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5 Online Marketing Predictions for 2016

by | Dec 14, 2015 | News | 0 comments

For all of us that work within the SEO and internet marketing space, we are all used to the industry changing news that comes from Google randomly throughout the duration of each year. Based on the news that has already hit and current market trends, the writing is on the wall for some of the top things we will see internet marketing do in 2016.

So without further ado, here are the top 5 online marketing predictions for 2016:

1. Mobile will overtake desktop

We have known that this will happen for a while, but in 2015 Google officially announced the following:

“In fact, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan. This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to reach people throughout all the new touchpoints of a consumer’s path to purchase.”

Since it’s already happened in 10 countries, we can expect to see this same trend continue world wide. Google put more emphasis on mobile search with their endearingly named “Mobilegeddon” update in 2015, but it’s not rediculous to think that more mobile specific algorithmic updates will be pushed out this upcoming year.

With desktop already taking a backseat, you can bet your bottom dollar that mobile content is where everyone will be banking on attracting readers in 2016.

2. “Appmageddon” is coming!

App indexing is nothing new, but how it is changing for the future is something to be aware of. For example, Facebook recently announced last month they will allow Google to index some of its content going back to 2007. With Facebook having a history of touting its walled off garden in a sense, why then would they do this?

The answer is simple, App indexing is something Google is banking on, and Facebook doesn’t want to miss out. In fact, by allowing Google to index their content, they get traffic for free from a direct competitor!

In 2016, we will see more dedicated apps replacing mobile websites as apps can do everything web sites can, but do it much more intuitively. App adoption will most likely spike in 2016, especially with more apps being brought up in the search results.

3. More content will live off-site

Nobody likes to wait for content to load when they click a link. Facebook was the first to do something about it with their “Instant Articles” service they launched this year.

Google has answered and will be launching AMP, which stands for Accelerate Mobile Pages. This means that Google themselves will offer to host your content so that it will load up at blazingly fast speeds when people click on it.

For 2016, this means that not only will content marketers need to focus on the content that lives onsite, but they will also need to strategize on the content that they post on Google AMP and other large networks that offer to host content to improve user experiences as this content will likely be favored when it comes to search rankings.

4. A new type of paid ad will be born

One of the scariest things that happened this year for advertisers was the native support that Apple added in IOS 9 for ad blocking. Now this certainly doesn’t kill the PPC ad that we are all used to, but it does definitely shorten the time table on coming up with a new and unique paid ad alternative from what we are used to seeing.

It’s no secret that Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. make most of their money off of paid advertising. With companies that large and with so much of their business riding on paid ads, you can bet we’ll see some unique solutions to paying for ads that are different than what we have seen in the past. If anything, we will see a huge shift from quantity to quality when it comes to paid advertising.

5. Content will get even more competitive

When something gets more attention, competition seems to sprout out of nowhere. Content marketing is not immune from this phenomenon and will be effected by it this coming year.

With mobile taking off and Google offering to host content, content marketing will be an even bigger focus for companies in 2016. With more companies focusing on how to reach their target audiences through their content, you can bet that content marketing will reach a new competitive level in 2016 as companies battle for information space within the SERPS.

Any trends you see that I missed on this list? I’d love to hear about it in the comment section below.

Greg Secrist
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