According to 2018 Global Digital report from We Are Social and Hootsuite, more than four billion worldwide are active internet users.
Smartphone users are at the forefront of this surge in internet users, who constitute around 51% of all web visits.
Meanwhile, Facebook remains the leading social platform, with 2.17 billion users at the start of 2018. Other social media platforms are thriving as well: YouTube has a total of 1.5 billion total users. Instagram has 800 million, Twitter has 300 million, and LinkedIn has 260 million.
Together with the ever-changing demands of the growing internet user base, digital marketing trends are evolving as well. To stay on top of your digital marketing game, consider these trends in 2018:
Google and SEO Updates
Content marketing remains a vital component of any digital marketing strategy. In line with this, Google is cracking down on thin, low-quality, low-traffic content by giving strong content a big boost.
With the new Google SEO update, the search engine will be stricter about the quality and authority of content – title tags, permalink keywords, ALT text for images, and heading tags.
Content focusing on in-depth explanations of every topic and subtopic will rank higher. The longer the content, the better the results.
Latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords are necessary for SEO. These keywords add context to your content and help expand your original topic by using them to structure your outline.
You can create multiple subtopics using LSI keywords to give your content the necessary depth that Google is looking for. Each keyword can become a new H2 subhead for your post.
User experience is another crucial factor for ranking, as Google penalizes websites that are not optimized for the user experience. Google also noted that hefty penalties for content sites with ads above the fold are coming in.
Take note that you should only place ads around relevant content.
LinkedIn Changes
Spam complaints and lack of engagement are two challenges people are experiencing on LinkedIn.
Here’s what you can expect with this year‘s LinkedIn updates:
- Effective on the 15th of February, LinkedIn can no longer support the iOS app.
- You can access Groups right from the homepage and see the latest content from your Groups via your notifications and homepage feed.
- You can post videos in your groups, provided they are relevant. You’ll be able to mention the members you want and keep the conversation going by replying to comments.
Facebook’s Newsfeed 2018
To improve user satisfaction and enhance the overall Facebook experience, Mark Zuckerberg recently announced an update meant to combat the spread of fake news on the platform and protect its users from misinformation.
With the update, information from friends and family will be prioritized on the feed instead of posts from news publishers and brands. This takes Facebook back to its original goal – to help people stay connected and bring them closer together.
This Facebook update is likely to have a significant impact on brands, marketers and advertisers since it will make it more challenging for them to reach out to their respective audiences.
However, relevant and effective marketing campaigns should be more than enough to keep their audience engaged.
To learn more about how digital marketing can help your business presence online, check out our portfolio and case studies:
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