The great digital marketing meltdown

The old digital marketing world is dying.

Web traffic is down.

Google has slammed the door on generic blog posts and copycat content. They’re serving more and more information directly on results pages, reducing the number of clicks to websites.

Disruptive tools are exploding.

New players like Perplexity.ai (recently rated five stars by digital marketing godfather Seth Godin, who says he hasn’t used Google in “months”) are fragmenting search traffic.

Conversion paths are non-linear.

The rise of “zero-click content”  means your future customer may discover you on one channel (like Instagram) and land on your website from another (like Google Maps). 

So… what now?  

Some ideas for local service companies to thrive in the new marketing landscape:

• Really know (and care) about your customer
• Write website copy that shows you understand them
• Prioritize ranking in Google Maps over traditional search
• Work to convert more of the web traffic you already have
• Give away expertise for free 
• Play the long game to build trust in your community