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Digital marketing is advertising on a variety of channels that include social media, mobile, web applications, search engines, and other upcoming digital channels. Keeping up with new trends is a challenge for anyone who dedicates their life to digital marketing. Imagine being a small business and having to also market your company through these digital channels. There are many marketing director strategies to implement, but which will be the best? We’ve reached out to the top digital marketing experts to ask them what is trending in 2019.

Technical SEO

“Technical SEO, establishing your expertise, and leveraging your offline brand online are the essential building blocks we saw in scaling a successful online presence in 2019,” says Nalini Prasad of BluShark Digital.

“Technical SEO is oftentimes overlooked but behind the scenes of your website is one of the most important factors to the Google bot. If you can communicate clearly with the Google bot through coding, you’re setting yourself up for valuable real estate on the SERP.

Podcasts (hosting or being featured), speaking at seminars, FAQ videos, and sophisticated content creation are just a few of the most popular methods to establish your expertise.

If you are the go-to person in your industry in your community, make sure Google understands that. Decorate your website with those credentials, awards, titles you hold on boards of organizations, successful results, and the age of your company if it’s impressive!”

Adapt To AI Changes

“Most search engines are run by AI with huge databases, as this trend continues to grow, adapting with the updates has become crucial,” describes Jon Crain of Pittsburgh SEO Services. “These updates are published and should be integrated into all ongoing SEO related works.”

Voice Search

“Content, links, page speed and foundational SEO should never be overlooked. However, you also need to focus on how people communicate with search engines. In 2020, 50% of searches begin with voice searches, the majority of which are questions,” mentions Mike Wall of Epic Notion.

Write more Q&A content to meet that need. Use tools like https://answerthepublic.com/ to find questions people are searching for, then combine Q&A content with foundational SEO and schema markup to increase your chances of getting a featured snippet. Featured snippets are an outstanding traffic source and set you up to be the result given for voice searches.”

Google My Business Reviews

“For businesses that want to get more business locally, the best strategy we’ve seen is from developing and implementing a review building strategy. Reviews have a direct impact on rankings and instill trust with potential customers,” states Blake Denman of RicketyRoo. “When you get a review, either positive or negative, respond to it on Google My Business!

It doesn’t matter how great your website, content, links, or social media are, you cannot outrank a bad reputation.”

Long Form Content

“Long form niche audio and video podcasts have been a winning strategy. The consistent content drives SEO and provides opportunity to cut and remix so we always have content for social,” says Michael Johnson of Slam! Agency.

Omnichannel Marketing

“Omnichannel marketing is the main differentiator businesses should be aware of,” echoes Mike Shaw of Tower Marketing. “Meeting the users where they are is critical. Relying solely on one platform such as Google to grow your business is dangerous. Omnichannel marketing allows for more touchpoints with the users throughout their journey.”

Comprehensive Tools

“To drive sustained traffic to a website its important to have “tools” examples are – mortgage calculator, training pace calculator based on running race goal, SEO audit tool, etc. Its always good to have a comprehensive tool, the more in-depth and helpful the tool the more websites will link to it and have sustained long term traffic,” says Mike Sayenko from a Seattle Web Design Agency. “In a world where content marketing is so crowded, having tools on your website is a sure way to stand out.”

Marketing Automation

“We believe that digital marketing trends for the remainder of 2019 and well into 2020 will be focused on adapting and creating marketing automation systems that will separate those businesses with strong lead pipelines and those without,” says Robert Williams of ElevAmp. “Essentially, scaling hyper focused and tailored campaigns that have a larger reach. This tech is becoming affordable for small businesses!”

Focus On Conversational Content

“The future of digital marketing is definitely being transformed by technology. Big data, AI automation, immersive technologies, and smart tech are changing the way brands analyze customer data and interact with their audiences – who are getting savvier and expect a truly personalized experience,” says Anthony Milia of Milia Marketing.

“To stay ahead of the curve and increase conversions in the coming years, you’ll need to get better at producing custom, conversational content – particularly audio and video content – to share with your better-targeted audience.

And looking ahead, you might need to invest in some insanely futuristic tech to stay ahead of the competition!”

