfect. Which page will do it? Which backlinks do you need to acquire? What content needs to be created? Be clear. State what actions you’re going to take to make this happen. Specificity. SEO can be ambiguous, but it doesn’t have to be. Be specific about what you want from SEO and how you’re going to do it. Then magically, it becomes more effective.”
Incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI)
“In the ever evolving digital marketing landscape, companies must rethink their strategies to meet the consistent rapid shift,” describes Michelle Wilson of VIP Marketing Pros.
“Content, video and social media marketing, SEO and PPC continue to be high on the priority list, however, incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now an integral part of digital marketing. This includes Chatbots, AI-based technology that uses instant messaging to provide 24/7 virtual personalized customer service.”
Mimic Your Competitors
“The most effective SEO strategy in 2019 is going back to doing research in the most basic, common sense way,” adds Brian Taylor of Goldiata Creative. “Taking a look at the competition who’s currently ranking on page 1, and mimicking what they’re doing both on-page and off-page. Search engines have already deemed these as the qualities they look for when ranking websites.”
Don’t Forget About Video
“If you are not using video as a part of your digital marketing campaigns, you are missing the boat,” mentions Gina Ramsey of Pink Dog Digital. “Branded video content is up by 298% on Facebook alone. Take the leap now, before it is too late.”
“Video content marketing is at its peak and knowing what to produce and how to publish is essential in todays online business,” echoes Kevin Barraco of Smart Media. “No matter what you are selling or what services you provide, every business needs to produce engaging video content that will help them stand out. At Smart Media, we focus on video content services and feel that publishing that video on social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn provide incredible branded reach and discoverability. Of course, you must know when to back this up with paid social media advertising on those channels to get the most out of your marketing strategy.”
E.A.T.
“From what I can see, the recent algorithms Google has put out over 2018 and 2019 have been focused on their EAT (expertise, authority, trust) framework,” echoes Alex Swope of WebMechanix. “I think that to be successful, sites are going to have to demonstrate competency across all three of these facets. Get credible experts to write content for your site, write extensively on the topics closest to your business to develop authority, and generate relevant backlinks from other authorities to demonstrate your trustworthiness.”
