2016 seems to be an incredible year for digital marketing, which focused on the trends, features and practices done by the digital marketers. Digital trends – like mobile marketing, app marketing, Live video streaming, Omni-channel Experience, Advertising Options – have defined the year 2016 as a whole.

Presently, it’s a great opportunity to look ahead to 2017, and dig up how to score big marketing wins throughout the year. Many digital marketers and analysts anticipated that we would see a few of the biggest changes in digital marketing.

So, let’s check it out what all happened in 2016, and what is predicted for 2017 when it comes to digital marketing:

Search engine optimization

This year in 2016, SEO has changed a ton to its best. Google has considered it important that the users get the correct content for the questions they look for. What’s more, for that, various updates have been made in their algorithms.

This year people have sufficiently used videos to enhance the positioning of their site page on the SERPs. Numerous advertisers chose to drive their modern marketing engine with the fuel of Video SEO.

On 12th Jan’16, Google had a major core ranking algorithm updated. It was affirmed that Google Panda is currently a part of Google’s Core Ranking Algorithm.

In the month of February, Google escapes the frustration of clicking on the fake download buttons by expanding its safe browsing process. Then, Google rolled out a change to Google AdWords by removing all the sidebar ads. Google allowed only 4 ads at the top of the search results, and an additional 3 ads at the bottom of the search results.

The accelerated mobiles pages (AMP) have been introduced on 24^th Feb’16, by Google with the intention to track contents faster on mobile devices. Researches have shown that AMP HTML pages load 15 to 85% quicker than non-AMP pages.

As Google has been executing off PageRank in the toolbar for quite a long time and years, finally this year the struggle ended. Yes! On 7^th March 16, Google officially killed off Toolbar PageRank scores to the few browser tools and website tools that use it. Then, Google declared a noteworthy upgrade of the AdWords platform for “marketing in a mobile-first world”. And, it will have a great effect in the coming years. Google also started warning all those websites who have unnatural outbound links with a penalty. And, decided to remove the Search Custom Date Range Tool on mobile.

Also, in the month of march, Google added AMP Analytics Reporting into the Google Search Console. Here, one can learn how people find your AMP pages. Google also comes out with new mobile-friendly testing tools, and a comprehensive keyword research tool was also out by Moz Keyword Explorer  to search brand new keywords.

In June, Google came up with Rankbrain and named it as the 3rd most important factor for ranking search queries in their results after Links and Content. As mentioned by experts from Google time to time, the main issue they have come across is that still about 15 percent long tail search queries asked by users are so complex that they were not able to answer the same as per their expectations which is now solved to some extent by Rankbrain i.e. an A.I. system developed by Google to answer such queries with a proper solution.

It will be interesting to see how fast Rankbrain is rolled out on other queries and will soon be considered as the top most ranking factor.

We do believe that semantic content optimization, expected CTR (click through rate), bounce rate and average time on site will play a major part for SEO players in order to survive the Rankbrain storm in 2017.

In the starting of the 2016, Google announced that the Penguin 4.0  update will be rolled out in  the first week of Jan, but penguin become a part of a core update in Sept. Then, Google introduced price extensions in mobile text ads for marketers to show products, services, and prices, with a new price extension for AdWords text ads.

In Nov, we noticed something weird about Google MY Business “Suggest Edits” feature, it allows editing without owner’s permission. One of the oldest features of Google Search Console, Content Keywords feature, has been removed on 29^th Nov’16. In earlier days, it was the only way to see the findings of Googlebot after crawling. Another update from Google is the drop of crawling the web as a feature phone and removal of crawl error reports from Google Search Console. This change was made on 30^th Nov’16.

SEO Prediction by Our Internet Marketing Experts for 2017

According to our SEO experts, below are the digital marketing trends which are likely to dominate the 2017:

Social media content will rule:

There is a prediction that more social media content will be indexed on Google and other well known web crawlers, for example, Bing and Yahoo. This will obscure the lines between “internet” and ‘social media’ as far as SEO strategies.

Video trend:

More advertisers and businesses will grasp the trend of videos in the coming year as well.

Google will continue experimenting to get better:

Google will keep improving and experimenting its search results pages in 2017 like they did in 2016. We can see “Is This Result Helpful” under each result to take user’s feedback for a specific query sometime in future.

Voice activated assistants and PPC:

This year, the biggest overall digital trend we’ve noticed is the rise of connected home products. Amazon Echo, Google Home, and the newly launched Microsoft HomeHub all points towards the fact that the tech giants are looking to dominate the connected home market.

Mobile optimization/ AMP:

Mobile optimization will turn into a rule, instead of an exception. With the help of AMP, digital marketing is growing and will grow in coming years. So, it’s about time that you changed the way you conceptualize and make SEO procedures for mobile searches.

Personal branding:

It will going to be a star in 2017 as people tend to relate to brands, which are famous or buy brands whose owners are quite popular among masses.