High Converting Website

“More than anything else in digital today, our clients want a steady flow of paying customers,” echoes Nick Hoard of Nick The Marketer. “Ranking #1 on Google feels good but creating a mobile-first, high converting website designed to convert clicks into customers is the unique selling proposition that agencies have the ability to deliver today.”

Google Map Pack

“Google Local Packs are helping searchers find what they need without leaving Google,” mentions Jahana Uchtman of Your Digital Marketing Assistant. “Be sure your local business stands out by completing your Google My Business profile. Treat it as you would any other online platform and fill out all of the information you can- products, services, Q&A, and respond to reviews. Connect your GMB profile to Hootsuite and regularly post content for searchers to see. Google will reward you!”

Page Speed

“If you have ever reviewed your website’s page speed using Google PSI or similar review tools you may have received the notification to minify your JavaScript and/or cascading style sheets files,” says Brandon Simpson of UNIFY Marketing & Technology Solutions.
“What exactly is the process of minifying and why do we need to do it? Minification is the process of stripping down unnecessary characters and line breaks from your CSS and JS code. Phentermine is one of the most effective slimming drugs, which promotes rapid weight loss. It is an anorectic agent. If you have http://shlclubhouse.org/phentermine-online/ ever looked for diet pills, you must have come across the name Phentermine. Removing items like whitespace, line breaks, unnecessary comments within your code, are a few items that can be trimmed to minify both cascading style sheets and JavaScript. ”

These are great insights from our group of experts. Next time you have a local SEO proposal to put together for a client, think about the guidance from these digital marketing thought leaders.

Search engine optimization is the process of increasing the number of users to your website by ensuring a domain appears high in a search result. Each year more and more businesses are investing money in SEO for their business. For a lot of small businesses this can be a new venture and they aren’t sure where to start. We’ve reached out to the top digital marketing experts to ask their opinion on the state of SEO.

Is SEO Dead?

“Recent provocative claims by Chase Reiner and Amanda Bond have the marketing world surprised and puzzled,” says Charles Rosseel of Agency Rosseel. “Reiner said SEO is dead while Bond pronounced funnel Facebook ads no longer work. Although both sell courses with the “new” effective methods (authority hacking replaces SEO and StrADegy System replaces funnels) they do make compelling arguments. Your thoughts?”

Understanding Your Audience

“SEO trends and strategies are always changing as digital technologies continue to mature, and as search algorithms from Google and others get more advanced,” describes Kevin Kennedy of Marketpath. “That said, the most successful optimization strategies and projects still begin with research and understanding your audience. What are their unique interests? How do they search for this specific topic or service? What are they hoping to find by their inquiry (What is their intent)?

Once you understand your audience, you can then cater targeted, high-quality content for that specific group or niche, and to their preferred medium (text, video, images, etc.). Unique, creative content is still the foundation of successful SEO, that will drive sharability. Once you have exceptional content, focus on a link-building plan geared towards niche appropriate websites that are high quality (high domain authority).”

Video Content

“Going into 2020, I believe you have to dedicate a good portion of your resources to video content. The numbers don’t lie and people will engage for a longer period of time with video. Telling your “story” with video is going to be the tool that builds confidence in your brand and leads to greater conversions,” echoes Tommy Stitt of Digital Marketing Group. “Upload these videos to YouTube and rank them. Most people don’t realize that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.”

Reviews, Quality Scores, And Conversion Rate

“Google is going to do what is best for Google and its users. It is up to the rest of us to adapt. Click-through-rates are down and people have more options on the search results page. This is because Google wants to monetize the search results as much as possible and users want quick answers,” says Adam Draper of Gladiator Law Marketing. “Expect the competition to continue to increase for both organic and paid results. To maximize potential, get aggressive with reviews, quality scores, and conversion ability of the website. Content remains king with SEO. Don’t forget to pay attention to your close rate as well, making contact with a potential sale is only half the battle.”

Web Push Notifications

“Web push notifications are a fundamentally different technology than email, but many of the same concepts and strategies of email marketing apply. This technology is built into every major desktop web browser and is incredibly powerful because it allows you to send notifications to your website visitors that have opted-in after they have left your website,” says Matthew Paulson of MarketBeat. “You can use your web push notification list to promote new content on your website, your products, and services or even the products of your advertisers. Our business has attracted more than 300,000 web push subscribers and has generated more than $1 million in revenue from web push notifications in 2018 alone. I believe so much in web push notifications as a digital marketing tool, that I will be adding a brand new chapter to the end of the book that teaches how to leverage web push notifications in your business.”

