Here are a few key emerging trends for search marketing in 2015 along with some handy with tips for brands and businesses:
- Marketers will go mobile: Mobile search is getting bigger by the day and it is quite visible in customer acquisition numbers for brands and businesses. Businesses in 2015 will be spending a lot more on mobile search marketing than they did last year, as the consumption of mobile media increases at a burning pace. Optimization of mobile search campaigns would be key as the consumption behavior on mobile is different than web, and not accounting for this distinction can prove fatal to the success of campaigns.
- Search marketing will grow beyond Google: Search is no longer just about Google. Visual channels and social media platforms are gaining an increasing importance, with more time being spent by consumers on these channels. Visual channels as marketing mediums, will grow very rapidly considering the growing appeal of platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.
- Content marketing will grow bigger: Optimizing for and gaining organic traffic is getting harder and harder, as Google tightens its policies and algorithms. Indirect ways of driving organic traffic like content marketing are likely to be more effective than traditional search engine optimization practices. Brands and businesses will have to and are therefore paying a lot of attention to content marketing and investing in it heavily.
- Marketers will prefer native advertising: We’ll also increasingly see the blending of organic and paid mediums, where advertisements will get harder to spot with reference to regular content. Native advertising is on the rise, and according to some marketers and experts, it might just be the best way to reach out to a brand’s customers, as they are likely to be more receptive to content which looks a little less like an out and out advertisement.
- Paid search marketing will cost more: Paid search marketing is getting more expensive by the year. Of course the percentage growth is different from industry to industry, but largely the trend has been steeply upwards.
- Marketers will look to target better: 2015 will also be the year of hyper-targeting, and re-targeting in search marketing. As search marketing platforms allow for increasing customization to target specific audience, marketers would like to target more accurately, rather than spreading a wide net. This of course makes sense intuitively too.
- Key take away: Businesses and brands will have to re-assess the distribution of their search and online marketing budgets to make the most of their marketing dollar. New and upcoming channels of search marketing will need to be embraced and given due respect, as the consumers invest more time into them.
Image Credit: David Saunders via flickr