You can also read: Top 10 Digital Marketing Experts and Keynote Speakers to Follow in 2017

Social Media

Social media has grown up and really sold out this year! For digital marketers, the developing advertising alternatives on social networks have made a tremendous chance to reach and get engaged with the audience in such a way that has never been possible.

Let’s take a tour of every social media channel that what changes they made;

In January first week of 2016, digital marketers can drive more earned media and brand influence with Twitter new conversational ads. And, in the same month, Twitter allowed users to record live video streams and share in their network. Also, Facebook started to roll out Live Video to millions of regular users.

In February, Twitter introduces new “Improved Timeline” feature to enhance the user experience. And, Facebook introduced instant articles, which allow users to instantly load content on mobiles.

Twitter expanded the character count in May’16, where users are free to include text of 140-character. And, the image is free with your tweet.

Facebook has gone beyond the basic signals of liking, sharing, and commenting to advertising your content to enhance your SEO. Facebook introduced emojis on the ‘like’ button to express your liking in a better way.

YouTube has begun informing publishers specifically while removing monetization from videos that are not advertiser-friendly.

Linkedin this year 2016 started a tracking system where a user can check that  how many of your sponsored content and text ads are leading to conversions

Also, Pinterest this year has 150 million monthly active users worldwide, out of which 70 million of whom live in the U.S.

Social Media Expert Prediction for 2017

Below are the predictions made by our social media experts:

“Live streaming, meeting the reality virtually, increasing usage of digital assistance and more of paid marketing with maximum weightage to the ‘vanishing content’ will rule the Social Media World in 2017.”

Meet the reality virtually:

We are still toward the start of the VR/AR travel. While I don’t anticipate that AR or VR will be a dominant social media trend in 2017, a few brands will, without a doubt, test over the coming twelve months with these new technologies.

Live streaming videos:

It will be more used as organic reach decreases and the need to go for paid campaign will expand, prompting to the experimentation with live video streaming for more advantages. Moreover, YouTube will go with a live streaming option. Instagram will also test the live video. It is also predicted to see more creative types of content on live video as the mode of communication becomes bigger. Facebook will dominate more than ever, and are looking into more professional communication from a business perspective.

Rise of the chatbots:

Artificial insight is currently achieving a level where it is valuable to many individuals’ daily lives. With WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Allo all introducing integrated bots to help with bookings and client benefit, get ready to begin conversing with machines much more often in 2017.

Behavioral targeting:

This can be soon introduced to Snapchat in 2017. That means promoters will soon have the ability to target clients in view of their Snapchat activity.

Content marketing

This year, the brand has begun making more personalized content custom-made to their target audience’s interests and needs as a informative content rules the Digital World. Personalized content that figures out a client’s pain point or answer all queries they have.

Digital marketers concentrated more on visual content as they found that their audience needs no more plain content to connect with them. They need lucrative content that teaches and educates as well as engages them.

A few brands swung to interactive content to make an enduring impact on their target audience and to drive more engagement. Interactive content, at its core, drives two-way conversations, and permits the audience to effectively take an interest in the content instead of inactively consuming it as with static content.

Content Expert Prediction for 2017

Below are the expected predictions made by our content marketing experts;

Content will be purpose-driven:

Content marketing will turn out to be more difficult, as it is turning out to be more purpose-driven. It’s not just about producing content, it’s about finding the link between value and ROI.

Documented content marketing strategy:

It is predicted that digital marketers will create a documented content marketing strategy for the year 2017 to have a clear impression of your goals and efforts.

Quality and Infographic content in demand:

It might be a trend in 2017 to hit upon more content, however, this doesn’t mean that amount will surpass quality. It’s crucial to create more content, but always keep it connected with your marketing objectives and the ROI it will bring. Infographic content will also be on top priority.

Web Designing

There has been an extreme growth in the use of tablets and smartphones, this year 2016. And, the greater part of those clients choose to browse the internet through these gadgets. Thus, web designers this year worked in such a way to make the content of the website easily readable when seen through all other gadgets.

Thus, they did every best possible effort to enhance site’s responsive designs. This important factor helped SEO as well to grow this year with remarkable speed.

This year 2016, micro-interactions offered an instinctive approach to get connected with a site. It made an intense effect.

Also, Web designers greatly focused on the significance of fantastic images, which can fortify any site. Designers included photos, animations, or short videos as a part of their designing, which makes the site easier to understand.

You can also read: Top 5 Free Image Editing Tools

Web Designing Expert Prediction for 2017

Let’s see what predictions our Web Designing Experts made for 2017;

Mobile-first Approach:

Mobile-first isn’t a new idea for 2016, but we expect to see more sites over the coming year, which take a more insightful strategy in conveying their content to smaller screens, rather mobile design being an attached off to the desktop build.

UI Patterns and Framework:

As these current UI and UX patterns grow and develop, we’ll see more and more brand’s putting them into practice as we move one step closer to a more integrated, and reliable online browsing experience.

