With both SEO and native advertising set to evolve in 2015, we check out the trends advertisers and businesses should be looking out for this year, along with how search engine optimisation and native ads can work together.
With algorithms changing as often as the weather, it’s important that both content marketers and SEO guru’s keep on top of their game.
Here are the biggest trends set to make a stand in SEO this year:
Schema becomes huge
Schema, or rather semantic mark up, is set to make a lasting appearance in 2015 – especially in terms of local SEO. Schema works well at informing search engines about the business while also telling Google what your content is all about.
It’s also worth noting that schema provides rich snippets which are crucial to the SERPs when dictating organic search rankings.
Lose your static content
Google is set to penalise websites that fail to update their content on a regular basis. The search spiders are now in search of relevant, updated content. With Google being all about the user experience these days, it’s essential that websites keep this in mind by regularly updating their content.
Video goes SEO
The creation of video has become more important than ever with Google now placing higher authority on videos than it is on content. This will inevitably lead to videos being shared even more via social websites such as: Facebook and Twitter with views on sites such as YouTube will decrease.
The biggest trends in native advertising set to make it big in 2015:
Native mobile
With native advertising being the only ad format that really works on a mobile device, native mobile is set to take off this year. By introducing a native ad via a mobile device, brands can ensure their ad empowers the user experience rather than disrupt it.
With the addition of powerful yet subtle ads via mobile, brands can really connect and engage with their users.
Programmatic native advertising
Sure, it’s early days for the era of programmatic native advertising, but, it’s set to make its move this year, so prepare yourself! With an increased number of agencies putting technology in place to distribute native ads programmatically, this is set to be the biggest change in native advertising this year.
The relationship between SEO and native ads
It’s important to note that the popular misconception that any “paid ads” can be penalised by Google is NOT true – we repeat – is NOT true. Native advertising has turned into the “defacto” way content marketers and brands are choosing to promote their content to an even more switched on audience and in turn, engage with them.
All native ads are labelled as being promoted and therefore follow the strict advertising and SEO principles.
While the links from the ads to the brand sites do not pass page rank, they do carry traffic and increase real visitor numbers which naturally has a significant benefit to any SEO campaign.
The truth is, Google loves content – good content – and this is exactly what native advertising is.
So, what advice do you want this year? Ensure your SEO strategy complements your content marketing strategy. With Google no longer ranking websites based on keywords, but rather user intent, its vital native advertising and SEO are employed in unison.
