SEO Forecast – Digital Marketing Update 2020

SEO Spending Continues To Rise

The Corona Virus pandemic has had a big impact on the business of marketing and advertising.  With offices empty and factories shutdown, and most promotional channels in a standstill, SEO has had lots of time to flourish.

Companies are renewing their efforts in the organic content and search engine optimization channels. With marketing funds low, companies can’t advertise as they did.  SEO is providing good exposure as so many consumers, workers and B2B prospects are at home.

If you’re a small business owner, an SEO expert is vital to your business future.

PPC and SEO

Both Facebook and Google have squeezed the internet advertising market, and dominated that space. They have learned how to push out organic traffic and monetize it. Their revenues have rocketed at the same pace as they’ve squeezed out small business from the free organic traffic lanes.

Perhaps the surest cue to SEOs future value, are the rising PPC prices on Google Adwords advertising.

Automotive, Legal, and Health categories continue to grow fast in cost to advertisers.  Many advertisers have been priced out of the market and have turned to Facebook and Twitter advertising which has shown mediocre returns.

riseingoogleads

SEO’s Future: Always the Most Credible Source for Consumers

Search will survive because people need information and they have high expectations of Google search results.  It’s SEOs job to know what customers want and how to perform SEO at an elite level to get in the top 5 positions.

One thing we know for sure, it’s getting noisier as more money pours into digital marketing.  As part of my consulting work, I have to research precise market demand. One key statistic is the cost per click of client’s most important search engine keyword phrases. Well, that could range from $10 to $90 per click!

And companies will pay that price.  No one pays $90 for a walk-in, or a banner ad click, and well, okay yes they’ll pay through the nose for tv, billboard and bus ads.  How is SEO faring against the likes of television, radio, and bus ads?

If branded high visibility is what companies want, SEO has to be the best way to get it.

Local media forecaster Borrell Associates has attempted to capture the totality of spending on “digital marketing services” in the US. Borrell argues that “businesses will shell out an estimated $613 billion in DMS” in 2016, an amount many times larger than “ad spending.” — From Adgooroo Advertising Insight

The title graphic above is courtesy of Search Engine Land and shouldn’t they have also died along with SEO? The stat shows spending on SEO keeps growing (20+ % to 2020). Those with a great strategy have confidence that’s worth it, rather than funneling money into weak PPC and social media campaigns that have one time, temporary benefits. Remember how SEO lasts. There’s few posts on the long term benefits of SEO, but I did write a post on customer lifetime value.

There have been a lot of rumors about the death of SEO in digital marketing and it is affecting company’s budgetary plans.  Social marketers in particular would like to money gravitate to their field, but let’s face it, social will never generate the kind of ROI SEO can.

Maybe what the negative forecasters are actually saying is that cheap, no-budget, poor content driven SEO is dead?  A few SEO pundits keep saying “algorithm chasing” is dead. Let’s get it straight. SEO is all about matching algorithms. That’s what you’re optimizing for.

Therefore, an expert understanding of Google’s algorithm (as well as other algorithms in use for just about everything now) is a great asset. In future, SEOs will have to be well informed, constantly testing and analyzing ranking results to allow them the best understanding of Google’s algorithm.  Algorithm research is very important for top flight SEOs.

So let’s recall our classic literature: “The King is Dead, Long Live the King”

What are some tips to help you thrive for many years to come?

  • never work with cheap, $199 a month spammers — this is not SEO – SEO is hard work
  • make a commitment to SEO by not listening to hyped up fears generated by the Google lab
  • don’t rely on social media – it offers a very poor search experience
  • remember that searchers using Google are often ready to buy
  • know that Google’s algorithm is very complex but still understandable
  • that SEO provides the best ROI possible and that abandoning professional level SEO could kill your business

What is the Future of SEO?

  1. higher quality content designed to appease Google’s algorithm
  2. content that generates higher clickthrough rates and user engagement
  3. greater use of artificial intelligence in the algorithm by Google
  4. better scrutiny of backlinks by Google
  5. better integration of content and search engine optimization strategy
  6. better awareness by Google of rich media interaction by users
  7. more traffic for the very best optimized websites
  8. more integration of Google analytics by Google to determine worthy web pages
  9. more sophisticated link building techniques that involve big planning and well executed link building tactics
  10. more rewards for those help a company grow its Google ranking power

 

SaaS Software Marketing | SaaS Travel Marketing | Advanced SEO | Digital Marketing Consultant