Video Becomes King:

Video is already enormous, however, it’s a trend which is set to proceed significantly more so until it totally overwhelms the web and all online content. Therefore, in 2017 the brands will highly incorporate videos in the background as soon as someone opens to create visibility.

Focus on originality and the decline of stock imagery:

With an exceptional style of outline built up, brands will be more engaged in using large header images, custom iconography, instead of stock imagery.

Big, Bold, Beautiful Typography:

Typography is and will be a capable visual medium, ready to make an identity, evoke emotion and set the tone in the coming year. It is predicted to see a boost in over-sized and full screen type which breaks the grid, beautiful, unique, with Innovative scrolling and parallax.

Grids, Frameworks and Pre-made Themes:

As CSS systems and frameworks develop, increasingly coders will use them as a reason for their web development work. Frameworks will contribute a lot to take care with responsiveness, which settles on them a good decision for some digital projects in coming years.

Web Development

Web Development is a dynamic field, where everything changes constantly and keeping yourself updated is the alternative to survive in web development. A couple of years ago, web development was about composing long codes. But, things have changed, and now developing a site is less demanding than it was before.

This year 2016, Mobile gadgets have brought deep changes in our lives. Web developers struggled hard as now they need to make two versions of a site- one for mobile, and another for the desktop.

The web developers mainly pay attention on a responsive site that adjusts itself as indicated by the gadget’s screen size. This allowed users with a stunning browsing experience and helped their site to rank in search results. Google, too, started giving importance to the websites with a responsive design.

Web Development Prediction for 2017

Check out the below given predictions made by our Web Development experts:

Artificial Intelligence:

When we talk about the future of digital marketing, artificial intelligence (AI) has always been high on the agenda. Also, in the coming year 2017, we’ll see virtual reality in different applications, going from news coverage, to virtual real estate tours.

IoT will bring opportunities:

IoT will keep on bringing lots of opportunity for development, a few concerns have been raised, particularly around security. No doubt web developers will have interesting challenges to face, helping to protect our fittings and furnishings from hackers.

Less Intrusive Pop-ups:

Google is currently taking action against these, by presenting a new ranking signal that will take a dim view of sites that use these methods. It is predicted to see a decrease in the number of Newsletter sign-up popups, and a major decrease in the size that popups involve on the screen.

Local Mobile applications being replaced with HTML:

HTML is now ready to do numerous things that traditionally only an application downloaded in an application store could do. There are currently standard APIs in mobile web browsers for getting to camera, speakers, vibration, battery, and so on with the user’s permission.

Large Font:

Largehighlights your point by capitalizing it. It remained an essential element all through the last couple of years and elements in various new sites that have few words but a radical message.

Business Development

In this year 2016, a drastic change was seen in the Business development world. The clients were more open to ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) over ROI (Return on Investment).

Last year, digital marketers focused mainly on ROI, but now they have understood that ROMI to carry importance. Digital Marketing clients tried to meet ROMI from the individual aspects of their project. ROMI is a metric used to quantify the overall viability of a marketing campaign to help digital marketers settle on better choices about allocating future investments.

Other trends that ruled the marketing world in 2016 with business development are- personalized data driven marketing, better analytical tools for measuring the success of campaigns, more focus is on user-generated content and marketing discipline with social media.

Business Development Expert Prediction for 2017

It is predicted that 2017 will be the year of settling on savvy decisions. Here, savvy means in terms of channels, goals, research, planning, and initiatives. The upcoming year will fully reinvent online marketing.

Check out the below given predictions made by our Web Development experts;

Connecting Customers and Building Community:

The major focus in 2017 will be more towards connecting the customers with others who can offer them value, beyond whatever value the business itself offers. Group owners with huge followings are seeing the advantage in offering their clients the chance to team up and help each other, which obviously, makes the entrepreneur more significant.

Sales And Content Marketing Become Fully Integrated:

As clients and buyers keep on doing more online research, top performing organizations keep on integrating sales and content marketing. The objective is to guarantee that when clients search for challenges, risks, and execution techniques associated with your solutions, they will get your content to address their queries.

Personal Branding:

2017 will go up to influence digital marketers where brands will market by working with genuine people to create more influence on the audience. Personal branding tools will start trending even more in 2017, helping businesses gain individuality and reduce the number of direct competitors.

Business Intelligence and Online Marketing Can Work Together:

Providing wide-ranging target audience data across offline and online platforms can help campaigns be more targeted.

Conclusion

In the end, no doubt, 2016 was an amazing year for digital marketing. And, we expect that industry will change, rise, and turn more better in 2017.

Was this article beneficial to you or your business? Or, any prediction that you think can come true this year, and we didn’t mention, then do share with us in a comment box given below!

About the author

Internet Marketing Analyst, present Director @kvrwebtech.com Since 2009. Providing Internet Marketing as a medium for all kind of businesses to achieve the modern era goals. Have been highly successful in cultivating projects in Real Estate, Financial and Education Sector.