We are approaching the midway point of 2016, and the winds of change are already setting new Search ships a-sail. We at Just Media have our sights set on Paid Search, but Search Engine Optimization retains a huge presence in our strategic thinking. The company website is the foundation for all that we do in digital marketing. It acts as your brand ambassador to the entire digital world. Just as all digital marketing points back to your company’s website, proper SEO will bring them back. Below are the major trends we see in SEO that are also affecting paid digital marketing efforts.
Top 3 SEO Trends in 2016:
- Mobile
Websites that are not device-agnostic will fail. Mobile traffic is pushing past 60% of all search volume, having overtaken Desktop traffic back in 2015. Developing your website, and its SEO strategy from a mobile user’s perspective is, and will be, essential.
- Social Media & Relationship Strategy
The top positions in Google’s SERP can no longer be achieved by simply following technical best practice.
It has become increasingly difficult to achieve the top positions in Google’s SERP by placing an importance on content. The industry’s push to create content to achieve higher rankings and boost page authority is common knowledge. Bill Gates wrote about the emerging importance of content back in 1996. Every company wishing to have a chance at ranking in Google’s SERP has created a blog, and most companies have accepted, on some level, that their marketing department will need a strong content creation strategy in place just to compete.
The technical and content aspects of SEO are commonplace now, and companies wishing to differentiate themselves (from an organic perspective) will have to put an emphasis on relationship strategy. Signals from Social Media are playing an increasingly important role in a brand’s ability to rank organically. Brand ambassadors must promote and monitor your company’s social web presence now more than ever.
With the failure of the Google+ Authorship experiment, the focus should move towards Twitter & Facebook (LinkedIn too, but to a much lesser extent).
- Integration
SEO isn’t a fringe aspect of your companies marketing strategy, and it cannot be treated as such. Integrating SEO into all strategic marketing decisions will be essential to helping a company’s brand succeed in the digital universe. Beginning with the naming of one’s company, right down to the title of your 500th blog post.
If your company name and domain are going to share the SERP with 5 others just like it, you are going to be fighting an uphill battle from day 1.
If you do not take SEO into account when writing content for the blog, then you are not taking full advantage of the organic ranking opportunities your blog should be providing.
Managing your brand online is an ever-changing ecosystem. By observing these trends, and continuing to push your digital presence ahead of the curve, you can elevate your brand above the crowded digital marketplace.
Alec Phillips
Just Media, Inc.
