Unlike other digital marketing campaigns, content marketing does not promote a product, service, or brand explicitly. Instead, content marketing emphasizes creating brand awareness, generating audience interest, driving search engine traffic to the website, and nurturing leads through the creation and distribution of relevant, valuable, and targeted digital content.
According to research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute,
“86% of B2B marketers used content marketing to create brand awareness, 79% of B2B marketers used content marketing to educate customers, and 75% of B2B marketers used content marketing to build trust or credibility.”
Digital marketers accomplish predefined goals by creating and distributing digital content that addresses the needs, expectations, and pain points of customers and prospects. Also, they increase ROI on content marketing campaigns by creating and distributing a variety of digital content – articles, blogs, audio, video, infographics, and social media posts.
But the content marketing trends, like search engine optimization (SEO), trends change from time to time. You cannot run content marketing campaigns successfully in 2024 without adopting the current and emerging trends in content marketing. While planning content marketing campaigns, you must not forget to look out for some of the hottest content marketing trends in the near future.
15 Current and Emerging Content Marketing Trends You Must Adopt in 2024
1) Posting Long-Form Content to Increase Search Traffic
In 2024, Google and Bing will update their search algorithms many times. However, they will emphasize providing more relevant and updated information to the searchers. Hence, digital marketers can easily divert traffic to websites from search engines by posting high-quality and long-form content. In addition to meeting the consumer’s needs and expectations, the content must appear authoritative by getting linked to both internal and external resources. Also, the writers will optimize the long-form content for search engines by including relevant keywords naturally and experimenting with content styles.
2) Delivery of Personalized and Targeted Content
Digital marketers will nurture leads and drive sales conversation in 2024 by interacting with customers in various stages in the sales funnel. They will influence the purchase decision of a prospect by sending content that is highly personalized and targeted. They will leverage the customer data collected through multiple channels to personalize the content and communications. Also, they will deliver targeted content that caters to the exact needs and expectations of the prospect according to her current position in the buyer’s journey. AI technologies will be used widely to facilitate the creation and delivery of hyper-personalized content in 2024.
3) Optimizing Content for Voice Search
According to Think with Google,
“20% of searches in the Google App are now done by voice.”
With more and more consumers gathering information by giving voice commands, it becomes essential for businesses to optimize the content for voice search. While creating content for digital marketing campaigns, the content creators have to focus on both conventional search and voice search. Instead of focusing on including keywords naturally in the content, they have to explore ways to include questions that searchers will ask while initiating voice search. For instance, the content writers have to replace keywords like “restaurant-style butter chicken masala recipe” with questions like “how to prepare restaurant-style butter chicken masala.”
4) Accelerating Content Creation Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The leading digital marketing agencies already leverage AI technologies to reduce the time and effort required to create hyper-personalized content. They use AI solutions to create hyper-personalized content on demand according to specific buyer personas or content marketing strategies. The AI solutions leverage the customer data collected by a business to create a variety of content – predictive content, insight-based content, intuition-based content, and autonomous content – in a few minutes. They can further streamline and speed up the content creation process by creating multiple content profiles.
5) Growing Popularity of Short-Form Videos
Consumers these days spend more time watching online video clips than viewing conventional television.
According to WordStream,
“ 51% of respondents reported that they are more likely to share video content over social posts, blogs, or product pages.”
Hence, most businesses will attract and engage customers in 2024 by uploading and sharing shorter video clips. Also, they will convert the longer videos into a series of shorter video clips. However, they have to focus on changing the format and duration of the video content according to the targeted social network or video-sharing platform.
6) Focusing on Meeting Immediate Needs
The lead generation and nurturing activities are planned by keeping in mind the position of a prospect in the buyer’s journey. However, the statistics released by Google suggest that people use their mobile devices in hundreds of micro-moments throughout the day to solve problems and answer questions. Hence, digital marketing campaigns in 2024 will use content that caters to the immediate needs of a searcher. The content will make the consumer aware, buy, do, or go by meeting his immediate needs or answering his current question. However, the content must be optimized for voice search to meet consumers’ immediate needs right here and right now.
