The world of online marketing is constantly evolving and it changes every year. The strategies that might have worked just a few years ago are now outdated, and that’s why you always need to keep up with the times. If you don’t, your business will ultimately fail.

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On the other hand, if you find that being constantly up-to-date with the marketing world takes too much of your time that you would rather spend on other innovations, it might be a wise idea to just buy a website that’s already experienced a lot of traffic. That way, you will get a website with internet traffic that will bring you profits in a short time.

Whatever you choose to do, just remember that while it is essential to implement new strategies this year, it’s important to balance them out with some old ones as well. There are some strategies that were proven to be very effective in the past and will no doubt stay useful in the future.

Let’s look at some online marketing strategies that will make your business thrive in 2020.

Search engine optimization

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Search engine optimization is a well-established method for getting your website a high-ranking position on Google and other search engines. SEO trends are constantly changing, and in 2020 SEO will focus on customers and how they actually use Google to find what they need.

One of the biggest changes in SEO happened at the end of October last year when Google introduced BERT (Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding). This is a neural network-based technique for natural language processing that gives Google a better understanding of how language is used.

Here are some useful SEO strategies for 2020:

• More focus on content. Google is starting to care less about keywords and more about topics and semantics. Now it’s more important than ever to create meaningful and high-quality content that will attract readers to your website.
• Optimize for voice search. Voice search has been around for years and it’s not going anywhere any time soon, so it is best to optimize for it right now.
• Upload videos. Videos are a great medium that both customers and search engines love. When you upload a video, optimize it for SEO with the appropriate title, description, and tags. Additionally, upload a transcript of your video so you can be sure that Google understands every word of your video.
• Focus on search intent. Whenever someone goes to Google, their keywords have an intent behind them. If you want to have a high-ranking position, you need to identify each keyword’s search intent and match it. This means you need to publish exactly the type of content your customers want to see.
• Use a VPN. A VPN will help you with your SEO efforts, but make sure you use the best VPN service for 2020. VPN’s ability to bypass geo-restricted content allows you to view organic Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) from around the world. This will help you determine which keywords are used most frequently and in which countries.

Use social media to promote your business

Social media marketing is a low-cost and sometimes even free way to promote your business to a wide audience all over the world. Marketing changed significantly when marketers discovered the potential of social media.

When we look at social media marketing statistics, we can see that 73% of marketers say that their social media marketing efforts have been somewhat effective or very effective. This online marketing strategy can be very beneficial for your business, you just need to know how to implement it.

The first step is to make profiles on popular social media websites that your target audience uses, such as Facebook and Instagram. As soon as you’ve done that, it’s time to start posting content your audience will enjoy.

Here is how you can get the most out of your social media marketing campaign:

• Post regularly. Your goal should be to create a lot of quality content your readers will enjoy. Post pictures, updates, and news daily so customers always have a way to interact with your company. This way, you will also constantly be on their mind.
• Don’t over-promote. Your followers don’t want to see ads all the time. People will get bored of your page if all they see on it is promotional material. Instead, include content-based posts that will still focus on your company and products without being a direct promotion.
• Organize contests and giveaways. One of the best ways to create a positive connotation to your company in your customer’s mind is through contests and giveaways. This is a great tactic as it allows your followers to promote you for free though liking and sharing in exchange for a reward.
• Automate. If you want to get the best out of social media, you need to think about automation. Facebook and Instagram automation will help you get more followers and likes by taking care of repetitive tasks.

Create interactive content

The saying “Content is king” has been a staple of online marketing for a while now. While it is important to focus some of your efforts on writing informative blog posts with great copy, you need to make way for interactive content. If you are still not posting any interactive content, that needs to change.

It’s the year 2020 and customers don’t want “boring” content anymore. In this day and age, we are bombarded with information from everywhere. That is why audiences have become more demanding about the type of content they want to see and why you need to make better content on your website.

Customers want the content to be available to them on every device they use, relevant, and most importantly of all, engaging. Interactive content that meets all of these standards will undoubtedly help your online marketing efforts.

The biggest difference between interactive and static content is customer engagement. Readers usually only passively read static content, and consume the information they receive from interactive content. According to statistics, 50% of consumers spend their time engaging with custom content. Additionally, 88% of marketers say interactive content is effective at differentiating their brand and 93% of marketers rate interactive content as effective at educating the buyer.

Here are some types of interactive content your audience might enjoy:

• Quizzes and assessments
• Product recommenders that works based on their replies
• Interactive videos with questions, polls, and clickable tags that determine how the video will end
• Countdowns that signify special sales while also building excitement
• Interactive e-books
• Interactive polls
• Interactive infographics

Upload product-focused videos

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As we’ve already mentioned, videos are great for SEO, but that is far from its only purpose. If you make great videos, SEO will actually be just an added bonus your videos bring. The most important function of your videos should be to educate your audience and potential buyers.

Just because you know the purpose of the product you’re selling, that doesn’t mean everybody does. Product videos serve to explain the product to the audience more than a product description ever could. When you make a product-focused video, provide answers to the following questions:

• What is this product?
• How can/should I use it?
• What is it good for/what is its purpose?
• Why do I need it?
• How can I buy it?
• How much does it cost?

If you aren’t sure video is the right strategy for your online marketing, just take a look at some video marketing statistics:

• By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than in 2017.
• Nearly 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store.
• Video increases organic search traffic on a website by 157%.
• 85% of consumers want to see more video content from brands.
• 64% of consumers will make a purchase after watching branded videos on social platforms.

Wrap-up

Today, online marketing is an essential part of every business journey. It can literally make or break businesses all around the world. It might be hard to keep up with the times and the constantly-changing trends, but it will all be worth it in the end.