A roundup of 2015 in Digital Marketing and SEO, and predictions for 2016

By Louise Linehan

16 Dec 2015

We asked some industry experts to give us their opinions on 2015 and forecasts for 2016. The panel consisted of specialists across different fields of the digital industry including:

Chris Lake: CEO at EmpiricalProof, and former Director of Content at Econsultancy (@lakey)
Kelvin Newman: Founder and MD at Rough Agenda, the company behind BrightonSEO (@kelvinnewman)
David Moth: Social Media Manager & Interim Blog Editor at Econsultancy (@davidmoth)
Dawn Anderson: Digital Marketing Consultant & Director at Move It Marketing Solutions (@dawnieando)

1. Which brand has made the biggest impact this year?

Chris Lake

Uber and Slack: Uber is killing it in the consumer space, but for me 2015 has been all about Slack. It's yet more proof that insane attention to detail and a UX-first strategy pays big dividends. Slack isn't even that innovative, it's just really well done, and I love its business model, pricing structure, and company values.

Kelvin Newman

Amazon: They're not new, they're not sexy but Amazon just seem to be incrementally improving each and every year. Leaving aside their tax arrangements they've become absolutely indispensable. The more they sell and the better the customer experience, the more I find myself avoiding using other online retailers.

David Moth

AO.com: We’re big fans of AO.com, as they manage to make a dreadfully dull product area (white goods) quite interesting. They have a great website and terrific customer service, which can’t be said for a lot of companies in that industry. And, at the risk of sounding massively condescending, it’s good to see a company from Bolton leading the way in terms of ecommerce innovation.

Dawn Anderson

AO.com: They’re not the biggest brand, but I really have been impressed with AO’s digital offering across all channels and their user experience is second to none. Furthermore, they continue the digitalisation right through the customer buying cycle with SMS alerts and email updates throughout the purchase.

2. What’s been the big SEO thing for you this year?

Chris

PPC: The paid listings tide is higher than ever, right? Some searches show no organic action whatsoever. Disappointing, really, and you've got to wonder where Google will go from here. Despite the mad keyword inflation we've seen over the past decade or so, at some point I think keyword prices will surely skyrocket even further.

Kelvin

Measuring content performance: For years everyone's been shouting content is king and other useless clichés. This year I've really begun to see people start to ask "I'm invested in all this content, why aren't I seeing a return?" Not because content marketing doesn't work, but because rubbish content marketing delivers rubbish results.

David

PPC and Stolen Content: I’m always genuinely surprised at how evil Google has become in the pursuit of ever bigger profits. The average results page is basically all ads above the fold and its worse on mobile...

Dawn

Google’s mobile update: The mobile update in April has to be one of the biggest happenings of 2015. Firstly, of course, it was a pre-announced algorithmic update. Unheard of. I think that this both went for, and against the update.

3. Which social network rules?

Chris

Twitter: It's still Twitter for me, but I really worry about its strategic vision...

Kelvin

Facebook and Pinterest: Facebook continues to be the social network most like email: literally everyone has it, not everybody loves it, but they would struggle to completely leave it behind...

David

Twitter: Personally I rely on Twitter more than anything else...

Dawn

Facebook: Facebook has done a sterling job...

4. What’s alive and kicking?

Chris

HiPPOs: Despite the fact that data > opinion.

Kelvin:

Machine Learning: We all know it’s potentially been part of Google Algorithms for years...

David

Instagram, Snapchat and Email: Instagram and Snapchat seem to be causing the most buzz...

Dawn

UX: Well-structured sites that provide a great UX with an element of gamification...

5. What’s dead and buried?

Chris

Display ads: Advertisers and publishers have gone way too far...

Kelvin

Yahoo: With Marissa Mayer I thought they actually stood a chance...

David Moth

Google+: Not that it ever had much life in it.

Dawn

Cheap tricks: Hopefully.

6. What’s the buzzword of the year (loathed or loved)?

Chris

Growth hacking: A buzzphrase, I guess...

Kelvin

Omni-channel: Everyone using the phrase seems to think that...

David

Reach out: It’s still the most awful and idiotic phrase I hear on a daily basis...

Dawn

Unicorns: I think I also saw mention of a ‘purple squirrel’ just today...

7. In your eyes, what was the biggest mistake(s) of 2015?

Chris

Lack of Xmas prep: I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet...

David

Paddy Power advert: Ummm, not sure...

Dawn

Pushing out content blindly: Underappreciating technical SEO...

8. What’s going to be big in 2016 or what are you most looking forward to?

Chris

Empirical Proof: Well, I've recently swan dived into startupland...

Kelvin

Nuance: I think 2016 is going to be a big year for nuance...

David

Virtual reality & Spurs vs Leicester: Having tried out a virtual reality headset at an event recently...

Dawn

Semantic search, AI, Accelerated Mobile Page & http2: The ‘web of data’ is growing and I think that semantic is going to really boom next year...