7) Switching to Conversational Marketing
In 2024, digital marketers will find it challenging to generate and nurture leads only by adopting landing page best practices. In addition to optimizing landing pages, they have to focus on implementing conversational marketing. Instead of requesting website visitors to fill in lead-capturing forms, the digital marketers will interact with them using AI-powered chatbots. The chatbots will initiate and continue real-time conversations with the website visitors just like human marketers. Also, they will boost customer experience and engagement by personalizing the conversations and interactions based on data collected from diverse sources.
8) Making Content Appear on Featured Snippets
While optimizing content for search engines, digital marketers no longer focus only on increasing the search engine visibility of an article or blog post. These days, they explore ways to make the content appear on top of Google’s organic search results – featured snippets. When the content appears in the featured snippet, it caters to both conventional search and voice search. The content writers will focus on answering the questions asked by searchers in the best way. Also, they will increase the chances of the content appearing on featured snippets by including questions, bullet points, summary paragraphs, and how-to lists.
9) Switching Focus from Keywords to Search Intent
While ranking content, search engines these days prioritize search intent over search keywords.
According to Backlinko,
“Search Intent (also known as “User Intent”) is the main goal a user has when typing a query into a search engine. Common types of Search Intent include informational, commercial, navigational and transactional.”
While creating content, the writers will still focus on choosing and including relevant keywords in the articles or blogs. However, they will keep in mind search intent while doing keyword research and targeting. They will boost the content’s search engine visibility by focusing on relevance, authority, and user satisfaction. Also, they will finetune the content according to varying search intents – transactional, informational, preferential, and navigational.
10) Building Credibility Using User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is one of the hottest trends in content marketing. Many businesses these days request and persuade customers to produce and post content. Some companies even convert customers into content creators by offering incentives. In addition to reducing content generation costs, UGC helps businesses to impress new customers by showcasing quality, trust, credibility, or experience. Also, businesses can make customers a part of a community by requesting them to produce and share content.
11) Establishing Content Communities
Smarter digital marketers always boost content marketing campaigns by leveraging popular content communities like YouTube and SlideShare. In addition to creating personalized and targeted content, they focus on making the readers experience a sense of belonging to a community. The members of the content community help businesses get more likes and shares on social media through word-of-mouth promotion of content. Also, the content communities make it easier for digital marketers to generate content through bloggers and industry experts. In 2024, most businesses will focus on developing content communities while creating content.
12) Repurposing Content Across Multiple Channels
Content marketing enables SMEs to compete with large and established businesses by overcoming resource constraints. However many small businesses and startups still lack the resources to create, distribute, and promote fresh content regularly. That is why; content repurposing will emerge as one of the hottest content marketing trends in 2024. The enterprises will generate valuable, original, and engaging content once. However, they will repurpose the content across multiple channels of communication to reach out to a larger audience.
13) Engaging Customers through Webinars and Live Videos
The COVID-19 pandemic made people spend more time streaming videos and video conferencing in 2020. The steady video streaming growth creates opportunities for businesses to engage prospects and customers in 2021 by streaming live videos. Many enterprises will organize webinars to get frequently asked questions (FAQs) about products, services, or industries from industry experts. Also, they will engage customers by live-streaming from trade shows, exhibition booths, and field events. In addition to highlighting key aspects of a product or brand, live videos, and webinars will drive content marketing campaigns. Here are some webinar promotion ideas that can get the maximum ROI from your webinars.
14) Creating Infographics to Engage Millenials
Search engines prefer long-form content to short-form content. The content writers explore ways to increase the length of articles and blogs to increase organic search traffic. However, youngsters and millennials lack the time and attention span required to read lengthy content. They look for options to get the desired information or instructions in a few minutes without reading the content. The businesses will impress and engage millennial customers in 2024 by conveying information quickly and easily by creating infographics. However, the content creators have to make the infographics appealing by experimenting with storytelling styles and colors.
