Top 10 Content Marketing Predictions for 2019
Today, content marketing is growing at an unprecedented pace. Research suggests that over 400 hours of content is uploaded on YouTube every single minute. Also over 90% of the total data on the internet is created in the last two years, that is, since 2016. These stats are proof that content marketing is growing at an exponential pace and that it will not hit the plateau-effect any time soon.
If you wish to host your own website or blog, you should follow the latest content marketing trends to stay a few steps ahead of the competition. Here are the top 10 content marketing predictions for 2019 that you can start leveraging today to get that competitive edge on the internet.
- Increase in Demand for Graphical Content
Traditionally all of us have looked at content in a completely streamlined fashion for the past several years. When we talk about content we always think about words on paper. However, with the digital transformation age, we must start looking at content through various angles. Today, textual content is boring. We don’t have the time or the patience to go through a long 10-page document on the internet. Instead, we love the concise information in the form of an infographic or a short video clip. The love for graphical content and its easy availability through platforms like YouTube and Tumblr have completely transformed the content marketing world today.
We can safely say that the future of content marketing lies in creating the perfect mix between infographic and textual content. We can also say that the importance of graphical content will soon increase multiple folds in the next couple of years.
- More Focus on SEO
SEO is already a clichéd term in the world of content marketing today. However, this does not change the fact that it is important. In fact, SEO is more important today than it was a couple of years back due to an increase in the amount of content on the internet. The increase in the overall amount of content, as well as competition, makes it very hard for a business owner to establish a unique reputation in the market.
Without SEO your website will be lost with thousands of other similar websites within a couple of minutes. SEO helps you leverage the best content marketing practices and makes sure that your website appears on the first few pages of Google. Unlike in the past, the focus on SEO too will change in the way we see it. Instead of stuffing keywords blindly into the content, we need to look at SEO in a more rational and user-friendly manner. Today, SEO consists of three major elements. These elements include:
- Density of Keywords
- Number of Backlinks
- Readability of Content
For a successful SEO operation, a digital marketer needs to lay equal emphasis on all the three elements.
- Increased Use of Automation Tools
Digital marketers do not have the time to generate user-friendly content on a regular basis. In fact, more digital marketers hire content developers at dirt-cheap prices to develop low-quality content in bulk. This content then goes through a couple of revision cycles to get it optimized for SEO. After this, the digital marketers feed the content into an automated posting tool. This tool can then post the content regularly at specific intervals.
The automation tools can help the digital marketers save a lot of money as well as time in the long run. The generation of bulk content also helps in saving both time as well as money. To stay relevant to target audience’s requirements, the digital marketers invest a lot of time into the extrapolation of trending results. They then come up with topics for content development that will intrigue the end-customers for a long period.
- Usability Will Take the Forefront
The creation of truly useful content is a dying art on the internet. Most novice digital marketers develop an over-promotional string of articles/blogs to sell their products/services. They completely ignore the needs of the customer and do not provide true value to them with the marketing campaign. Google has revamped its algorithms multiple times in the past couple of years to give preference to the content that focuses on the true usability.
The ‘How-To’ type of content is getting more and more popular on Google and other search engines today. With the latest updates, Google is asking content developers to step into the shoes of the customer to understand their requirements and provide truly useful content. Google is also giving preference to websites that have a dedicated mobile-friendly version of their websites. With its April update, Google is focusing on mobile-first indexing policy to make sure that content developers develop content that is viewable on the small screen of mobile devices.
- Personalization Will Dominate the Industry
Generic content stuffed with keywords worked like a charm in the past. However, today the competition on the internet demands more user-friendly content. Personalization is the only way digital marketers can truly capture the attention of the users. Instead of generating highly specific content, the digital marketers are using marketing automation tools to run wide-scale campaigns with an effect of personalization.
Use of mail merges fields and smart automation cycles, allow the digital marketers to leverage the purchase-intent of the customers in the most effective manner possible. Marketing automation and email marketing are not only about using mail merge fields anymore. Instead, these tools can effectively utilize the smart algorithms and cookie-based search data to send truly personalized emails. These personalized emails are especially helpful in the e-commerce space.
- Creation of a Brand Image Will Gain Importance
Selling a product/service quickly on the internet was the one big aim of marketers in the past. However, in the past couple of years, digital marketers have started understanding the true importance of brand value. They know that by creating a true brand image, they can easily mark up the price of their product/service without facing a serious threat from competition.
Take Apple for example. Today, Apple can easily charge 1000 dollars for an iPhone and know that people will still buy the smartphone at the unbelievable price tag. The only reason why Apple can charge so much and still make enough sales to hit the trillion-dollar valuation mark is that it has created a reputable brand image and a loyal following of customers in the market.
- Marketers will Invest in Original Content
Google is now taking strict measures against plagiarized and spun content. Upon detection of plagiarism, Google will push your website down the ranks of search results by a long shot. Therefore, more and more digital marketers are investing heavily in high-quality original content. In fact, content development is one of the most lucrative jobs in the world today. The expert content developers can charge upwards of several thousand dollars just to generate a 1000-word long piece of content filled with facts and research.
- Tremendous Focus on Voice Search and AI
AI and voice search are undoubtedly the talk of the town today. Several digital marketers across the globe are leveraging the latest technologies to generate content that takes the voice search into account. The focus on long-tail keywords is increasing every day due to more and more use of the voice search engines on both the Android as well as iOS platforms.
The world’s top SEO experts are finding different ways to generate the long-tail keywords that attract the attention of the users and display their website on the top of the search results.
- Social Media Influencers Will Work in a Cohesive Manner
Content developers and social media influencers are equally in high-demand right now. People are ready to throw thousands of dollars at good social media influencers and content developers. They know that both these professions can help them reach their target audience in an effective and quick manner.
Today, the social media influencer market is highly unregulated. The influencers can charge any price that they want for a single post. By the end of 2019, we can expect some kind of regulatory measures put into place for this market. We can safely assume that companies will work with these social media influencers in a very organized fashion and sign legal contracts with them before giving them work.
- SMM, SEO and SEM Will Go Together
Social Media Marketing (SMM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are three different yet highly co-dependant practices for digital marketing on the internet. Companies often higher individuals with experience in these different fields to bring them together on a singular platform.
With the need for a more streamlined content race and brand image creation, we can say that companies will now actively look for individuals that can provide a one-stop solution to all these three practices.
This is the perfect time for digital marketers and business owners to invest their money and time in these 10 predictions. These predictions will undoubtedly come into effect by the end of 2019 and swing fully into action by the first quarter of 2019.
Author: Andrella
I am Andrella. I am a internet marketing consultant and a writer who write about latest digital marketing trends. My motive is to provide useful information to users which helps them to grow their online business marketing needs.
