The new year is well on its way to being here. Before we know it, it’s going to be 2019.

For all of you out there are are affiliate marketers, freelancers, digital marketing professional, and the rest of what I like to call “my tribe”, the times they are a changin’.

We’ve seen the online world going under some serious changes over the last ten and even five years.

So what’s in store for 2019? Some of the people in my tribe have given some insight and speculation into what they think we’ll see taking place all across the online landscape. So keep reading to find out more.

Ben

I’ve been freelancing for about seven years now. One thing I’ve noticed, especially over the last year and something I believe we’ll see more of in 2019, is competition.

There are a lot of businesses out there offering content services on the cheap. There are just as many freelancers out there who are willing to work for cheap. The work is becoming pretty thin as well with so much competition.

What I do like is the clients out there who are willing to pay top dollar for really amazing content are still doing just that. It’s the small businesses that need cheap content.

It bothers me that they took the time to read up on why they need content but didn’t bother to delve into more research that shows quality matters. I’m hopeful that eventually we’ll see clients wisen up and pay for quality content services.

April

As a professional link builder, things have definitely gotten harder. My outreach practices have had to change over the years and even in the last year. More and more people think that adding commercial links to their site are going to get them de-indexed.

Google, along with a lot of really lazy digital marketers, have done a great job of scaring business owners and other people who used to pay for my services.

On the other hand, where there is scarcity, there is opportunity. I’m not charging more for link building.

PBNs are still a think and I’m currently working on building out my own network. There is a good way and a bad way to do this. If you build one the right way, it can help to bring in some cash when things are slow or the outreach practices aren’t successful.

I think 2019 is going to be an interesting year. We’re going to see a lot of things shaking loose. Some of the potential things I’m thinking we might see could really affect everything we do on the long-term.

Jimmy

I have a small digital marketing firm. I think the days of there being just as many agencies as there are Starbucks is coming to an end.

I believe that the best agencies will be keeping their teams relatively small and we’re going to see more outsourcing to freelancers, specifically writers and devs. You can go here to learn more. Freelance SEOs were a big deal back in the day and they made a ton of cash doing it. Agencies sprung up and did the same thing. I think in 2019, we’ll start to see a lot of small, high quality agencies reverting back to some of their older practices and strategies.

Digital marketing doesn’t require a huge team. Benefits and rent along with other costs are always getting more expensive. It just makes sense to rely on independent contractors for tasks we don’t want to or can’t do ourselves.

Emma

I’ve been in the affiliate marketing game for a long time. There have always been tons of ups and downs.

Our sites saw some serious peaking in 2015-2016 but they started to taper off in 2017 and this year. We were once making anywhere from 7k to 10k a month on our niche sites. But now we’re down to about 3k a month on a good month.

We have options. By we I mean myself and my family, my husband and kids are active in what I do. We’ve considered selling the sites and investing the money. We’re also thinking about making some new sites.

But what we really need to do is research and find out how Google and our readership is evolving. I know a lot of other affiliate marketers who were once making a boatload of cash and are now getting out of the game.

It seems like the old timers are moving on and the newcomers are giving up sooner than they used to. This is why we ultimately decided to stay with affiliate marketing.

While nothing lasts forever, I think we can find success once again if we can manage to evolve with our readers and site visitors.

Michael

For me, 2019 is going to be business as usual. Are there going to be changes? Sure. Will we have to roll with the punches? Of course!

This has always been part of marketing. We’re sharks. And if we don’t keep moving, we will die.

Some of what’s working will continue to work, this is why there are so many agencies and freelancers out there. And every year, there are new businesses and startups who are going to want these services.

I personally feel like digital marketing is in a good place.

Conclusion

Think about it. How much has the internet changed since you started using it?

It will continue to change and this is a good thing in my opinion. I don’t want to be bored and I don’t want my personal projects to get stale.

So I’m going to keep doing what I do and I’ll try to update changes on this site as I find out about them. Good hunting, everyone.