Now, many businesses have moved online due to this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which has tremendously raised the bar of competition in almost every field. Hence, developing an effective Internet Marketing strategy for establishing a robust online presence has become crucial for every business today. But let us not forget that digital marketing strategies constantly keep evolving and the shift toward them is nothing new. 

That being said, if you are a business that has any intention of remaining competitive in today’s landscape, then keeping up with the latest trends is necessary. Hence, in this post, we are going to take a look at some of the digital marketing trends that will give you a head-start over your competition and help you to flourish in this period of a capricious and competitive market.

So let’s begin.

Featured Snippets (no-click search)

The goal of SEO has always been ranking on the number one position of search results and in 2021 it has continued to shift to more SEO visibility in zero position. Where zero position refers to featured snippets and SEO marketing trends are prioritizing them above all. They help you deliver better content to the users and more importantly, they also display a piece of extra and relevant information with an attempt at answering the user’s question that too without them needed to click on it. Thus, prompting the name no-click search. 

They are simply amazing because they easily steal traffic from other top-ranking pages. This was found in a study by Ahrefs, where featured snippets snagged almost 8.6% of traffic from a top-ranked paged with 26% of all clicks. So, if you hold a number position on Google with the snippet, then you get all that remarkable traffic without losing it. 

Take a look at the following tips from a Digital Marketing Agency Jacksonville to earn a zero position on the search engine. 

• Before you start writing make sure to identify the potential featured snippet opportunities.
• Make use of strong headlines.
• When you write a blog or content for a page ensure that you address the search query and offer a concise answer early in the blog followed by an in-depth analysis. 
• Add supporting videos or images to your content.
• Write unique content.

Ranking for the featured snippet is going to be more and more important in the future and if you don’t rank in this position, your competitors will.

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

The progressive web app is nothing but websites that behave like native apps but are not implemented as such. They offer all the functionalities of the native app such as fast load times, push notifications, working offline, and much more, that too without being limited to one platform. This allows the professionals to create web apps for any device that works the same as the mobile device. 

In addition to this, the statistics show that progressive web apps have higher conversion rates than native apps, 33 % less maintenance cost, and are as much as 90% smaller than native mobile apps. Businesses switching to PWAs have also noticed up to 10 times a decrease in their page loading speed and 50% higher customer engagement. 

Now, as the mobile revolution continues at pace, progressive web apps will become even more prevalent. So, this is a must-follow digital trend now.

Personalization

Personalization is the next big trend that you need to consider if you want to outperform your competitors and stand out in the market. This includes focusing on personalizing content, products, emails, etc. It is crucial because the stats show that almost 63% of the consumers are annoyed with generic advertising and 90% claim that they find personalization appealing. While 80% say that they are more likely to do business with a company that offers a personalized experience.  You can also have a look at examples like Amazon and Netflix who have personalized recommended movies for their users. This will help you understand the power of personalization.

Voice Search Optimization

Another big trend for this year is optimizing all your digital assets to perform well with voice search. This trend has been upending the traditional SEO tactics since the voice assistants first hit the market. In fact, the research found that 55% of teenagers use voice search every single day and this massive adoption is hard to overlook. Moreover, the fact that 70% of smartphone users conducting internet searches through voice search has gained immense importance. Hence the use of this technology will prove greatly beneficial for businesses in this digital era. 

But people will not use the same phrases or words they use when they type while talking. So, to make use of this technology think like your audience. Imagine what phrases or words your customers will use when they are searching for something through voice search. In fact, put yourself in that place and think of what words you would have used to ask a particular query. Then try altering your SEO strategy in order to include those speech keywords.  Adapting to this trend will be a great idea for all businesses as their customers are adapting and switching to this medium from now on.

Chatbots

Chatbots are an AI-based technology that makes use of instant messaging to chat with site visitors. They offer many benefits like 24/7 customer service, instant responses to inquiries, and answers to simple questions, and interact with plenty of users at once. Hence, chatbots are considered one of the best digital marketing trends in 2021. 

In fact, many customers prefer interacting with chatbots as they answer promptly, accurately recall your entire buying history, and never lose patience. Thus offering outstanding customer service by meeting the expectations of the customers. Plus, it automates repetitive tasks that allow you to focus on more important work. Besides this, chatbots also message the customers when the order is ready for pickup and allows payment and tipping too. Thus, the use of such amazing technology is greatly advantageous for many businesses to engage with their customers. 