15) Generating Content to Persuade Customers to Buy Local
Content marketers often reuse the same content across geographic locations. But consumers these days can be persuaded to buy locally only by using personalized and localized content. In 2024, digital marketers cannot influence the purchase decisions of customers living in different locations by posting and promoting the same content. The content writers have to do some research to make the content appealing to buyers by adding local flavors. The content marketing strategies will focus on complementing the global or general-purpose content with content optimized for specific locations.
In 2024, your business can accomplish a slew of digital marketing campaigns by running content marketing campaigns. However, you cannot get a higher ROI on content marketing simply by focusing on content and distribution channels. It is always important to adopt the current and emerging content marketing trends proactively to make content marketing campaigns more successful.
Every year Google makes thousands of changes to its search algorithms. Some of the major search algorithm updates impact the search engine visibility of thousands of websites in a short amount of time. Also, the search engine algorithm changes often make widely used search engine optimization (SEO) techniques obsolete and create many new SEO trends. Businesses, with a great organic SEO strategy, get a significant percentage of their website traffic from organic searches. Hence, you can get organic traffic to your website or online platforms regularly by fine-tuning your search engine optimization SEO strategy by adopting the emerging SEO trends early and proactively.
According to a Channel Performance Report released by Brightedge,
“51% of all website traffic comes from organic search, while over 40% of revenue is captured by organic traffic.”
Also, you must keep the SEO strategy dynamic to adopt the emerging SEO trends in 2023 proactively.
12 Hottest SEO Trends in 2023 to Get Website Traffic from Organic Search
1. Long-Form Content
Search engines do not consider content length as a criterion for ranking websites. But the statistics posted on various websites suggest that long-form content gets more organic traffic, social media shares, and backlinks than short-form content. Your SEO strategy must focus on creating long-form articles and blogs in 2023. But you must divide the content into small sections using sub-titles and headings to make it easier for the searcher to read blogs and articles on their mobile devices. Also, you must include links or buttons to make it easier for readers to share the content on social networks instantly.
2. Google E-A-T Principle
Google has already started assessing the quality of content using the EAT principle. The EAT principles measure content quality using three key parameters – expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. In addition to creating long-form content, you must focus on improving the content quality. You can keep the content relevant for readers by meeting the reader’s precise search intent. Also, you must allow the reader to access the content in her preferred format. At the same time, you also need to make the content authoritative by including the latest statistics, facts, and external links to authoritative websites.
3. Video Content
According to Hubspot.com,
“In 2020, it’s likely that the expectation of brands to provide marketing videos has gotten even stronger. Each day, consumers use product demos, video reviews, and unboxings to learn about products before they buy them.”
You can easily get more traffic from organic search by focusing on the creation and promotion of video content. You consider creating a dedicated video channel to create and post video content regularly. The video content will help you to convey information about your products, services, and brands to customers. However, it is also important to optimize the videos for search engines by including the most relevant keywords. Also, you
4. Featured Snippet
Google displays the featured snippets at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) to provide quick answers or solutions to the questions asked by the searchers. You can get website traffic from organic search regularly by making your content appear in the featured snippet. But you must remember that the long-form content does not appear in the featured snippets. While creating featured snippets, you need to focus on presenting a chunk of information in Q&A format or using bullet points, or including relevant keywords. Also, you need to ensure that the snippet answers question-based queries precisely.
5. Site Experience
Search engines will focus on the site experience in 2023 while ranking websites. Your website cannot get more traffic from organic search without delivering an excellent user experience. While optimizing your SEO strategy in 2023, you must not forget to assess the loading speed of the website. You need to ensure that the website keeps visitors engaged by loading in less than 2 seconds. Also, you must check if a searcher can access the website instantly and seamlessly on both computers and mobile devices. At the same time, you need to focus extensively on improving the website’s mobile experience.
6. Google Maps
According to SEOExpertBrad.com,
“46% of all searches on Google are seeking local information. Also, 97% searched online to find a local business.”
