Happy 2022!
It’s a new year, and that means new trends and tactics in digital marketing. Big players like Apple, Google and Facebook are sparking changes this year that will drastically alter the way digital marketing is done. Search changes, the continued rise of short-form video content, and the prioritization of quality content are all going to change the industry this year and will offer challenges and opportunities to businesses and consumers alike.
Siri, Alexa, and other digital assistants are becoming more and more prevalent, altering the way that people search for things and phrase their searches online. Long-tail keywords and phrasing queries are going to see an upward trend this year in SEO.
Why? Well. because you’re more likely to say “Hey Alexa, what’s the best sushi restaurant in town” and you’re more likely to type “best sushi near me”. These queries will give you different answers based on what keywords you use. So, by optimizing for “what’s the best sushi in town” instead of just “best sushi near me” you could get more results.
Have you ever searched for a product online, and then all of a sudden you’re seeing sidebar ads for the same product on every webpage you visit? That’s what third-party cookies are- they serve you ads based on products and services that you’ve viewed online or affiliate products.
Sources are saying however that the cookie apocalypse is coming. Google has announced that it will no longer be supporting third-party cookies on Chrome browsers.
What does this mean for marketers and advertisers on the web? Mostly that you cannot track your customers across different sites, and it lowers the amount of information available to marketers.
This change isn’t coming into effect until 2023, but most marketers are shifting their focus, and their strategy away from using these types of cookies to different alternatives.
We’ve all heard the phrase “ Content is King” but in 2022, there’s a slight change. You already couldn’t get away with keyword stuffing your blogs, or having pages with very little content show up on search engines. However, the emphasis is being placed more and more on content that is:
Marketers are going to have to think more strategically about the content that they are putting out, and pay attention to what is driving engagement. What this means is that web content creators and writers are going to be in high demand and having multimedia content (like videos and infographics) is going to be more important than ever.
It seems like everything is a TikTok trend these days. More and more consumers and brands have taken to using Tiktok, Reels and other short-form videos to drive engagement. And it’s working! The algorithms on social media sites are showing more favour to brands that post this kind of content.
Speaking of algorithms- VSEO (Video Search Engine Optimization) is also another trend that might pick up this year. What does that mean? Before, if you posted a video on your site, a search engine algorithm couldn’t read the file- or determine what was the content of a video on your site. When VSEO is rolled out, more video content will be able to be indexed and found online and will help pages increase their overall ranking.
Last October, Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of Facebook as Meta. While corporate rebranding is nothing new, what this means for social media might be big. There’s more of a push towards AR and VR content, which Facebook owns in part thanks to their acquisition of Oculus. So, more and more brands might be aiming to create these virtual experiences through social media, and Meta is at the forefront of this development.
Not to worry though, regular old Facebook is still here to stay too, but might get an upgrade of its look and feel sometime soon.
In the last two decades, Digital Marketing and social media have gone from non-existent, to one of the most important things for your business. It’s a constantly changing and rapidly developing field which most people can get lost in really easily. If you want your small business to stand out in the sea of all the digital noise, contact us today for a free consultation.