Interactive Content

This trend may have been technically around for a while but from these recent, it is recognized as the best practice. While we at our Digital Marketing Company in Jacksonville have already emphasized the importance of great content in many of our blogs. 

Interactive content can do wonders for your band. It not only helps us to promote more customer engagement but also boosts our conversion rates and increases the return on investment. After all, content is the only thing through which we pitch our products and services and gain more customers.

You can create quizzes, open-ended questions, surveys, contests, polls, giveaways, and much more to drive the attention of your customers. If not converted, it will at least increase the length of time they engage with you. This will ultimately help you stand in algorithm-based searches and feed. But most importantly, as people love to participate in activities and want to be engaged, this will always enhance your user experience and of course the power of personalization. In fact, interactive content is a major part of this trend. It allows your users to have their opinion heard thus encouraging a feeling of more personal connection with your brand. Plus, you can also use this tool to collect data on user preferences.

Influencer Marketing 

No business can ignore the opportunities generated by influencer marketing when it comes to digital marketing. It is basically a practice that concentrates on partnering with influencers of your niche to amplify your brand in the market. Your products and services get great exposure as they will be reviewed by and presented innovatively by famous personalities to their huge followers. That too in a most cost-effective way. Hence, this is the fastest growing trend in 2021 beating other digital marketing techniques like paid search, organic search, and email marketing.

Additionally, according to data, it was found that 51% of businesses got a higher quality of customers through influencer marketing while 90% believed influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing.  But it just won’t be beneficial by sending a sample of your product to influencers. You will also need to understand their brand affinity, the sentiments of their followers, and other relevant details too to make the most of it. 

Video Marketing

Video marketing is the most important trend today and will still reign in the digital world next 5 to 10 years. Because it is a fact that people are more attracted towards video than content and in fact, videos are the one that gets maximum shares on social media. 

Here are some notable stats that clearly demonstrates the importance of this current trend.

• 72% of businesses found improvement in their conversion rates through videos.
• Almost 70% of people shared videos of a particular brand.
• 65% of the customers visit the website after watching a video out of which 39% tend to take an action.
• People find video content 50 times more compelling than the written text.

But don’t think that YouTube is the only way for video marketing. You can create and share a video post on social media platforms like Facebook, and Instagram. Publish it in your blog post, go live on Instagram with your product demos, or create Facebook stories. Even the newly launched insights feature of Instagram Reels are great to generate 67% more engagement than the regular posts. People will love watching it and if they found it authentic, helpful, and realistic, they will even share it.

Local SEO

Google frequently updates its local SEO algorithm now. Plus, maximum people with an intent to purchase, use terms like “near me” or search for products and services in their local area. Hence, driving your efforts towards local SEO is crucial now. 

In a way, local SEO proves to be more beneficial and powerful than broad SEO. This is because searching for a specific business in their local area has an intent to buy. So converting them is much easier. 

You can start with creating a Google My Business account, optimizing your site for local keywords (for example, Digital Marketing Agency in Jacksonville), and writing localized content. This will help you boost your business’s appearance in local results and thus gain more local customers effectively. 

Planning for Local SEO, we have got a complete Local SEO Checklist that covers all the things you should consider in your Local SEO strategy

Conversational Marketing

The reality of modern marketing is already clear in the discussion about chatbots that it is more conversational. With the shift of marketing towards customer satisfaction, now brands don’t just talk about themselves, they also ask customers about their problems and help resolve them individually. 

While customers go through a journey where they need to know what they want, how they want to purchase it, and then make a decision, conversational marketing can help you turn the conversation to influence the customers in their decision-making process. It allows a one-to-one, real-time connection between a brand and customers. This helps in providing a better interaction where each customer feels heard.  Ultimately the primary goal of conversational marketing is to improve the user experience by a feed-back driven model that makes interaction easy with customers. This thus helps you to foster a higher engagement rate and greater loyalty.

The digital marketing world is highly dynamic with flocks of trends evolving every other day. So, predicting what is best for you becomes quite difficult. But as the world is becoming more and more competitive now staying up with the latest trends is crucial to stand out. They will not only help you meet your audience’s needs but also boost your customer engagement. 

You may find it quite exhausting to keep up with every upcoming trend. So make sure to focus only on the one that will prove to be highly beneficial for you as well as your customers. 

Finally, we would just agree on the fact that change is an integral part when it comes to digital marketing. So, keeping up with the latest technologies, and grabbing new opportunities in time is the only way to gain an edge over your competitors.