SEO is a constantly evolving discipline. As Google continues to increase its’ knowledge of users, languages and content, it releases updates to reflect the current search trends and practices. The focus -and benefits- of a successful SEO strategy is to attract quality traffic that satisfies users’ needs and leads to conversions. Without updating your SEO methods, you risk being penalized by lowering your SERP rankings, brand visibility and credibility.
Social Media
The content displayed on social media is becoming increasingly relevant to SERPs. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are already being used by 76% of marketers to add support to their current SEO strategies. By optimizing the content published on your social media outlets, you increase your user interactivity and visibility on search engines. Google, Bing and Yahoo are now using social media signals to determine website rankings, the author’s authority and brand credibility. As search engines continue to crawl, collect and use social media data, its importance to SEO approaches will only increase.
Mobile Optimization
Optimizing your website to make it mobile friendly is no longer a choice. As searches are being increasingly carried out on devices such as smartphones and tablets rather than traditional computers, search engines are adapting their result rankings to better suit the user medium. In April 2015, Google released a mobile friendly algorithm update to boost mobile friendly pages’ ranking results. The time people are now spending on mobile media has surpassed desktop by 51% compared to 42% making it crucial from an SEO perspective to take advantage of what is now the dominant market. This now includes optimizing and linking the SEO content for any Apps.
Voice Recognition
With the rise of mobile comes the rise of mobile assistants. Responsive programs such as Siri, Google Now and Cortana are becoming essential search tools. Offering hands-free convenience, voice recognition allows people to quickly and easily search for information while multi-tasking. Making sure that your content is easily searchable through voice commands means adapting your SEO keywords. People typically use long-tail keywords when speaking, rather than traditional targeted keywords. The idea of these programs is to converse with them as you would a person, using complete questions instead of broken phrasing. According to MarketingLand, the most common uses of voice search tools for adults are:
- Asking for directions – 40%
- Dictating texts – 39%
- Calling someone – 31%
- Checking the time – 11%
These searches are commonly done in the bathroom, while cooking, while driving and while watching TV.
Blended Results
Search engines have typically indexed web results based upon relevant text. Now, however, search engines such as Google are drawing content from multiple sources and automatically displaying integrated results. By presenting the user with images, videos and written content, the audience is entertained and engaged, giving them a more satisfying user experience.By optimizing blended SEO content, you can improve your ranking on SERPs by offering multiple relevant and unique content sources.
When developing your SEO content strategy always remember, Google controls 71% of the global search engine market and to win the game, you have to play by their rules. Fresh, quality content will always be important, but search engines can and do change their algorithms for web page rankings. What works for SEO now, may not work in the future. Take part in one of OMMAX’s SEO workshops and stay informed of the best SEO practices.
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