An eventful summer of 2019 in digital marketing is wrapping up. Multiple Google algorithm updates came and went along with many small business rankings. It is challenging to keep up with the ever 
evolving landscape for small business owners. We reached out to the best digital marketing experts to get their opinion on what can transform your digital presence moving into 2020.
Voice Search
“This is the year of voice search. Don’t get left behind! Use Questions and Answers to answer questions and rank for voice search without working too hard,” says Starr Watson of Click Starr. “Write in an answering tone and watch your rankings skyrocket!”
“We are seeing more long and complicated queries with strange misspellings in our paid ads keyword data. We know this is due to voice-search on the rise in mobile devices,” says Mark Homer of GNGF. “We know that long-tail keyword and position zero SEO strategies will be very important as this trend continues. But, it is extremely impressive how good the search engines have become at deciphering what looks like garbled messages from voice searches and are showing the correct paid ads and search results based on the right intent.”
Optimize Your Content
“Optimized content far and away has been the single most influential factor for SEO this year, last year, and back to 2014. That includes blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, and keyword-rich, well-written web pages,” states Todd Heft of FunnelKake.
Upgrade Website Hosting
“If your site is slow, especially smaller businesses on shared server environments, its not time to wait any longer. Get your site on a fast website hosting provider as soon as possible, and if you’re site isn’t secure – do it today,” describes Kimberly Horn of Groove Virtual.
Long Form Content
“The top factor that has lead to increased success for our SEO clients in 2019 has been more in-depth articles,” echoes Kelly Rossi of Marketing Magnitude. “Since we have started to give a lot more information in our written content pushing each posts word count from 300+ words to 800+ words, we have seen those pages rank more often and quicker.”
Sandy Allain chimes in and says to include “quality links over quantity”
Be Authentic
“AUTHENTICITY: Be authentic more than clever. Google works hard to produce the most relevant results and adjusts their algorithm to improve results and filter out the bad (clever) players,” says Joshua Erdman of Systems & Marketing Solutions. “If you produce good, authentic content on a fast site, using a good Title, helpful Headlines, and informative ALT Tags you are off to a great start. Remove any boiler-plate legalese at the bottom and links to your web developers website and you are off to the races!”
Understanding AI
“Due to the convenience that modern technology provides, consumers are more demanding now than ever before,” states Nicholas Melillo of Triad Search Marketing. “As voice-based search and AI evolves, it is important as digital marketers to realize that the rules of supply and demand apply to online media as well, not just logistics. Identifying trends in this area will help marketers better understand how to connect businesses with consumers in a way that provides instant gratification to the end user. This will ultimately result in a higher level of brand loyalty and organic growth via customer referrals.”
“Machine learning is becoming a larger and larger part of search,” says Frank Olivio of Sagapixel. “Google is leveraging ML to better understand what people want more effectively and anyone that is still focused on trying to game the algorithm is fighting a losing battle. Those of us that are focusing on giving people what they want are setting themselves up for long-term success, while those that are solely focused on ranking factors are going to struggle in 2020 and beyond.”
