There has been a “settling” that is happening across the realm of search engine optimization (SEO) in 2015 ,and it will likely continue. Gone are the hectic initial days when one piece of advice suddenly had been touched by Midas and was your golden ticket to “being #1 on Google”. In fact, a #1 Google ranking isn’t even what it once was. So let’s take a look back at this year and see what information stands and which SEO tips will continue to help us throughout the next season and beyond.
- Analytics – SEO is branching into 2 different directions with the entire field of analytics becoming vital to a website’s success.
- Sales Strategy Analytics – Adding to the above, it’s not only important to have analytics, it’s important to use them. If you have a sales strategy you’re trying, then most definitely set some analytics in place to test that strategy and see where you went wrong and what you did right.
- Keywords – We’ll never stop harping on this one. Use them correctly and they are key (bad pun totally intended); use them incorrectly and you may be punished.
- Mobile – Wasn’t this supposed to be a big scary year for websites as Google “forced” them to go mobile? Not quite what was predicted – but mobile is still a vital element and clearly will continue to gain in importance.
- Social Strategies – Social and SEO are becoming more and more related as time goes on and should often be working hand in hand to create effective strategies.
- User Segmentation – A recurring theme – know your audience and cater to them. It’s going to keep coming back in every element of marketing, SEO included.
- Let Go of the Past! – So many SEO myths still live on and have become the Bigfoot of the internet. It’s important to let go of mythical SEO that lurks in the backwoods and know the facts.
- It’s all about the ROI – In the past getting to Google #1 was the goal but that really didn’t do anything for your bottom line. The better goal is an effective ROI, which means that your SEO needs to be geared for that goal, not the elusive (currently non-existent) #1 position.
- Optimized Content – Your web content should all be optimized, not only in a keyword/search manner but to appeal to your audience. This means that writing copy once is NOT good enough, it needs to be fluid to appeal to your changing audience and to respond to their reactions to your website.
- Lifecycle Marketing – The key to effective SEO today lies in knowing your market and getting them to become a brand-loyal sales tool in and of themselves. No more scatter-shot marketing.
2015 saw a lot of changes in SEO, but then every year seems to be a big one in the field of search. The over-arching trend that is becoming more obvious is that search engine optimization is about so much more than a trick or two to pull in visitors; it’s about establishing a plan to relate directly to your target audience and keeping that conversation going.
