Everything you need to know about your digital marketing in 2018

Back in 2017, many successful digital marketing agencies attempted to predict what the new year would mean for digital marketing.

Companies like Bulldog Digital Media, whose digital marketing executive predicted that companies will use social media platforms much more vigorously in 2018 moving forward, and will rely heavily on video content to advertise their business.

So far, it’s safe to say that their social media predictions for 2018 were right on track. But what else has changed for digital marketing in 2018? We’ll discuss this in detail along with points on:

• SEO
• Social media
• Content writing
• PPC and link building

Search engine optimisation in 2018

Optimising for mobile was something every business needed to do back in 2017, whereas in 2018 we all need to be optimising for voice search.

And due to the introduction of Google’s mobile-first indexing, which will be implemented this year, every business has hopefully already optimised for this change.

Optimising for voice search is most important for B2C companies as consumers are now more inclined to search through voice. And it’s not surprising; after all, who would take the time to type when they could simply speak and get the answer read out loud?

Remember, people are lazy! They want answers and they want answers now. Or, at least that’s all they wanted did back in 2017 – but in 2018, they want their answers with the least possible effort as well.

Businesses are beginning to understand the importance and benefit of listing their service on Google’s My Business. It allows consumers to search for a service that’s near them (local search) and view that businesses ratings, reviews, posts, images and more.

It’s a much easier and more accessible way for people to find the service locally in a fast search.

Social media marketing in 2018

In 2018, it’s all about social influencers. There has been a lot of circulation around the benefits of social media influencers and we’re only 3 months into 2018.

Many digital marketers are focusing their social media efforts on hiring influencers to promote their business.

It’s a great way to gain trust from the influencers followers and widen your businesses reach to consumers that you’d never be able to target without the influencers help.

Content writing in 2018

As we mentioned at the beginning, video content is a big part of digital marketing now. Which means that writing content for video needs to be a large focal point for your content marketing strategy.

Not only this, but consumers want content to be easily accessible, understandable and to-the-point. Hence why video content is so popular in 2018.

With this said, this doesn’t mean that text-based content isn’t useful anymore. In fact, content writers are beginning to learn ways to write content that gives the reader short, snappy, and most importantly, helpful answers.

By creating content that helps the reader, there is a much higher chance of said reader to come back to your site for further help.

Content that has easy-to-find information and that is simple yet captivating is the way forward in 2018.

PPC and link building in 2018

So, we’ve spoken about SEO, social media and content creation, but what about PPC and link building?

On the more technical side of digital marketing comes PPC and link building. Pay per click has been around for a while now and in 2018, it’s not going anywhere.

With Google focusing more so on audience targeting and less so keywords, it’s beginning to come clear that every part of digital marketing in 2018 is focused on the consumer.

And the same goes for link building. Google is cracking down on those who are manipulating outreaching and giving more authority to sites that outreach in a positive way to gain backlinks.

The most noteworthy

The key point for 2018 is that digital marketers are beginning to focus their efforts on the customers’ needs rather than focusing solely on their business’s needs.

Consumers are becoming bored of the sales-y techniques that clutter their screens. They want companies that prove they care about their requirements. They want brands that are more than just a business and less of a cold, faceless, money-orientated machine.

They want brands that resonate with them, that empathise with them, that care about them. They want more emotion connected with the brand, without the chaos and sole agenda to take their money.

They want simple, fast and accurate answers. Do you think you can give them that? Tell us why you can (or can’t) in our comments section.