The local search rankings help small and local businesses to get website traffic from organic search by competing with large enterprises. Google makes it easier for local businesses to improve their ranking on Google Maps by creating free profiles. Unlike Google Search, Google Maps do not allow Google Ads to dominate organic search results. While preparing SEO strategies for a local business in 2012, you must explore ways to improve its ranking on Google Maps.
7. Predictive Search
Major search engines these days predict what search query a searcher will type using predictive search algorithms. Also, they update the predictive search algorithms regularly to prevent searchers from typing the search query. Google does not recommend webmasters to optimize content for predictive search. But Google Discover considers the quality of content and the intent of the searcher while ranking content. The AI-driven tool further ranks content using a slew of parameters – browsing history, location history, and search history. While creating content for SEO campaigns in 2023, you must keep in mind the factors considered by Google Discover.
8. Voice Search
According to the voice search statistics posted on QuoraCreative.com
“55% of teenagers are using voice search daily basis, while 60% of smartphone users have tried voice search at least once in the past 12 months.”
The statistics indicate that voice search will remain one of the hottest SEO trends in 2023. Your SEO strategy must focus on boosting voice search. In addition to including relevant keywords, you must focus on including the longer phrase that searchers use in daily conversations. Also, you can make it easier for voice search technology to identify the keywords by making the phrases sound natural. You must not forget that the searchers do not use abbreviations while initiating voice searches.
9. Search Intent
In 2023, you cannot make SEO strategies effective by focusing only on keywords. Google has already started displaying search results based on search intent. Hence, you can make content rank higher on SERPs by focusing on search intent instead of keywords. Google recommends businesses create content that is both useful and understandable. In addition to presenting information in a simpler way, you must focus on meeting the precise needs of the customers. It is also advisable to create content with information that answers some of the frequently asked questions (FAQs) by the searchers.
10. Data and Analytics
Businesses these days collect a large amount of real-time data from various sources. They can leverage big data to boost the performance of SEO campaigns. Also, the data and analytics tools will help you to assess the performance of SEO campaigns using a variety of parameters – indexing, page loading time, redirects, bounce rates, and response errors. Also, the new-generation SEO tools are designed with built-in data analytics to automate common SEO activities like keyword research, competition analysis, backlink generation, on-page SEO, and technical SEO.
11. AI-Driven Tools
Google already uses machine learning to deliver more relevant search results by understanding search intent accurately. Many enterprises have started investing in artificial intelligence (AI) driven tools to optimize and automate their SEO efforts. AI-driven tools help enterprises to optimize content for search engines by including the right keywords, fixing grammatical errors, and generating backlinks. In 2023, more enterprises will leverage AI-driven content generators to create content according to the updated search algorithms. Also, the AI-driven SEO tools will be used widely by digital marketers to analyze big data, perform keyword research, and monitor search engine optimization campaigns.
12. Freemiums
In 2023, tech companies cannot generate qualified leads and drive sales conversion simply by creating and promoting content. They have to attract prospects and leads by offering a variety of freemiums. Many companies already use freemiums as a seducing marketing tool to drive more organic traffic to their websites. For instance, fintech companies these days attract relevant customers by offering free EMI calculators or online interest rate comparison tools. While implementing SEO strategies in 2023, the tech companies must focus on promoting the freemiums aggressively just like promoting informational content like blogs.
The search engines will update their search algorithms frequently in 2023 to provide relevant and updated information to searchers. Hence, the SEO trends in 2023 will change from time to time. You must track and adopt the emerging SEO trends proactively to get regular website traffic from organic search beyond 2023. Also, you need to keep track of the overall marketing strategy that competitors and similar companies are following
The nationwide lockdowns and global financial recession caused by COVID-19 make it difficult for businesses from various industries to generate revenue. But the businesses cannot acquire customers and boost sales without running digital marketing campaigns. Many experts believe that the disruptions caused by the Coronavirus pandemic will contribute to boosting digital marketing in 2020.
“The coronavirus crisis may seem like a huge threat to businesses and jobs as well as health, but digital marketing may in fact take a great leap forward as a result of Covid 19.”
DigitalAgencyNetwork.com
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