In today’s edition of Tips from the Experts, we asked three seasoned business professionals to tell us about the latest digital trends for 2014.
Dane Cobain, Social Media Specialist at fst The Group
1. Old School SEO Is Dead
Google, Bing and other search engines are getting too clever to be manipulated. Traditional SEO is dead, and the practice of making your website readable by search engines has gone from being a way to get a leg up on the competition to being something that comes as default. SEO professionals no longer concentrate on link building and instead are responsible for generating high quality content and keeping an eye on a website’s health.
2. Diversification of Social Networks
Once upon a time, marketers focused on two main social networks – Facebook and Twitter. Even if you forget about Snapchat, Vine, Slingshot, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+, there are interest-specific social networks such as Soundcloud (for music), DeviantArt (for drawings and artwork), Goodreads (for book reviews) and Last.Fm (for music lovers); while most of these existed five years ago, they’re experiencing a surge in popularity. Today it is apparent that new social networks are increasingly specific, targeting interest groups rather than the general public.
3. AdWords Costs Continue to Decrease
Google recently reported that their average cost-per-click is down in Q2 versus the previous year, marking the eleventh consecutive quarter in which the average CPC has fallen year over year. The number of overall clicks, however, is on the rise – I’d suggest that the cost per click for long tail terms will continue to decrease as the number of searches per users, and the number of overall users continues to grow over the next eighteen months.
4. More ‘Mobile First’ Approaches
In the last couple of years, companies have been racing to embrace mobile by making their websites mobile-friendly and releasing mobile applications. I predict that we’ll see more mobile-first approaches from start-ups like Snapchat and Instagram, who launch solely on mobile and develop a full web presence as an afterthought.
5. Increasing Personalisation of Brands
Brands are starting to realise that they need to allow their personalities to come through. More and more brands will use real people as their advocates, whether they leverage the power of their social following or whether they allow employees to speak on their behalf through social media. We’ll also see brands trying to add personalisation features to their websites – this is one of the reasons why Amazon was able to corner the market when they launched. They personalised their site to offer you recommendations based upon your previous purchases, and that increased sales exponentially.
Russell Davies, Director of Lobster Digital Marketing
1. Social Media Advertising
We’re already seeing an increased use of social media advertising as Facebook and Twitter continue improving their advertising platform. Businesses can now easily (and cheaply) promote their businesses to highly targeted audiences, crucially tracking the success of each campaign. As more people spend large chunks of time on social media platforms, more businesses are following them.
2. Offline/Online Integration
Consumers are getting more sophisticated and, as a result, we’re more able to block out and skip over boring advertising. Therefore, offline advertising is becoming closely integrated with online advertising in order to provide consumers with more engaging content. Bus stop movie posters that have a QR code or RFID links to online movie trailers is just one example of how technology is bringing offline and online marketing together.
3. Social Media Is The New SEO
Businesses will rely less on their website’s Google search engine ranking and put more effort into social media channels. Google recently stopped the public availability of search engine search data. As a result, businesses who were tracking how their website visitors found them can no longer do so. Combined with an increasing tendency for consumers to seek peer recommendations on Twitter and Facebook, we’re seeing more and more businesses actively use social media to connect with consumers directly.
4. Video
Video will become a vital tool for all businesses – perhaps not in 2014, as many businesses still haven’t realised the full power of video online. However, we’re seeing more and more startups based entirely around producing unique and entertaining online content. Existing businesses are also finding new creative ways to use video to attract a new audience, from providing insights into their products or industries to simply creating humorous videos that people love to share on Facebook.
5. Diversification of Social Media Channels
There will be an increase in the diversity of marketing channels used by businesses. Facebook and Twitter dominate the social media ecosystem, but Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram and chat applications such as Snapchat and WhatsApp are gaining huge numbers of users all the time. Each of these platforms are starting to attract big businesses hungry to reach out to users and consequently they’re all developing advertising platforms to take advantage of this.
Matt Fielding, SEO Director at Custard Online Marketing
1. Mobile First Web Design
With mobile web use recently overtaking desktop, responsiveness looks like it is finally becoming central to web design. Mobile is no longer an add-on and I have had conversations with clients who are looking to build their whole web strategy on a mobile-first principle.
2. Links for Traffic
Websites still rely on links to rank in organic search – some would say more heavily than ever. But Google’s recent clampdown on link building techniques such as guest blogging (which many feel was harsh) has left many SEOs feeling jaded. While links will still be a big focus, I would expect and advise companies to look for link opportunities that will bring in qualified traffic that leads to new business – back to the way things were before Google existed, something which was covered really well recently on the ahrefs blog.
3. Diversification in Online Marketing
We’ve been telling our SEO clients to diversify their marketing away from pure organic search for a while now, and those who followed our advice are really starting to see the benefits. Email marketing continues to deliver and there are new opportunities in social media every day it seems. If you rely on Google for 100% of your traffic, you’re playing a dangerous game as your online business could be wiped out overnight by one simple SEO mistake.
4. eCommerce Embraces Structured Data
The lack of uptake of schema.org structured data in the eCommerce world has really surprised me. By pulling your product data directly into your search snippet, you can stand out from competitors and steal their traffic even if they outrank you. Very.co.uk have done this really well but they’re the only major retailer (aside from eBay) who I’ve seen using it. It’s a massive opportunity for early adopters.
5. More Search Appearance Improvements
Google’s search results page is never finished it seems. Just days ago they were testing a timeline view in the US for their knowledge graph results; although their tests aren’t always rolled out for real, this was really insightful. I’d expect it to be one of many improvements involving knowledge graph data over the next 12 months or so.
Thanks to all our contributors for their valuable advice. Do you have any digital trends you would like to share? Feel free to leave a comment in the section below.