Episode 14
014: 2021 – Biggest opportunities in Digital Marketing
In this episode, we talk about strategies, tools and platforms that promise new and known opportunities in 2021. We talk about what worked really well in 2020, what still works now and what new platforms and changes are coming up in 2021.
We talked about...
>> Google's Newest Significant Algorithm Changes scheduled for May 2021
>> Social Shopping
>> The new popular kid on the block: Clubhouse
Episode Links and Mentions:
>> www.stephaniefiteni.com/podcast
>> fiverr.com
Did you Enjoy this Episode?
Subscribe to this Podcast Here
Prefer to Read? Here’s the Transcript:
Google releases about 3000 updates a year to its algorithm, but every now and then it has an algorithm that actually carries a name like probably the most popular was Panda and then hummingbird. And there is going to be another big update in 2021. We don't know what it's going to be called yet, but it is going to be released in May 2021.
And we already know why it is going to be important and how things are going to change. So coming back to the one thing I always talk about, and you know, the reason why Google exists is to serve the best results to people who punch in keywords and sentences and questions into Google.
So you don't really need to fear because you are in Google are on the same side. However, Google, since probably the major algorithm released in 2010 has been working on trying to, push people who create websites and businesses to create a faster experience. So they want to speed up the internet and the algorithm release in May, 2021 is going to focus specifically on this. They've called it the user experience release. So they want to really focus on improving the way users are using your website.
So Google is going to now start looking at a number of elements on your site that it believes improve the experience of people or maybe more precisely yeah. Are elements that Google thinks are showing signs of a better positive experience.
Google has created what it's calling the core web vitals, which are, you know, three elements of measurements that it's going to use to decide whether your site has a nice user experience are not the first element Google will measure is how quickly the measurements above the fold actually load above the fold means that's part of the website that you can see in your screen right away without scrolling. So Google will be measuring how quickly it loads and also how quickly people can actually click on it because sometimes sites can load, but you know, you can't quite click on them right away.
It's like they need to do a little bit of extra loading and then you can finally interact with them. The third element is how long it takes for the picture to become visually stable. So for the whole layout to become visually stable, you know, sometimes you see a website that takes a little bit of time to load and sort of you see things falling around and, you know, the layout changes. So Google is going to take into consideration how quickly it takes to stabilise and settle down all these elements. According to Google, make for a good user experience. It has picked these three things to measure how the user is going to interact with your website in a positive way. But of course, it's going to give a lot more importance to mobile this time around than it does to the desktop. There are still many sites on the internet that don't quite perform as well on mobile.
In spite of having a very pretty mobile site, some websites are not great. I say most still have some very small elements to click on when it comes to the mobile experience. And there are certain things that Google thinks need to be actually even faster than desktop on mobile. There are, of course also some other very interesting developments which we have seen. When I say we, I mean, SEO people who work on the SEO of their websites on their clients and, you know, can see the changes in the algorithm. There have been some very exciting changes this year, especially for people who like me love and specialize in content. So what can you do to make sure that you're making the most of the changes that Google is going to throw our way this year? So here's what you need to do, make sure that your website is as light and as simple as possible.
So make sure that your images are as small as they can be. Make sure that your website loads quickly and if need to be shortened the length of your pages so that they load more quickly. If you use a WordPress site, check your template, make sure it doesn't take too long to load because it has a lot of extra code that you don't actually need. So if you have a site that maybe looks simple, but still takes a long time to load and it's WordPress.
You may want to hire somebody to actually clean out the code for you and make it faster. You can find developers on Fiverr and similar websites. And of course, always work with someone who is ideally referred and can prove that he has done the work well for other people as well. But it shouldn't be hard to find someone who can wake, make your website faster.
The second thing, which is really exciting, actually for all types of coaches is that niching is actually a great SEO strategy. This is something that I have tried in the last 18 months and it's worked wonders for the traffic of my website. It has, I think, quadrupled in the last six to eight months. And this has happened because I have gone deeper into niche silos. So when you niche, Google finds it really, really easy to understand what you're about. It also finds it really easy to know who to serve your content to. So you're doing Google a favour and you're doing your audience a favour. Now, when you create it's a website that also has a blog. So you are, let's say you're a coach and you work in a specific niche of life coaching. Let's say you do nutrition or weight loss or something of the sort.
If you're a blog has very specifically a lot of content about this particular topic. And then you niche down further too, for instance, weight loss for mums weightless for menopause. So you get your niche and you even create kind of siloed content by siloed. I mean that you have subcategories and subcategories, which are very, very specific and very, very relevant. What this does is it creates clarity, clarity for your audience to navigate your site and clarity for Google, to understand what you're about and who to serve your website to this creates a win-win situation because Google is going to find it really easy to serve you to the people that you're trying to find.
And another important thing, which Google is really giving a lot of emphasis on the value that you provide. This is a very important part of the user experience because if they come to your website and they do not find enough value, they're going to leave and Google traces, this Google knows how long people spend on your site before going to Google and punching that keyword back into the search.
So Google knows how much value they found on your site. It's very important, and this should be absolutely our main focus to keep your reader reading. Once they have landed on your website to maybe create a video so that they click on it and they can immediately understand what you're about. But the user experience is not just about that one piece of valuable content and that one piece of video, it's also about giving them an experience, leading them onto the next thing, having the right call to action on the right blog, post, having the right next action instruction on your video, and maybe, you know, connecting everything in a way that your audience really knows where to find the next step after they read.
