The new year has begun and many small businesses are hoping it will be their best year yet. Therefore, every business strategy today must include a good dose of SEO to increase awareness and attract new visitors and customers. But SEO in 2015 is not easy. In recent years, Google has been gradually plugging the holes in its algorithms to prevent website owners from manipulating them to get to the top. Things have become much more advanced and it's no longer enough to stuff your website with keywords or build countless inbound links of dubious quality.
In fact, Google abolished these strategies a long time ago: now, in 2015, it is still worse . Even Guest contributions (where website owners write content for other websites in exchange for links) are no longer safe, as Matt Cutts also warns against the overuse of this strategy. So what's left? What can be a business owners do to come out on top in search this year? Read on and we'll try to shed some light on this increasingly difficult question.
The mobile experience is crucial
It was a monumental year for mobile marketing, as 2014 was the year that mobile searches finally surpassed desktop searches. It's pretty obvious that mobilenow"onebig deal" and Google places great importance on the mobile experience for its users. Another reason Google is prioritising mobile is the new mobile usability section in Google Webmaster Tools, which allows users to test their website to see how it performs on a mobile device. Google also penalises websites that generate errors for mobile users. Companies that do not offer a mobile-friendly website will see a significant drop in their conversion rates and search engine rankings over the course of 2015.
The 'in-depth' post and content marketing
Recently, Google has started to curate its search results to some extent by emphasising news articles and "in-depth articles". Of course, you can make an effort to have your content appear in this section, but that's not the most important thing. "What's important is that it shows us that Google in-depth content likes ." This means that they are long texts that cover several aspects of a particular topic and contain links to other resources. Writing this type of content for a blog is the definition of 'content marketing', which is becoming increasingly popular among webmasters. At the very least, you should try to go from 500-word articles to 700 or 1,000 words. However, make sure you break your articles into bite-sized paragraphs so as not to scare your readers away.
Schema.org Awards
If you've looked at the link explaining how to label your content as "in-depth articles", you'll have realised that it's not just about writing lots of in-depth content. It also describes the importance of adding schema.org markup to help Google identify the nature of your content. Think of this as an advanced version of title and meta tags that allow you to show Google important facts, company logos, publication dates and other useful details. These markups also allow Google to include your content in its "knowledge graphs" and display more information alongside your listing in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). By using these markups correctly, you can theoretically increase your CTR (click-through rate) without moving up in the rankings. At the same time, these markups are likely to become still will become more important as Google and other companies scramble to provide us with digital assistance services. It's this information that Google Now, Siri and Cortana will eventually be able to use to give you recipes or tell you the time by voice command. If you want to future-proof your online presence this year, this would be a very good place to start.
Integration of social media
Over the last five years, this has been "the next big thing in search engine optimisation" and it's becoming more and more important. If the constant algorithm updates have taught us anything, it's that relying 100 % on SEO is foolish - it's decisive that you are also getting traffic from other sources, and social media is a perfect example of this. Similarly, social media can help give your website more social indicators and organic-looking recommendations that Google could be listening to more and more. In their recent report on crucial factors for SEO, Moz found that Google Plus is an important indicator for Google. Facebook and Twitter can also help boost your website's credibility. Of course, social media has other benefits too. For starters, Google Plus impacts your personalised results, which leapfrog regular listings. And looking at other, larger communities, Google now seems to be taking note of Reddit. Many bloggers have noticed that Reddit plays an important role in promoting their site, and Google has even included Reddit posts in the "News" section.
All the rest
There are many other factors to be aware of in 2015 and, by and large, they are developing as expected. SEO is no longer one-dimensional and has been fully integrated into other aspects of marketing. Likewise, many techniques that worked in the past continue to work: such as updating content, optimising speed and building quality backlinks.
Broken down
That may seem like a lot, so let's break it down into some actionable points. Here's everything you need to consider in 2015:
- As usual, SEO in 2015 will consist of regularly publishing good content on your website, keeping your website fast and responsive and generating organic backlinks
- In-depth content with many links to external authorities is the order of the day. Content marketing is the best form of internet marketing this year.
- Google takes even tougher action against 'manipulative' techniques - even guest posts must be used sparingly
- Make sure you use schema.org markups to tell Google more about your content and have a chance of being mentioned
- Generate natural links from social media, post on Reddit and other online communities
There's no doubt that the SEO industry has evolved and the user experience has taken centre stage even more. But while much is changing, some things remain the same: the focus is on relevant, high-quality content that is presented well, no matter where your user is.
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