Business is constantly evolving. You can probably see it in your own business. Think of where your business was 6 months ago and how far it’s come in that time. Not only is business constantly evolving but so is digital marketing in 2019. There’s many trends that are showing drastic changes in how digital marketing in 2019 and beyond will be done. It’s important to ensure you’re aware of the trends and how digital marketing in 2019 will be changed. The integration of new technologies into our lives has caused digital marketing to change how it’s being done.

Focusing Digital Marketing On Multiple Search Engines

The common consensus among the business community is that Google is gold for digital marketing. You MUST have your website show up as high as you can on Google listings. I’m not going to tell you this is wrong because the majority of people use Google to search for something. However, there are over 1,805,260,010 websites on the internet. That’s a lot of competition and they’re all trying to get ranked high on Google. It could take a long time to get brand recognition on Google, along with a lot of consistency and content. That means you may want to look at other avenues that will gain your brand exposure.

YouTube

I know you’ve heard it many times that video is the content king of digital marketing. That statement isn’t incorrect but instead of looking at it as “I need to create a video” look at it as another search engine that can get traffic to your brand. You don’t even need a professional video setup, record something on your phone or tablet! Doesn’t need to be long either you can create a 5 minute video that provides value to the viewer. This will encourage them to visit your website or social media platforms. Digital marketing in effect! This brings in additional traffic to your brand from a platform not being fully utilized in comparison to Google. YouTube is a digital marketing secret at the moment so take full advantage of it.

iTunes

If you’re camera shy or don’t think video would fit best for your brand, there’s always podcasts. iTunes is another search engine not being fully utilized in digital marketing. Podcasts are a great way to provide value to your audience and potential audience in a way that creates that personal connection with them. You can promote products, services, website, and social media channels for example on your podcast. This will send more traffic your way and is an effective alternative to Google.

Many businesses right now are so focused on Google search that they’re not thinking outside of the box for alternate avenues of digital marketing. Any platform that has a search engine is an opportunity to get your brand on that platform. If a user can search, you want them to find your brand, regardless of the platform. Find out how you can utilize these avenues of digital marketing to provide your brand with more exposure.

Digital Marketing in 2019 Will Require Transition To Omnichannels

As I mentioned above, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. Utilizing only one channel of digital marketing like Google Search or Google Ad Words won’t get your brand to it’s full growth potential. You are going to need to find multiple channels and methods to reach additional people and convert them to your brand. Facebook is a great example of utilizing additional channels to get more out of their digital marketing.

When Facebook first started you may remember that when you signed up for a profile, it invited you to send an e-mail to your e-mail list and get them over to Facebook. This provided Facebook with massive growth without having to put any money into those additional eyes. However, something like this specific method won’t work in 2019. If you receive an e-mail “inviting” you to something, chances are it lands in the spam folder more often than not.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, once a digital marketing channel becomes popular (i.e. Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) it gets saturated almost immediately which equals lots of competition. Because of this, you need to leverage every single channel you have available to you for effective digital marketing. Whether this be content marketing, paid ads, SEO, e-mail marketing, social media, there’s many different channels. Be on as many of them as you can. This is going to be a crucial component to having a successful brand in 2019. Just being on one channel won’t be enough to grow your business. It’s just like the saying “We’re better together than alone”, same concept when it comes to your digital marketing channels. This will also be beneficial in the event, or should I say WHEN, a channel goes through an algorithm change. Once this happens you may want to change how you’re digital marketing on that platform to fit the new algorithm. If your brand is on multiple channels, it won’t have a devastating effect on your brand and give you time to adjust to the new algorithm.

SEO Will Undergo A Face Lift

Last year, 40% of adults utilized voice search on their devices at least once per day. This percentage is expected to increase to 50% by 2020.

Why does this matter? Well, 30% of web browsing won’t even take place on a computer or tablet screen. Voice search will be done by devices such as Alexa, or Google Home which is a huge change to digital marketing. This is a scary thought to many SEO strategists because it doesn’t matter where your page ranks on the Google search, the voice search will either pull content from your website or not. This will also decrease your traffic because people won’t be visiting your website, they’ll be given whatever answer is relevant by the device.

Regardless of the product or service your brand offers, digital marketing will change for you this year. You can try and follow the same strategies you had for 2018 but you’ll find it not to be as successful. Business evolves. Technology evolves. Digital Marketing evolves. You need to evolve with it to survive in this ever-changing landscape. Many SEO strategists are ignoring the fact that voice search is becoming extremely popular among users on the web. This is the perfect opportunity for you to utilize voice search to your advantage, there are ways of doing this! Stay tuned to next week’s blog to find out how you can improve your SEO on voice search.