And, you know, they get excited about what you're doing. So that's sort of like Google, in a nutshell, that's more or less what's going to happen in 2021, of course, stay tuned because there's going to be so much more that they're going to release during this year before the big year, the big moments, the big release in may when they finally release the updates, but let's now move on to the next digital marketing channel.
And the next one obvious and already actually rolled out feature. That seems to be taking social media by storm is the new e-commerce or rather shoppable posts on social media. Now you have had a lot of shopping carts already on Facebook. And the new feature actually rolled out to Instagram has already shown that about 46% of Instagram users purchased one or more products using the shopping feature on IgG posts.
The statistics are amazing. 46% is really, really high and seem to be very promising in the coming year. The reels are becoming more and more popular. It has given people the opportunity to reuse tectonics or maybe start playing around and getting the confidence to do tech talks. So all in all, I think Instagram is going to have a fantastic year. And if like a lot of businesses, you are calling your social media platforms this year, perhaps Instagram is one of those platforms to keep the next platform is LinkedIn.
And of course, they have rolled out a lot of new features this year. They are becoming more social as a platform. And I think they've been pretty successful this year. We're not on LinkedIn live yet. You should definitely try to get there a good way of doing this is to start producing videos regularly on LinkedIn. So just post recorded ones before you apply for the live button. Once you apply for the live button, then you have a much higher chance of getting it. And of course, LinkedIn, for those of you who targets, especially business to business is going to be a great place to market this year. And of course, finally, there is also the new kid on the block clubhouse, who is looking really, really promising in spite of being only available for iPhone so far and being only open to invite, which is a fantastic way of getting everybody to talk about it by giving limited accessibility.
It's promising, it's really promising. I like it. So for those of you who don't have clubhouse yet clubhouse is an audio platform. So, you know, it's like doing lives. There are rooms people organise rooms and there are speakers there. So there can be two or three or maybe even more people having like a panel discussion about a topic. And then there is the audience, and of course, they can invite the audience to join in and ask questions and engage.
So I think this is a really nice step forward. I have been in a few clubhouse rooms already and I have, you know, engaged a little bit and I have found some really interesting information. There are a lot of influences on there already. People are sharing information really freely and they're having very honest discussions. I think the fact that it's audio-only gives people the freedom to really jump on and off really quickly.
So, you know, you don't have to be made up. You don't have to prepare, you can just jump in and, you know, as long as you're not in a noisy room, you can just join into a conversation. So I think clubhouse is onto a good thing. Of course, I think podcasters are going to benefit a lot from this because people who podcasts are going to find clubhouse easy because they're used to just talking. And actually, the fact that you're not just talking to a microphone, but you're also talking to other people, makes it actually a lot easier than podcasting. I like it in a way. If you are accustomed to listening to podcasts, you're going to absolutely love this. You're going to love it. I am the kind of person that really does not like radio because, you know, it's, it's like you can't pick there's people talking and sometimes they annoy you.
And I really don't like listening to radio talk shows and things like that. I don't listen to the radio at all, but clubhouse is, is a different thing. So in spite of the fact that it might sort of feel like the same thing, it's very different because it's on-demand.
So people invite you to the rooms, you know what the topics are. You can follow topics, you can follow people, you can follow rooms. And, you know, I think it's really good because it gives you that choice. And you know, it's got a little button that says you can leave quietly so you can leave the room without showing up too much. My only concern about this platform is that once there are lots of people on it, it can become really quite overwhelming. I think they keep it in control. And you know, maybe the design of the app is going to have a lot to do with it if they keep it streamlined as it is.
And don't go too crazy. Like the other platforms, I think this is going to be a real, real nice one. I have really loved listening to some influencers like Laura Belgray and Kimra Luna. And you know, they have been really awesome having really authentic conversations as opposed to pre-planned webinars on lives, on this sort of thing. I really like the fact that it's unofficial it kind of feels more relaxed and people really relaxed people really are really honest. So it really feels almost like you're listening in on a conversation and then you're like, wow, I can actually jump in and speak to these people who are so, so up there when it comes to other social media platforms because they have such a large following. So I think clubhouse is going to change a few things. I'm really looking forward to seeing where it goes.
And 2021 is definitely going to be it's. Yeah. And last but not pleased definitely deserves a mention is SEO for voice search. Now SEO for voice search is like a sort of regular SEO, but it's one thing that we shouldn't forget. A lot of people have Alexa or Google Home devices in their home now. And it's very important that we keep in mind that these are increasing more and more and people are using them for search. So if growing the traffic to your website if you blog, if you put cast, if you put media on your website for your roadies to find voice search is something that you really want to make sure you think about, if you do your own keyword research, you're going to notice this. You're going to notice that there are certain keywords that look like commands. And you know, these are the ones to look out for because they come from audio searches.
Now it's going to be very interesting to see how these sort of the most recent audio media is going to mix with this voice search and where the devices to create, you know, a richer experience. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how this pans out as the technology becomes smarter and smarter. 2021 is promising to be a very exciting year when it comes to content and social media and everything, digital marketing. And I'm really, really excited to see how things develop. Thank you very much for tuning in today. And I really hope you find these developments exciting as much as I did.
