The year of 2014 brought many updates to SEO and Google’s search algorithm (13 to be exact). Some major changes were the release of Pigeon which revolutionized local search and long-awaited updates to both Panda and Penguin in the second half of the year. With the constant changes in SEO, it’s important to stay ahead of your competition and understand the trends when planning your marketing strategy for 2015.
As you plan your 2015 SEO strategy, keep these 5 trends on top of mind:
1. Content Reigns Supreme
Your company’s website has to deliver valuable content if you want to rank for relevant search terms. The days of taking advantage of loopholes are over and 2015 will only bring more changes that place emphasis on creating new, relevant and valuable content for your visitors. Google search algorithms will strive to make sense of this content and deliver the most relevant content to the searcher. It’s only right that content continues to be the biggest factor.
2. Keyword Importance Takes Another Hit
Keywords will take another beating. Search engines are becoming more semantically-based, meaning Google is attempting to understand your intent rather than analyzing your keyword choices.
Google's encryption of keyword search data was an indicator of what is ahead in the very near future. As information consumption fragments across channels, platforms, devices, and apps, SEO will most likely lose more emphasis with keywords and rankings. What does this mean? Just start thinking of search optimization as increasing brand visibility across a multitude of channels and extending your online presence everywhere that your prospects can be found.
3. Start Building Relationships
With the crazy amount of content produced on a daily basis, companies are realizing that focusing on creating content and optimizing its technical components for search engines just isn’t cutting it anymore. It’s the businesses that are able to humanize their brand that will be the ones who beat the competition, and this will only increase in importance this year.
Being on the first page of Google can no longer be achieved by SEO experts who focus on technical compliance. There is a shift toward relationship-building strategies, such as blogger outreach campaigns, building relationships with brand advocates, reaching out to influencers and engaging on social media. So if it’s not part of your current plan, I would recommend to start reaching out to influencers in your industry.
4. Changes to Link Building
Recent research has discovered that Google is differentiating between “express links” and “implied links”. Express links, what we traditionally and currently think of as links, are URLs that lead back to a webpage (for example: Marketing Essentials, directly sends the user to the website). The implied links, however, can include referencing or mentioning a brand or website without actually linking to the site.
Due to Blackhat SEO (practices not recommended by Google) and the abuse of link building, Google will be to placing more importance on brand mentions and citations, which are more difficult to be manipulated for the purpose of achieving higher search rankings. In 2015, more companies will be measuring and tracking brand mentions and we’ll discover that these are becoming just as important as express links. So start tracking!
5. Mobile SEO is a Must
Well it happened! Last year was the year in which mobile internet users finally surpassed desktop internet users. This marked a fundamental change in consumer behavior that divulged major implications on search and search engine optimization.
Mobile search algorithms have different best practices than those of desktop search algorithms, so it will be more important than ever that companies understand the mobile search landscape while planning their 2015 SEO strategy. If a brand can effectively deliver high-quality mobile experiences for visitors, it will provide another competitive advantage.
Want more information on SEO? Call Marketing Essentials at 419.629.0800 to be your partner in search engine optimization and register for our exclusive Google Partner Event!
References
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/12/08/the-top-7-seo-trends-that-will-dominate-2015/3/
http://www.inc.com/aaron-aders/8-seo-trends-your-cmo-needs-to-know-for-2015.html
