2014 online marketing trendsOnline marketing, like everything else on the internet is constantly evolving.

What we knew last year isn’t what we will see in the area of online marketing trends and that includes the paradigm shift from outbound techniques towards inbound techniques. Content will be more important than ever, new buzz words like micro-video and an even greater shift towards image-centric content will become more and more prevalent as will mobile content and a further intertwining of SEO and social signals.

A couple 2014 online marketing trends:

Less Is More :: One of the reasons Pinterest has such great appeal is because of it’s clean, minimalistic look and feel. Consumers are getting turned off by the barrage of “look at me” marketing messages and as a result, more companies are turning towards a strategy of toning down their messages. We want to get our audience’s attention at every opportunity, but at a risk of alienating them, we need to take a step back and re-evaluate our goals and messages.

Image-Centric is Powerful :: Visual provides a more powerful way to communicate than we can through any amount of text. We are a visual society, and images tell stories. The rapid rise to success of Buzzfeed and Pinterest are proof of the power and viral potential of image-based content. Consider enhancing your content with a good image and while good quality copy writing is important, using well-placed images can provide the reader with the ability to take a break and digest what you’ve been trying to communicate.

Mobile-Friendly Content :: With nearly 50% of internet users now using mobile technology as their primary tool for accessing the internet, a focus on mobile-friendly content will become more and more critical. Make sure you are providing a clear call to action, it’s important to make it easy for people to see exactly what action they should take. Keep form fields to a minimum and focus your content to ensure it is easily digestible on the small screen.

Don’t Ignore SEO and Social Signals :: Social signals have become one of the pillars of SEO. The more an audience interacts and engages with a piece of content, the quality of that content is most likely as high as it can be and therefore, it’s position should organically increase through the search engine rankings – there is a reason after all why so many businesses are installing social share plugins and encouraging their audience to share as much as possible.

What trends do you think will be important to pay attention to in 2014? Share your thoughts and comments!

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