6 Digital Marketing Trends for 2021

The new year is upon us. This is a great time to look into your marketing efforts and make any necessary adjustments to get the most out of them.

Digital marketing is widely known as an essential aspect of an effective marketing campaign. There are a variety of things you can do to help your potential customers find your services. So how do you know where to put your time and resources to get the best return?

2021 will bring changes not only to the technology we use to access the internet, but the way we interact with it. And this will impact which digital marketing methods will best address the needs and concerns of your customers.

Staying on top of these emerging trends will help you get your plan of action in place and stay ahead of your competition.

Here are 6 digital marketing trends you can expect in 2021:

Social Media Continues to Engage
Connect With Locals Through SEO
Responsive Websites are Essential
Informative Content Writing
Voice Search Optimization
Videos Garner Views

1. Social Media Continues to Engage

Social media has become an integral part of most people’s lives. And this stretches into how they interact with businesses. Customers are growing to expect more interactions through social media channels both for information as well as questions.

You can lean into this by letting your customers know that they can reach out to you on your various social media platforms. And then, make sure you have a dedicated team member to respond to any questions or concerns.

This connectivity is becoming increasingly important, and should be a focus in 2021.

2. Connect With Locals Through SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) that is targeted at your local market will become an increasingly important digital marketing tactic in 2021. Your Google listings are going to be an incredibly important aspect of this.

Use Google My Business to input all of your updated information regarding hours of operation, address, phone number, website, and any other contact information. Your customers need to know where, when, and how to find you.

This updated information will also help when a potential local customer searches for your services plus the tag “near me.” The benefits of being on these lists will only increase as people continue using voice searches and mobile devices for internet use in 2021.

3. Responsive Websites are Essential

Your website needs to be easily viewed and used on screens of all sizes. Laptops, smartphones, tablets — all of these devices are widely used and will have a drastic effect on the user’s enjoyment of your website if it doesn’t adjust itself.

This is what’s known as responsive web design. And while web design might not seem like it applies to digital marketing, proper design can actually factor into your ranking on search engine results pages.

A static website is going to create problems when it’s moved to a smaller screen — the images will be too big, the user will have to scroll to read long lines of text, information will be difficult to find. But a responsive website will adjust itself to screens of different size and ensure your visitor has a better experience.

4. Informative Content Writing

Website visitors are going to expect a lot in 2021. It’s not going to be good enough to simply provide slick images and descriptions of your services. They want value. And a quick and easy way to provide this is to offer informative content such as blogs and ebooks.

Quality content offers a variety of benefits that are going to continue becoming more important in the new year.

Well-written blogs garner more clicks and are rewarded with higher listings in search results. This creates trust and establishes authority in your industry, leading people to consider you an eminent source for your services.

5. Voice Search Optimization

The prevalence of voice search has certainly grown over the last couple years, and this trend will continue into 2021. Home assistants are becoming more popular. This has changed the way many people search for and find services and information.

Most people speak differently than they type. This doesn’t usually matter unless you are making an internet search that relies on the particular words you use.

Your website needs to be optimized not only for the SEO ramifications of this, but it also needs to be functional with voice commands.

6. Videos Garner Views

Video is possibly the easiest form of digital marketing for website visitors to enjoy. It holds their interest and does a great job of conveying information. You need to make this a serious aspect of your digital marketing efforts in 2021.

Product videos do a much better job of displaying the features of a product than a picture and text. People want to see it in action, and this is the best way to do that.

These videos are easily shared and are perfect for social media.