Okay, we gotta accept that Google, the most popular search engine, is not on our, i.e. the marketers’ side. Google has been working day in and day out to help users find the most useful and relevant search results in relation to their search queries. And thus, year 2013 was an eventful year with Google updating algorithms one after the other. As a result of this, world of SEO, too has been on a roller-coaster ride. SEO professionals have been trying hard to keep up with the changing landscape. But the question is, What Next? How is SEO going to be in the year 2014? Will it die or keep evolving? What SEO strategies are SEO professionals going to implement?
Google will continue to update its algorithms in the years to come with all updates targeted at improving users’ experience. So, it’s required of SEO professionals to fasten their belts and be ready for the change.
What should be done?
SEO marketers must be pro in their SEO marketing strategies. We all now understand the end objective of Google and other search engines. It is primarily focused on improving the search results based on what the user wants to find. Thus, it is important that SEO professionals focus on that objective too. Instead of focusing too much on just promoting a brand, attention must be also be paid to what the user wants? What type of information is he looking for? On what social channels is he present?
Content Rules the SEO World
This is the fact and no one can change that. Content dominates the world of SEO and is the only way to get more traffic and boost brand awareness. And at the same time, as per Google’s algorithm updates, your content must be useful, updated and relevant for the end user. Google has been keeping a close check on the content published by brands be it ebooks, whitepapers, articles or blogs. It also tries to find out the linkage between the published content and based on the quality of content it ranks the pages. So what do we learn? It is better we start creating awesome content for the consumers and get ranked organically! So easy isn’t it?
Social Media is Leading
According to a research by Content Marketing Institute, successful B2B marketers are present on at least seven social media platforms. If you have been doing social media fairly well on 1 or 2 social media channels, then chances are that you may lose the audience which is present on other social networking sites. Also, different social media sites promote different types of content. For example, Instagram and Pinterest are image-based social media platforms. So content must be tweaked for each social platform.
Mobile – The New SEO
Smartphones have become our way of life. From looking for information to writing reviews, consumers use Smartphones for all purposes. Thus, it is imperative for brands to focus on the growing population of Smartphone users and implement mobile SEO strategies.
Thus, we can conclude that as Google continues to update its algorithms, the importance of quality content, social media and mobile has increased many folds. It’s time that SEO professionals wake up from long slumber of poor quality content and traditional social media strategies and pay attention to the right SEO strategies.