2015 is finally upon us. As business owners, it’s our duty to make sure that we are ready to face the SEO challenges that are already underway in the new year.
SEO can be a lot like walking a tightrope, danger ahead at every step!
There were many changes in 2014. Some were good for certain business owners. Other changes took high-ranking sites in the local search engines and virtually made them disappear overnight. If you plan to stay relevant online, and want your business to continue to compete in the local search engines, then it’s necessary to prepare for the search engine optimisation challenges ahead.
SEO Gold Coast has identified three key changes that are already underway. If business owners ignore these areas of search engine optimization, it’s only a matter of time before they begin to lose rankings, leads, customers and sales.
Since we do not want to see this happen to you, we’ve decided to discuss these three challenges in earnest below.
Challenge #1: Keyword Recalibration to Reflect Semantic Search
Since Google let loose the Hummingbird update in 2003, keyword based search has become less relevant. It is in the process of being phased out altogether. Semantic search is the optimal way to navigate the Google algorithms. According to SearchEngineLand, Hummingbird…
Hummingbird allows the Google search engine to better do its job through an improvement in semantic search. As conversational search becomes the norm, Hummingbird lends understanding to the intent and contextual meaning of terms used in a query.
It seems that with Hummingbird, Google can now better answer those longer-tail queries even if a page is not optimised for them. So some pages may have a better chance of being found for certain queries now.
As Google’s algorithms become more sophisticated over time, it’s necessary to start paying close attention to user intent as opposed to the specific keywords being typed into the search engines. Since Google now emphasizes semantic search as opposed to conversational search, plenty of business owners are missing the boat because they continue to adopt a pre-Hummingbird mentality.
Business owners need to properly optimise their content in order to appease the semantic search Google algorithms and stay relevant in their niche. When creating content, make sure it reflects the following main focuses on semantic search:
• Helpful supplementary information – in addition to your initial content, add maps, travel information, informational reviews, testimonials, etc. to your site.
• Answer questions – focus on the questions that your current customer base is asking and create your content so that it answers these questions in great detail. You could make a list of the 10 most frequently asked questions for your business and, not only create great written content, but create a short video as well. Video marketing is extremely easy and anyone can do it.
• Themed content – when creating content for your website, make sure it is relevant and focuses on a particular theme or topic. This will allow you to include a wide range of thematic keywords in the content, please the Google algorithms and ultimately rank higher in the search engines. A properly themed website is a dream to rank and is exactly what Google is looking for. Ask us how you can do this.
Challenge #2: Proper Optimization for Local SEO
Now it’s time to take a closer look at proper content optimisation for local businesses looking to take advantage of search engine optimisation.
In order to stay relevant, business owners need to have a foolproof SEO strategy in order to compete. And when we say compete, we aren’t necessarily talking about the other highly ranked websites in the search engines. We’re talking about competing with Google and giving them what they want in order to avoid losing rankings during the next big algorithm update.
First off, business owners need to begin adopting a mobile friendly mentality. Two facts to consider:
• 50% of the people performing local searches on mobile devices visit that store within one day.
• 46% of the population using search engines for product research does so exclusively on their mobile devices.
Are you starting to recognize the trend? Optimizing your content for mobile devices is a must in 2015. Call us to learn more about mobile search engine optimization today.
Challenge #3: Garnering More Mentions and Citations
Our final major challenge for 2015 revolves around gathering more mentions and citations.
Old-school link building is on its way to becoming a thing of the past. Unfortunately, the predictableness of ranking websites through link building will also disappear along with it.
In order to increase search engine rankings in 2015, it’s important to receive more brand mentions and implied links, hence the need for citations and mentions.
This change already began in 2014 and will be more relevant in 2015 and far into the future – until Google changes their mind again! This is something that we all have to deal with when playing the search engine optimisation game!
At the end of the day, some tips to gather more mentions and citations are as follows:
• make guest posts on respected sites
• content syndication
• share content through social media
• produce consistent high quality content on a regular basis (link bait)
Are you ready to take on the challenges of SEO in 2015? We’d love to help, so give us a call to find out more about what we can do for you.
Call Us on 1300 885 487