We are about halfway through 2015 at this point, and many business owners and content marketers continue to go with the flow and perform keyword research, content marketing, backlink building and conversion optimization.
But you have to wonder… “When is Google going to put out its next Internet shattering update? When are they going to knock my rankings down a peg?”
Working hard is one thing. But working smart will keep you relevant in the SEO game now and all throughout 2016 and beyond. You have to keep the momentum that you have going until next year. But you have to do so the right way so that you do not suffer any penalties when the next update finally rears its ugly head.
We’d like to share three powerful SEO strategies with you today. If you implement these strategies, you’ll give Google and the other search engines exactly what they want.
So you won’t need to worry about the next update. If you’re feeding the Google monster his favorite snack, than you’re keeping him happy. And that’s the only way to stay relevant in 2015, 2016 and beyond.
Strategy #1: Sending Social Signals
Undoubtedly you feel that all of your social media activities are a real slog. And many of you feel that the effort that you put forth on social media isn’t worth the miniscule traffic that it brings to your blog/website.
But here’s the thing…
All the social sharing and sending of social signals does play a key role in your overall marketing strategy. It may not bring the traffic that you’d hoped, but it’s sending social signals to the search engines. They help to stick to the top of the search rankings for your keywords of choice.
This is the silver lining of the entire social media cloud. Many digital marketers forget that social signals are a huge part of the overall popularity contest that Google uses to determine where they rank webpages/websites based on keyword data. In today’s SEO world, social signals and your overall social media strategy play an important role in search engine optimization.
Strategy #2: Mobile Friendly Optimization Is a Must
At one point, not that long ago, it was simply a good idea to befriend mobile optimization. But in today’s SEO environment, Google and the other search engines are making it mandatory that webpages have mobile optimization in order to rank highly on the results pages.
Just a few short months ago, Google made a statement saying that they were going to drop the rankings of websites that were not optimized for mobile. Although the evidence of this is yet to be felt on a wide scale we have seen a couple of examples of sites being temporarily disadvantaged in the SERPs and you can bet your bottom dollar that Google is working on this big time.
So if you want to stay relevant in the world that is SEO, and continue to reap the rewards of the search engines, then you need to make mobile optimization a key part of your search engine optimisation strategy. Plus you want all of the mobile traffic that is going to come your way, because more than half of your market is using mobile devices in order to look for your business in the search engines.
Mobile optimization is your friend. Look into responsive website design immediately before it’s too late.
Strategy #3: Strategic Guest Blogging for Fun and Profit
Depending on your business and market, it would be wise to consider guest blogging as a way to build backlinks to your site and to earn more authority in your niche. But you have to guest blog strategically and you cannot overdo it by posting guest blogs on every website that’s willing to accept your post.
In 2014, Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team at Google, said: “If you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop.”
Heed Matt’s advice. Forget about guest blogging as a way to get tons of links. Use it to get high quality links from the most powerful AND relevant blogs and websites on the Internet. When you get a link from a well-respected website, it will be worth its weight in gold from an SEO point of view.
Begin implementing these SEO strategies if you want to stay relevant now and throughout 2016.