What Can We Expect From Digital Marketing In 2023
This year has been a wild one. Between major social media changes and a million and one Google algorithm updates as well as mass layoffs from tech companies, a wide variety of things have directly or indirectly impacted digital marketing. We are going to look at how those changes will impact marketing in 2023 as well as some of our own personal predictions on where digital marketing is changing and developing.
G4 Update Impacting Digital Marketing In 2023
Does a digital marketing company manage your website? They should be making the switch to G4 the new version of Google Analytics. There is a lot of upset within the marketing community over the new Analytics do to its lack of information and the removal of past data. That is right, al the years of data your website has collected will be lost!
Wes Web is creating a historical report in Data Studio or “Looker Studio” as Google has rebranded that as well. This report will be made so our clients can reference their website’s historical data moving forward. In July of 2023 the old version of Google Analytics will cease to exist.
How will Google Analytics G4 update impact digital marketing?
We can expect a slight decline in the quality of marketing strategy based on past data. This is where marketers with experience or who have adapted quickly to G4 will have an edge on the competition. We can also expect an increase in 3rd party data analytics for websites. All of these factors will result in a more diversified marketing approach and with the new data constraints, we will probably see more and more creativity. It is always interesting how being restrained results in creative work arounds and strategy.
Social Media Chaos’s Impact On Digital Marketing
Meta rolled out and has not had the positive impact they expected; Twitter is as bad as Target in a city that is seeing protests. In all this chaos, we can expect a combination of opportunities and restraints. Some social media may become less effective in their usability, data and effectiveness for businesses.
For instance, if Meta or Twitter sees a drop in users, it would be wise for their business to prioritize the user over the businesses and advertisers because the users are what determine the social media’s future growth and success.
Meanwhile, we see a revolution in social media with Tik Tok which is showing content based on interest rather than just what you are following. This algorithm structure is unlike other social media in it “benefits” both the user and the producer. By making that direct content connect, it leads to business branding, growth, outreach for producers, and an intense amount of consumption from the users. This might not be the healthiest social media, but it is effective for business.
While I am not exactly a fan of Tik Tok, it would be foolish as a business owner not to be producing content on it.
Tech Company Layoffs & Internet Marketing In 2023
How does this impact digital marketing? Tech company layoffs impact digital marketing because of how they will impact a lot of marketing companies. A digital marketer and an ex-employee from Twitter may both work online, but they have an entirely different skill sets. It is likely a lot of marketing companies will hire these tech company layoffs, and it will impact their marketing approach.
It is more likely we will see new social media platforms being created in excess. These layoffs will result in a large number of social media start ups and new niche based social media that will be popping up left and right. We will see a few of these roll out in 2023 and probably many more in 2024.
Do not look at new social media as a problem or challenge. View them as an opportunity for your business to grow and adapt your marketing strategy and your social media marketing strategy.
Video Content Continues To Grow In 2023
Google has recently integrated indexing for videos on Google search console, and I have seen only two types of videos on websites viewed as acceptable:
- YouTube video embeds
- Self embedded videos with correct Schema markup
Video you should be concerned about on your website:
- Gifs
- Vimeo
I expect Vimeo to be fixed relatively quickly, but I have seen some sites get flagged for having videos that could not be indexed; those videos have always been from Vimeo video embeds.
Preparing For SEO In 2023
Please Google (I know you are reading this!) give us a fewer updates this year! 2022 saw a large number of SEO updates roll out (even this month of November). I recommend watching the interview with Barry Shwartz and John Lincoln.
We’ve learned page speed is less of a priority while page experience is higher priority – I feel so vindicated by Google finally releasing a statement about this. Barry Schwartz also commented on this in the video and pretty much shrugged the question off and said if the technical SEO is good with your site, and it loads at a half-decent speed, then focus on content.
Focus on longer, higher quality content rather than a large number of articles. We like to focus on a small collection of articles and then see how they are growing. We will then expand them with the data and intelligence we receive from the initial blog post.
Quick SEO Wins For 2023
Below are some quick and easy optimizations for your website to improve your rankings:
- Add the max image preview tag to your site image to improve click through rate.
- Add relevant videos to your website.
Outside The Box SEO Prediction For 2023
I think video will be even more dynamically integrated into the google search feed. We have already seen video search snippets integrated into results, I would not be surprised to see a feed or reel added to search results.
Our Predictions For 2023 Digital Marketing
We are seeing a shift from marketing being singularly focused on only a few platforms to it being dynamic. Dynamic digital marketing takes your content and repurposes it to be on all digital marketing platforms. This content will also require a higher quality level with a big picture strategy integrated into your posts and content.
What our content creation strategy entails is utilizing your website’s blog and SEO content as the foundation of your marketing or the starting point. SEO will continue to develop and grow. The amount of opportunity and sustainable growth SEO marketing provides is astounding. That is why it is the best foundation for all of your other marketing platforms. Start with the highest ROI and then repurpose it to further your brand’s reach and awareness.
A large number of businesses that do all their marketing in house will likely fall behind. This is because the market and marketing industry is going through a large number of changes that is simply too difficult for in house marketing to keep up. Essentially the kid just out of college that you are paying to post on your Facebook is going to continue to do just that even though it is abundantly evident, Facebook posts are not getting your business leads.
Because of the economic market and digital marketing’s volatility, I expect businesses to invest more in their main lead drivers. More money will be invested in PPC advertising. PPC is a great form of digital marketing, but investing only in PPC is very short sighted and will lead to a drop in leads long term and your business to be trapped in an unsustainable PPC ad campaign that simply pays for itself to exist.
You can pull away and beat these large companies that are going to start playing it safe? Create better and more content that will take out their organic content and build up your organic reach with a diverse collection of platforms you are sharing the unique content on.
What Can You Do To Prepare For Digital Marketing In 2023?
There is a lot you can do to improve your digital marketing in 2023. If you do not have a marketing strategy in place for your business, you will waste a lot of time and energy creating ineffective content and investing in ineffective marketing. Take time to focus on strategy.
To prepare for marketing in 2023 you can also go through the check list below:
- Set up G4 if you haven’t yet.
- Create social media accounts for your business that you haven’t yet, and start posting! Some social medias to consider:
- Build up your relationships with existing customers and create loyal customers because as the economy squeezes, people are more likely to jump to cheaper products.
- Create more content and higher quality content. Do not just write a blog post; create a video and an infographic as well. Take your marketing from bland to dynamic and effective.
- Lean into using video in you marketing. While written content is extremely important and valuable, video continues to grow more and more.
Make sure your marketing team stays up to date on digital marketing movements and changes.