Digital Marketing trends, like any other popular trend, are fast changing. There is always something new to look forward to and prepare for. We are already almost into February, and if you are not already preparing to brace the trends of 2020, you may soon have to play catch up with your competition.
While a lot of new things are expected to change as the year passes, there are a few marketing trends of 2019 that are expected to rule the landscape in 2020 as well.
If you are currently working on your marketing campaigns and want to make them future-proof, here are a few trends that you should watch out for.
1. SERP Position Zero
SEO will continue to be an important aspect of digital marketing in 2020. Due to the significant growth in search via mobile and voice, the search and browsing behavior has changed. Featured snippets and other “on SERP” information means that you don’t need to click through to a website link to get the information you’re looking for anymore – it’s right there on the Google search results page.
This on-SERP (search engine results pages) information may appear in various places, but the most sought after position is right at the top of the page, before the organic listings. This position is called “position zero”. Over 60% of the search results returned by Google now positions zero search results. It requires different SEO techniques than those employed for a normal listing in the SERPs.
2. Content Marketing
In November 2019, Google rolled out the new BERT system, which is designed to aid Google in its efforts to understand the natural language that people use in their search queries.
With this change, it is more important to ensure a site has fast speeds, useful links, and well-written content that makes your website more credible as a trusted resource.
3. Website Security
As of August 2014, Google announced that HTTPS is a ranking signal and flags every site as unsafe unless it has an HTTPS (the “S” stands for “secure”) certification. When you visit a new website, within seconds, you get a prompt of the address bar, whether the website is secure. Visitors are wary of unsecured sites and will leave within a few minutes, which will lead to a higher bounce rate. Over time, a high bounce rate is bad for your website, as it will directly affect where the site appears on the search results.
It is also advised to display a security badge on your website to reassure your site visitors that you are serious about security.
4. Video Marketing
Online video is said to be 600% more effective as a marketing tool than print and direct mail combined. It’s not too hard to see why video is so popular. While convenient and efficient for the audience, video marketing provides everyone with an attractive, versatile, and extremely shareable medium to reach their audience.
Search engines love videos because it is high-quality content. Using videos in various types of content as well as on your main web pages is an excellent SEO strategy. Each video needs to be optimized with the right keywords, a solid meta description, and also a strong title.
5. Voice Search
Voice search has started to pick-up pace, and just as predicted a few years ago, “50% of online searches will be voice-based in 2020”. As a result, the way websites are optimized will have to change. With Mobile-First Indexing already in place for SEO, a focus on Conversational Speech and Location-based search will be imminent to put yourself ahead for voice search.
6. Structured Data SEO
Structured data is a system of pairing a name with a value that helps search engines categorize and index your content. Structured data is essential for SEO because it’ll make it easier for Google to understand what your pages and your website are about. Google needs to find out what a page is about to show it in the search results. Using structured data is like talking to Google, telling Google what your site is about. That’ll help with your rankings.
Whether structured data affects rankings has been the subject of much discussion and many experiments. There are some indications that search results with more extensive rich snippets (like those created using Schema) will have a better click-through rate.
The companies that innovate and capitalize on emerging trends will outgrow their competitors and find new customers. The field of digital marketing is wide open right now, and as a leading digital marketing agency, Webware.io can help you grow your business.
To learn more about our services and how we can help boost your small or medium-sized business with our digital marketing strategy, please click here. If you have any questions about how we can help with your digital marketing needs, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact our experts here.
