It’s hard to keep track of what’s changing in SEO, but doing so could lead to a far more productive campaign. It can influence your site design, blog content, social strategy, and other primary marketing factors.
Entering 2017 with an outdated SEO strategy could be the mistake that leaves you in the dust. It’s vital to understand the way that this marketing essential changes from year to year, so you can better serve your business. As you make resolutions this year, carefully consider your current SEO strategy and update wherever necessary to meet the current trends.
1. Minimize Attention to Keywords
Though keywords can sometimes be useful for boosting your rankings a spot or two, they’re on their way out the door. The Google search algorithm is enough advanced that it can recognize the intentions of search topics rather than the keywords. Instead, experts recommend focusing more on strong topics that will catch user interest.
2. Speed Up Your Site
Google has already adjusted its algorithm to recognize pagespeed as a defining factor in rankings. This year will see a greater emphasis on that.
“Speed up your website using plugins and backup technology to cache and store files that may be slowing it down,”
says an article from Green Residential, a property management and marketing company.
“Your ideal loading speed should be less than three seconds.”
3. Advertise More
Anytime a web visitor makes a “transactional search” or a search with the intent to make a purchase, advertisements can increase the likelihood that a searcher will buy from you. These advertisements on Google pages, social media, and websites were monumental for organizations in 2016, calling for a greater emphasis on the service.
4. Optimize for Rich Answers
A rich answer on Google is the box at the top of search results that gives a quick explanation for a common question. It pulls from useful blog resources that have been optimized for the rich answer purpose.
You want to aim for this top spot by developing content that ranks well for a certain query, uses <li> tags, and uses unambiguous content and headlines that are easy for Google to rank.
5. Embrace Mobile
You can no longer ignore mobile. Thanks to Google’s algorithm, mobile optimization is necessary for rankings, and ignoring it will result in a severe penalty. Make 2017 the year you finally create responsive websites and apps.
6. Enable Voice Search
Experts swear that 2017 will be the year when websites must enable voice search on their sites to stay competitive with SEO.
“Voice search doesn’t mean you need to overhaul your entire SEO strategy or the content on your site, but it does mean that you’re going to need to make some subtle changes that can help make you more successful in the voice search world,”
says a Search Engine Land article.
Voice search is more accurate than ever, and it’s becoming a mainstream addition to homes with things like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. According to Search Engine Land, the best way to incorporate voice search-optimized content is to use words that people actually speak.
7. Improve User Experience
Invest in testing the user experience. This will go beyond simple focus on user experience and concentrate on answering search queries directly and making your content more useful for consumers.
8. Keep Up with Content
Improving your content will always be one of the top trends, year over year. Always focus on good content, not just content for the sake of content. It should be high-quality and optimized for the users you’re targeting.
9. Mine Social Data
Social media is the number one activity for online users today. It’s a gold mine of data that can enhance your strategy. This data is available in real time, enabling you to use fresh, actionable information to shape your topics and link-building strategies.
10. Focus on Link Building
“Links are important since Google confirmed that links are the #1 ranking factor, alongside great content,”
says an article from Link Research Tools.
“Ranking without links is really hard, and why would anyone try to rank without links in the first place? Google cares about links more than anything, and so should you.”
Good links are becoming more difficult to acquire as Google’s algorithm becomes more and more strict and publishers create restrictions. Focus on new, clever strategies to work the system and rank better with quality links.
