SEO UPDATES - 2015

Going forward, specificity of content will continue to become more and more important. Also, search engines will reward the “teacher”—in other words, not the piece of content that is looking to sound smart, but rather the piece of content that has the goal of communion with the reader/searcher. In a quick nutshell, I see the following SEO factors becoming VERY significant in the coming years:

1. Time on Site: Time is man’s greatest resource. It’s also going to be one of Google’s greatest judges of the best content the web has to offer.
2. Bounce Rate: If they quickly come and go, you’ve got a problem
3. Freshness of Content: It better be up to date
4. Meaty/thorough Content: Searchers don’t just want answers—they want GREAT answers
5. Mobile: Your content better look great on every screen, no matter the size
6. Transparency/Honesty: People don’t want to read biased content. They want honesty and transparency, and search engines will get better and better at giving it to them.
7. Multimedia: Content that shows in multiple forms (like a blog post that includes text and video) will outperform content that uses just one means of communication.
   
   

   Create and optimize for mobile traffic

   Back in 2012 ComScore predicted that mobile traffic would exceed desktop traffic in 2014, and they were correct. Google has always said that it feels responsive websites provide the best user experience, and recently starting including a “mobile-friendly” notation next to websites in mobile search results that are indeed mobile friendly.
   You can see if your website passes Google’s mobile-friendly test by clicking here. Bing has also stated it prefers a single responsive URL.
   Related: Why Every Entrepreneur Should Focus on Local SEO
   

   2. Optimizing for Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo

   Could 2015 be the year that some other search engines begin to take more market share? It seems like this is the million-dollar question every year, but some recent developments suggest that it could be possible.
   Firefox kicked Google to the curb and Yahoo will now be the default search engine for the browser. Google’s deal is also up with Safari in 2015, and reports have both Bing and Yahoo trying to secure that spot. The option to switch default browsers in iOS 8 and OS X from Google to DuckDuckGo also exists.
   With options other than Google becoming more popular and accepted it will make it important to have visibility across these search engines in addition to just Google.
   

   3. Switch your focus from keyword rankings to ROI metrics

   If you or your SEO company is still putting an emphasis on keyword rankings and determining the success of the campaign based on keyword positions, then it is time for a major wake up call. Ranking reports can be made to look pretty and some SEO companies will even target useless keywords just to say, “Hey look -- you are ranking number one!”
   If you are a business owner spending money every month on SEO, what would you rather hear from your SEO agency?
   
   • “Congratulations, you are ranking number one for ‘buy blue widgets online’ but we aren’t sure what that translates into dollar wise.”
   • “The infographic that we published last month resulted in earning 67 links and it was also responsible for 45 conversions and $22,480 in revenue.”
   Do you want a fancy PDF ranking report or do you want to know what your return on investment was?
   

   4. More focused social-media approach

   Social media was once just a platform to share content, so businesses would sign up for every social platform under the sun and blast their content everywhere. Social media is now a marketing channel as well as a customer-service channel. Your social audience expects your brand to engage with them on a more personal level.
   Related: How to Improve Your Google AdWords Campaign This Holiday Season
   It is more effective to focus on two or three social-media platforms and be very active and accommodating. This not only helps you generate more leads, sales and revenue, but it also helps to build a very loyal following that will share your content. This can introduce new people to your brand and even present opportunities to earn links.
   

   5. Earning links rather than building links

   Through all of the updates and algorithm changes over the years one thing remains the same: inbound links are the most influential signal of trust and authority. This isn’t going to change -- not in 2015 or anytime soon.
   The days of building links on irrelevant blogs and chasing large quantities of links to game the search results are over. Earning a single link on a high-quality relevant website is valuable for multiple reasons including SEO, attracting referral traffic, leads, sales and branding exposure. Look for traditional PR and SEO to work closer together in 2015.
   

   6. Targeting more precise keywords and search phrases

   The days of targeting broad keywords are coming to an end. While they tend to have a huge search volume, they don’t attract highly targeted traffic and they are expensive to rank. Targeting long-tail search queries not only attracts qualified “buyer” traffic, but these terms will typically have much less competition. Keyword research along with understanding the shopping and purchase patterns of the target consumer can help to identify search terms and phrases to go after.
   Businesses will always crave organic search traffic, and search-engine optimization is the vehicle to drive that highly coveted traffic. What are some SEO changes that you foresee in 2015

So there you have it folks—Factors that will (and will not) play a major factor in SEO going forward. What do you agree or disagree with? What else would you add to these lists? Feel free to add your thoughts below…