Video Production

“One of the most effective SEO strategies that we’ve been utilizing for our clients in 2019 still involves using targeted videos, posted to YouTube and other social media,” says Jim Zons of EZ New Media. “The traffic generated can be instantly tracked and there is still no better engagement object than a well produced video. I tried Levitra for the https://medimagery.com/buy-levitra-online-generic-levitra-vardenafil/ first time last night. I had a great sex last night and twice this morning. I tried switching from Viagra and to Cialis. Both worked, but not as effectively as Levitra. Subsequently, there was a slight headache. And I can’t stress “well produced video” enough; there are so many poorly produced, ineffective videos out there it takes a sharp video with a compelling or engaging message to stand out and hopefully be widely shared.”

Focusing on User Intent/Search Intent

“One thing that has had a major impact on our client’s rankings in 2019 was how Google interpreted the search intent/user intent of the keyword users are searching and the relevance of the client’s page for that term,” describes Timothy Warren of Helium SEO. “Google is now looking heavily at what the user is really looking for when they search a keyword and placing that factor over traditional SEO factors like Domain Rating and On Page SEO.”

Digital Marketing Keeps Evolving

“Digital marketing is an every changing landscape and more than ever its important to learn how to navigate it or your competition will,” says David Juilfs of Gorilla WebTactics.

Each year the digital marketing industry gets disrupted with multiple Google algorithm updates. It is a challenge for businesses to keep up with new strategies to stay atop of page one in Google. With all the noise from these updates, it leaves owners scrambling to determine which strategy to follow.  We’ve reached out to the top digital marketing experts to ask they’re advice on what to do in 2019.

Use A Three Tiered Approach

“The most foundational way to ensure your SEO program is successful is to manage it using a strategic process and with a little SEO education,” says Janet Bartoli of Strategy Rework. “Using a three tiered approach, start with a full technical audit, identify search engine inhibitors. Next, move to content strategy – target user intent, and develop content for all parts of the buyer journey, and finally manage your trust and authority with brand strategy leveraging link acquisition. Whether you manage SEO programs for your employer in-house, or work with clients through a digital agency, SEO needs oversight and daily management to make it work most effectively.”

Onsite SEO Will Boost Paid Media

“For most business owners, investing time and resources into good onsite SEO is a no-brainer, but did you know that same investment can positively affect your paid media strategy as well? For those looking to make the most of their SEO investment and take their PPC to the next level, we suggest checking out Google Ads Smart Campaigns,” echoes Adam Arkfeld of ParaCore. “This campaign type scrapes your sites index and automatically generates the most qualified traffic, maximizing your paid ads performance. Good SEO isnt just about driving organic traffic anymore—it should be part of a larger organic and paid strategy.”

“The rise of voice and its impact on a company’s online visibility needs to be top-of-mind for online brands. The more people rely on intelligent assistants to access information, the more important it is for companies to have a strong SEO strategy,” describes Grayson Kemper of Clutch. “Though most people don’t scroll through multiple search results pages as is, its literally impossible to do so through voice. This means that if a company doesn’t rank well for a term, it has no chance of earning exposure when people search that topic through a voice assistant.”

Implement Structured Data

“Structured Data has been one of the most under estimated options in which helps assisting with Organic awareness and click through. I am not talking organic assistance as in the rank boosting. I am speaking in the terms of credibility in the eye of your audience,” states Carley Kuehner of Cosmick Technologies. “We have been monitoring very closely the differences with sites that do not partake in the Google structure data options out there. An example, we recently implemented on a Fortune 100 company was an 8 month test. We performed this test on 65 franchise websites. Understanding the markup for proper structured data is key. It all started when we noticed a star rating appearing in SER’s that were primarily eCommerce related websites. Basically, if you think about it, these are people who purchased a product, and came back to leave a review. When structured data is implemented properly these reviews are crawled by Google. Structured data is Google’s way to scrape what is product-based reviews customers are leaving regarding your products sold. This is the one voice the customers have to state how good your products are. With that mentality we of thought of implementation that philosophy on non-eCommerce sites. Companies do not have to have an eCommerce site to make Google aware of what your customers are saying. We simply took standard reviews that customers are leaving within a website, and we coded them to support the structured data markup, and within 3 months we noticed that most all SER’s now were being broadcast-ed with a review rating. Understanding the mentality of a https://handsfreehealth.com/buy-inderal-online/ consumer or b2b shopper is key. You have seconds to capitalize on our audience. Other SEO’s state there is a 3 second rule when a visitor visits your website. What about a 1 second rule when some is browsing Organic results. Maximize that presence with using structured data and offering the best possibly listing display you can. Once you at least do that we have seen a 25 to 35% traffic boost in organic click through.”

