Top 10 Digital Marketing updates in 2021 that will change the future of Marketing If you work in digital marketing, you are probably aware that 2021 has been a roller coaster ride for all marketers. We have seen changes that will affect the future of digital marketing, from Google's core web vital update to Linkedin's launch in Hindi. With the changes in various channels, it is necessary to stay up to date on all updates in order to plan a new marketing strategy that will set you apart from your competitors. As the new year approaches, all digital marketing enthusiasts have begun to search for new trends and plan their strategies. Let's use the time machine to see what updates we received in 2021 and how we can apply them to our marketing in 2022. Google Rewriting title tags: One of the major updates from google in 2021 is Rewriting Title Tags. For example, if you have written a title tag for any of your webpage and Google thinks that title is not relevant to the content you have on the webpage. So, google as per the content on the web page can generate the title tags. Google explained why they will not use the HTML tags as before; they regenerate the titles where titles are quite long, stuffed with keywords (where we think keyword stuffing will better the ranking), boilerplate titles. Still, Google will use the HTML title tags 80% of the time. You can read more about it here https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/08/update-to-generating-page-titles?hl=en https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/09/more-info-about-titles?hl=en What can we do: If we do not want google to regenerate the title tags, first we need to understand why Google regenerates the title. There are various reasons like 1. Half-empty titles 2. Boilerplate Titles 3. Obsolete Title 4. Inaccurate Titles So, the advice from google to the site owners or SEO executives is to create goof HTML title tags because that is what they use the most. YouTube Dislike: YouTube has disappeared the count of dislike buttons in YouTube Videos. Earlier YouTube had an experiment to check if the disappearance of the dislike button improves the creator’s experience because many people will use the dislike button to harass the new creators and YouTube provides a platform where creators of all sizes can share their voices. In this experiment, people can still see the dislike button and can dislike a video if they do not like it but can not see the counts that discourage the viewers to dislike a video. As a result, YouTube has finally disappeared the count but the dislike button will be available and creators can see the dislike counts in their insights with all other analytic parameters. Page Experience as a Ranking Factor: We all are aware of Google’s core web vital update which has changed the way people build their websites to comply with the components like CLS, FID, LCP. Page speed and user experience are some of the most important reasons for users to interact with a website. Google has seen a 70% increase in the number of users engaging with Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights, and many site owners using Search Console's Core Web Vitals report to identify opportunities for improvement. Google has announced in May to make page signals as a Google ranking factor. Google is also providing information about the quality of websites for a better user experience. What can we do: Google is providing tools and information where site owners can see the opportunities for improvements in their websites. Like Google Search Console’s report to the core web vitals. Site owners through all these details can update their website for better ranking and user experience. IndexNow with bing and Yandex: This is the update that every site owner has been waiting for. Microsoft Bing and Yandex have announced a new update where site owners can instantly notify search engines about the new content or update content to the search engines. This will help search engines to prioritize their crawling efforts. Currently, Microsoft Bing and Yandex are participating in this fully. Google has announced that they can try this protocol but hasn’t told any date yet. Google’s auto-translate results in Indian languages: This is good news for Indian users. Google will auto-translate the search results for Indian users into their preferred language like Hindi. Users will be able to see the content, Title tag, and Meta Description in their language. Currently, this feature is available in 5 Indian languages Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam. In the future, more languages will be added. Users can also listen to the search results in Hindi languages. Longer videos in Instagram Stories: Instagram is testing 60 seconds long videos in Instagram stories. With this, the longer videos will not be split in 15 seconds videos. Now creators will be able to add music and effects in the full video, this will help to see the stories without interruptions. Currently, this feature is tested in a small section and gradually will roll out for all. Meta: The biggest news of the Year is the introduction of META (former Facebook). Meta will change the way people interact with each other, especially on Social Media Platforms. They can feel an immersive experience of being together virtually even if they are not together physically. Meta will use technology like AR and VR that will take new heights in Digital Growth. Now, marketers will get new challenges with Meta, where we have to learn new technologies and plan new strategies that match the new era. LinkedIn in Hindi: LinkedIn has launched the Hindi language in its platform. The goal of including the Hindi language is to support 600 Million Hindi Speaking people across the globe. With this LinkedIn now supports 25 languages and breaks the language barrier to provide more network opportunities. Currently, users can comment, message, create content and see feed posts and jobs in the Hindi language. Soon, Linkedin will widen the opportunity of jobs for Hindi-speaking professionals like government jobs and banking. “News Near Me” Tools and Features: As more and more people search for “NEWS NEAR ME”, Google is adding new features and tools to help people find relevant local news and stories. New features include the following Carousel: Google will show the story carousels relevant to the local search Deep Understanding: Google will show the local news related to the search terms, for instance, if we type “Winter” so winter-related news will be shown. Local Tweets: Searchers for local news may now surface tweets by local, authoritative publications and journalists. Cookieless Future: Like Apple and Safari have already blocked the cookies, Google is planning to start phasing out Cookie by the end of 2023. This will affect the third-party data which is used by marketers for advertising purposes. This is going to be a massive change in the digital marketing landscape. What can we do: Now marketers have to find new ways to connect with their potential audiences. Following steps can be taken First-party data will be more important now. Websites or business owners need to find new ways to collect data like email, contact number, purchase history, taking consent from users to collect first-party cookies. Contextual Targeting: With contextual targeting, we advertise on the websites which is relevant to the product/service is sold in the ad. Now, when we know the latest updates in Digital Marketing and how these will affect the results. This is high time to plan our marketing strategies in advance and consult digital marketing agencies about how we can use these updates for better conversions. In case you need any help with your future marketing strategies. Comment down and we will discuss.
