Sebo Marketing has been around for a long time. Our first client started working with us during 2004, and was there when we officially incorporated in 2005. Over the years, we have seen tons of changes to our industry. Bruce Rowe, the owner and President of Sebo Marketing, speaks to small and large groups on a regular basis. One of the most common questions he receives is along the lines of:
“What are some current trends in online marketing?”
This page will briefly explore some of the most common trends and changes to Search.
Mobile Search Trends
This is clearly the biggest trend, and this one is here to stay. For years and years, most people used their phone for certain things, and searches took place on desktop devices. The number of mobile searches passed up the number of mobile searches in 2015. See the chart below.
So what does this mean?
- Your site needs to be mobile friendly. Not sure if it is mobile friendly? Check it with Google’s PageSpeed Insights Testing tool. If it doesn’t pass the test, get it fixed immediately!
- If you are doing online advertising, many people don’t have their ads showing up on mobile devices. You are missing out on a ton of potential visitors if you are preventing your ads from showing up on mobile devices.
- In the summer of 2017, Google added the importance of Mobile Page Speed. In essence, slow performing mobile sites will show up lower in the rankings.
Cross Device Tracking
Largely due to the increased use of mobile, a new issue called Cross Device Tracking has become pretty important. Bruce was recently in San Francisco prior to a meeting at Google’s Mountain View campus. While in San Francisco, he wanted a smoothie. He did a search on his phone, found a place a few blocks away, and then walked there. The smoothie place didn’t receive a site visitor. They didn’t get a phone call. But if their site didn’t show up in the search results, they wouldn’t have sold Bruce a smoothie.
How do you give credit for that sale to your online marketing efforts? That’s the heart of Cross Device Tracking.
While at Google, Bruce wrote down this comment from one of the presentations:
Google is really good at last click attribution. Google is trying to get better at attributing more credit across the entire customer journey path. You need to help your clients better understand the parts of the marketing funnel and how they interact with each other.
Learn more by watching the video below (it’s a few years old, but it gets the idea across):
Local Trends
When people used to search, there were less terms used with cities or states in the queries. This trend has continued to get even more and more specific. One of the really interesting phrases that didn’t use to exist, but has gained a dramatic level of use is the phrase “near me”. For example, phrases like “pizza restaurant near me” are more and more common. Retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, etc all need to think about the local trends that have changed how people Search.
Google’s Marketing Tools
As Google and their SEO algorithm have evolved, Google has put out more and more tools that make online marketing even more effective. There are so many amazing Google tools that exist and just aren’t used on most people’s websites. If you aren’t using these tools, we’d be happy to get them in place for you. Normally, we can do this quick enough that we’ll help you get set up correctly for free. Fill out the form on the right and we’ll make sure you’re using all of Google’s free tools!