Website Speed

“One of the easiest ways to begin a successful SEO strategy in 2019 (and beyond) is to choose a great website host that guarantees speed performance with ultra-fast servers,” states Kelly Kilgallon of Tap House Media. “We suggest hosts like WP Engine or SiteGround. A slow website can lead to a major decrease in conversions not to mention hurt your SEO rankings with our best pal, Google. It’s also a good idea to boost website speed by using a CDN, a caching plugin, and an image optimizer.”

See more: Difference between RAM and ROM.

Create Unique Content For Your Users

“The best way to rank high in the Search Engines is to learn from your competition. A great SEO strategy is to first visit the top twenty sites ranking for your target keywords. The next step is to identify what makes those SERPs special, and what information they are offering to users,” echoes Bradley Poller of Princeton Internet Marketing. “Once gathered, create a page that leverages that information to create a unique compilation of content. You can utilize a headline generator tool to create witty posts. Be sure to incorporate your own version of this information, along with any new information you can contribute to the topic. If your page has this compiled content, then when comparing apples to apples (similar backlink profile, domain status, etc.) these pages will quickly gain position.”

Voice Search

“2019 is a milestone year for the number of people claiming they’re going to start trying Voice Search,” echoes Ryan Klein of Market My Market. “Proper structured data and content will be crucial for these voice results to include information from your website.”

Conversion Rate Optimization

“In 2019 we’ve seen more of our clients investing in Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) based website re-designs and an increased commitment to Search Engine Optimization,” says Kurt Schell of Lithium SEO. “This has been especially beneficial to our local SMB service industry clients who are in growth mode with the economy being so strong. They recognize that now is the time to take up a bigger piece of the search visibility landscape so that they are better positioned when the economy inevitably slows down.”

Update Directories

“More mobile searches mean its more important than ever to optimize your main “barnacle” sites. Yelp, Angies List, and Yellowpages are examples of barnacle sites that “latch on” and rank on the first page of search results, often outranking the sites of local businesses,” says Dan Delmain of Delmain. “Mobile searchers are usually still early in the decision-making process, evaluating multiple options, and looking for reviews. They will often click into these barnacle sites over a business website. Its crucial to create profiles on these sites that are thoroughly and correctly filled out with up-to-date information and plenty of photos.”

Create Great Content

“Content marketing, definitely. We’ve been working with a lot of small, low profile companies looking to raise their visibility. PPC can get you out there for the search engines, but not so much for branding visibility – or real authority, for that matter,” echoes Gabriella Sannino of Level343. “We’ve found content marketing to be our top method of introduction. Add in a little social media and its the perfect combination for a one-two punch.”

Ahava Leibtag of Aha Media believes you need to write for users first. “When filled with quality content that website visitors find useful, question and answer pages (like FAQs) can become a treasure trove of SEO potential. Always write for users first, focusing on plain language they can understand. This flows right into the third trend, voice search. The key to voice search optimization is using conversational language. Incorporating conversational content topics and keywords into your strategy is one of the smartest things you can do to tweak your content for voice search.”

Look At KPIs Beyond Keywords

“Keyword rankings do not always tell the entire story when it comes to the success and growth of your digital marketing and SEO campaigns,” states Robb Fahrion of Flying V Group. “When defining goals for SEO campaigns, focus on things like overall site traffic, impressions, and average keyword positioning. These are the best indicators for the success of the campaign. A SEO campaign is more successful if more traffic is driven to the site no matter what keyword position primary keywords are in.”

“One of the strengths of the internet is its ability to help consumers find the right needle in a digital haystack of data,” says Jesse Underwood of Underwood Marketing.