insight : welton hong
Online Marketing Trends That Will Stick Around for 2021 You might have heard there’s nothing new under the sun, but that doesn’t mean you can’t revitalize old ideas to ensure your online marketing shines BY WELTON HONG
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s each year closes and another opens, marketing experts flock to websites and industry magazines to opine on what’s new for the coming year. What will businesses need to change to remain competitive, and what’s the next big thing that might shake up the online marketing world?
That’s not what this article is about. Because the truth is that the more marketing changes, the more it stays the same. I’m not saying innovation doesn’t exist and that you shouldn’t be looking into it. If you sell goods and services online and aren’t already investing in automated chat box options, for example, you’re behind the curve and might be losing clients to the competition. But I am saying that the heart of online marketing rests in some
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foundational elements that are important regardless of algorithm changes or new technology. Those foundational elements ensure that many of the “trends” of 2020 will remain in 2021. Here are two things you should have been doing last year and should continue doing this year.
COMPREHENSIVE SEO
SEO is certainly nothing new; the term “search engine optimization” dates back to around 1997. Early on, all you had
to do was shove a couple of keywords on a page enough times and you could rocket to the top. Search engines—and human internet users—are more sophisticated now. Your SEO game has to be much more comprehensive.