Ahh, yet another year is drawing to a close. Perhaps for you it seemed to have flown by in a blink. But in the Inbound Marketing world, a lot of important changes began to evolve in that time.
If you’re looking to master the Inbound scene in 2019, then you’ll want to look back at all the top trends from 2018. Here are four of our favorites…
Optimizing Content for Voice Search
In the year 2018, we’ve witnessed the meteoric rise of voice assistants. Sure, we’ve had mobile voice assistants for a few years now, but it wasn’t really until smart speakers from Google, Amazon, and the like took off that this trend started to dominate. If you’re wondering just how quickly it’s growing, consider this: By 2020, it is estimated that 50% of all searches will be voice searches. Impressive, huh?
In order to keep our content ranking and search-friendly, we need to start fine-tuning content for voice search. This means, we need to make our answers and info easy to find. Utilize bullet points and tables, for instance, for easy cherry-picking.
We also need to keep content conversational. People don’t speak in Google search terms. They ask questions in complete sentences. We need to be providing answers in the same lingo, perhaps even by presenting content in an FAQ style. Voice assistants love that!
Lengthening Blog Posts
Everyone that’s dipped their toes into Inbound Marketing before knows how valuable blog posts are. For a long time, rule of thumb dictated that the more blog posts you could churn up in a week, the more traffic you’d see. However, 2018 showed us this is only partially true.
While frequent, consistent blogging is still important, we’re starting to see less return on investment if the posts are short and vague. Quantity is necessary, but so is quality.
In the past year, marketers have realized that you can blog a little less frequently if you’re consistently putting out lengthy, detailed posts. You’ll find the true sweet spot is anywhere from 2,000-2,500 words.
Try plotting out longer pieces and you ought to see a steady increase in traffic.
Attaching Videos to Your Posts
How-to content is huge these days, and it’s not hard to see why. The internet has a bevvy of information, and its sheer accessibility is incredibly empowering. You’d do your readers a service to provide them with step-by-step walkthrough content that puts the power into their hands.
On your end, you can help content rank if you attach a how-to video to go along with it. More and more videos are being pulled by Google to use as featured snippet content. And that kind of exposure drives tons of traffic to the source.
If you can manage to upgrade your blog post with even a short video, your content will receive a mega-boost.
Guest Blogging
At the end of the day (or year), 2018 showed us that traffic is all about exposure. And if you’re looking to improve yours, then you need to find ways to reach out to an entirely new audience. Short of completely revamping your content and voice, there’s one very easy way to do that: Guest blogging.
Writing a guest blog on the site of another industry expert will instantly connect you with a whole new audience. Soon enough, you’ll see readers of that blog navigating to yours.
Remember, we trust the voices we know. Being granted a spot on another person’s blog is a pretty honest endorsement. It’s that person’s way of saying that they trust your expertise, and that their readers should, too.
Let’s Get Ready for Some New Trends
So much changed in 2018, and it’s all sure to change and grow again in 2019. To be ready for that, you need to start putting those 2018 Inbound Marketing trends into practice now.
If you’d like any advice on improving your Inbound Marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out to our experts. We’re always ahead of the curve when it comes to Inbound. Get in touch soon for more information!