SEO is constantly evolving. New updates are released frequently. In 2014 alone, there have been 13 updates to Google’s algorithm, as per Moz’s Google Algorithm Change History. In fact, these are just the most notable and public updates; there are refreshes that go behind the scenes almost daily.
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marketing professionals keep adjusting their SEO strategies based on a number of factors, and as 2015 is approaching, it’s time to discuss what adjustments are required to be made as we enter this new year. Let’s discuss some of the most important changes to be made to the SEO strategies in the upcoming year.
Back in 2012, it was predicted that mobile traffic would surpass desktop traffic in 2014, and it proved right. In fact, Google has always held the view that responsive websites provide the best user experience. It even started assigning a “mobile-friendly” notation next to the websites in its mobile search results that it feels are mobile-friendly.
It might be possible that search engines, other than Google, begin to receive more market share in 2015. Firefox kicking Google and using Yahoo as the new default search engine is a possible sign. Google and Safari’s negotiations are also going on and reports suggest that both Bing and Yahoo are trying to secure that spot. There is also a possibility that iOS 8 and OS X will switch from Google to DuckDuckGo as their default browser.
This suggests that it will be important in the coming year to have visibility across all these search engines apart from Google as they are getting more popular and accepted.
If you are still emphasizing keyword rankings and assessing your campaign’s success on keyword positions, it’s time to get up from your sleep. Ranking reports may look pretty, especially when some SEO companies target useless keywords just to claim that you are at number one spot.
It’s time to understand that it’s not the rankings that define your success; it’s the return on investment that you are getting. Say, you are ranking on top for a keyword but you are not getting any conversions; while on the other hand, you posted an infographic that resulted in 30 conversions. What is preferable? Of course, the latter option.
In its early days, social media was just a platform to share content and so, businesses would just sign up for every social media channel and shoot their content everywhere. But now, social media is both a marketing channel and a customer-service channel. The customer wants you to engage with them on a personal level so that they can speak their heart out.
It is better to focus on two to three social media platforms and be truly active on these rather than going for all the channels where you will not be able to justify with any of them. This approach will not only help you generate more leads, sales and revenue but will also help to develop a loyal following base that will further share your content. This will introduce your brand to even more people and present opportunities to earn links as well.
Through all these years of updates and algorithm changes one thing has always remained the same; inbound links are the most determining signal for trust and authority. This is not going to alter in 2015 too, but one thing will surely change. You will have to focus more on earning links rather than building them.
Those days of building irrelevant links and chasing a large number of links to fool the search results are over. Earning a high-quality single link from a relevant website is beneficial for many reasons including SEO, attracting traffic, leads, sales and brand exposure.
Targeting broad keywords is not an option now. They tend to have huge search volume plus they don’t attract highly targeted traffic, and they are expensive to rank too. Targeting long-tail search queries, on the other hand, is quite beneficial. It attracts qualified buyer traffic, and has much less competition.
Businesses will always crave organic search traffic, and SEO is the tool to drive that highly desired traffic. Implementing the above changes in the SEO strategy will definitely help boost up sales in 2015.
