Digital marketing in 2023
Digital marketing in 2023
2023 is here, and technology has not stopped moving. Knowing where things are heading lets you anticipate a few of the turns and keep pace with competitors on tactics and tools. Much has already changed, and putting those changes into practice will carry on through the year — with more arriving behind them. Here is what digital marketing looks like in 2023.
What to expect
With privacy now a public concern, the large companies are tightening things up, which leaves marketers with less data for understanding customers and tailoring what they do. That is only the start. One of the changes expected over the next few years is a world without cookies: Google plans to make them a thing of the past by the end of 2024. Preparation starts this year.
A great many tools have appeared to help people working in digital marketing, some of them artificial intelligence that writes. What the machine produces arrives already optimised and can do a lot for where a business ranks. But it exists now and will only spread further — which means the large companies, Google among them, are watching. These tools help whoever is producing the content; they do not necessarily give the reader what they came for.
Hence the Google Helpful Content Update, which sets out to favour work made by people for people, and to discourage the flood of machine-written text. As we have said in other posts, Google favours content that is relevant, good and original — which is what the Helpful Content Update is for (read more about).
Tactics that work together
E-A-T is the part of Google's algorithm that judges whether a page offers a good experience by how long people stay on it. The longer they stay, the better the crawler ranks the content, reading that time as a sign the information was useful. Google says a site should show Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness.
As SEO grows more intricate, the effect of each thing you do has to be measured. The principle is that every change is measured somehow — by a rise in keyword position, in organic traffic or in click-through rate.
First, though, you have to know which changes those will be, which means mapping the whole SEO process inside your site, not inside your company: the technology, how a blog post is optimised, how a product page in e-commerce.
With the whole of it mapped and measurable, you can choose what to work on, and the plan becomes something you can actually apply, at a scale that matches where the business is. The stages that can be measured: indexing, position, impressions, clicks, retention and conversion.
Measured properly, those six stages will tell you a great deal about what to improve and where the trouble sits.
How to write for people first
You will have heard of ChatGPT by now. It promises to overturn how content is produced, along with much else in digital work: it can write at length in minutes or seconds, as though it had read everything on the internet. Plenty of people would tell you the copywriter's job is finished (let us hope not). The counterweight is that the tool is not yet within everyone's reach, and Google is already acting to slow the tide — the Helpful Content Update rewards work that gives readers a good experience. According to Google, if you can answer yes to these, you are on the right road:
Does your audience find what you publish? Does it reach them directly?
Does your business show real expertise and depth? Does your site have a clear purpose? After reading, does someone know enough about the subject to get where they were going?
In short: write to those ends, not only to rank.
Five pointers for digital marketing in 2023
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Put the customer's experience first
As above, experience matters more this year than ever. People increasingly expect everything to be smooth and made for them, on every channel, and the companies that manage it hold a real advantage. A good experience means content worth reading, recommendations that fit the person, and an easy time getting hold of you.
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Put the phone first
We can say this from what we see across our clients: most site traffic now comes from phones. Think about your own day — how many searches, emails and messages go through a phone or tablet?
So, as Manáry already does, companies should build their sites and their marketing for phones: responsive, easy to move around on a small screen. Making content specifically for the phone is worth trying too.
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Put money into video, everywhere
On the busiest platforms — TikTok and Instagram — video is the main event, and more companies are using it to reach people and win conversions. Good video can set you apart, lifting engagement, search ranking and how well your brand is known. Tutorials, product demonstrations and customer testimonials all work.
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Use artificial intelligence
Automation will grow this year. AI can take over repetitive tasks, tailor what each customer sees and tell you how people behave, saving time and money while improving targeting and conversion. It is also increasingly part of paid traffic on Google and Meta, where automation now picks the winning ads and ad designs faster than anyone could. But remember what we said: search engines are watching AI-written content. Know what to automate, and how.
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Try content made by your customers
User-generated content is what customers make themselves: reviews, comments, ratings, posts. It is expected to matter more still, because people trust other people's opinions and experiences over advertising. Your customers can be your strongest case to the next customer — which is why how you appear online, and what happens after a sale, matter so much.
So encourage customers to leave comments and share what they made of you.
Spread the bet
Marketers have plenty to learn from investors, because putting the whole budget behind one or two tactics puts the business at risk. Spread it. Keep paying for ads, but invest in a blog as the organic side, to reach more people through search — still an important route this year. Try email and video as well.
The best marketing plans are the ones where each part covers the gaps the others leave — where one tactic is not delivering, or is not reaching people at all. Together they reach far more.
Want to know more about converting in digital marketing? Fill in the form or get in touch with a Manáry Digital specialist.
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