In the past five years alone the roadmap for best SEO and marketing practices has changed tremendously. Don't expect the heady pace of industry and search engine dynamics to change in the foreseeable future. We simply need to keep up or fall miserably behind.
SEO & Content Marketing Trends
Primary focus in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) moving forward will be more on the technical side with essential search visibility elements for web marketing while content marketing will drive search engine ranking. Effective SEO will require thorough keyword research, clean indexing, strong meta tag descriptions and more while content marketing with high quality content, carefully planned and designed wording specifically centric to targeted audience groups, will be a critical factor in search engine visibility.
Dressing For Success With Website and Mobile SEO
The major search engines, Google in particular, are placing critical emphasis on website optimization and a clear majority of web browsing today is done on mobile so it is imperative that web owners and administrators have a clear focus on website and mobile visibility and usability.
Google now has resources dedicated to mobile usability in their Google Webmaster arsenal to help website owners align their content accordingly. Once mobile friendly, websites need to be tested on mobile devices to make sure user functionality and strong visual elements are achieved, error-free, otherwise Google will penalize those sites who are not compliant and mobile user engaged. Forbes 10 Steps For Mobile Optimization provides sound information relating to this critical web user issue.
External and Back Linking
Our linking practices to external websites and also backlinking from relevant sites of authority or expertise to our own site has taken on greater significance. Research carefully on best practices for establishing backlinks and your own external linking. Google looks very carefully at what we are linking to and there has to be a direct correlation or relevance between our own website and those we link to and with. It should also be a carefully graduated process so that we are not perceived by the search engines to be artificially linking or 'stuffing' our site specifically to our own advantage.
Socials Signals & Ranking
Industry experts are now anticipating that social media signals are beginning to generate Google attention where the search giant has maintained a denial that they gave any consideration to social marketing in relation to their ranking algorithm process. Greater evidence of the social factor is anticipated in 2015.
Shift in Strategies for Ranking
Leading industry experts are anticipating that networking and relationship building is quickly becoming a critical factor and even surpassing the importance of the technical aspects of optimization. Web marketing going forward will mean that business proprietors and marketings are going to have to embrace much greater emphasis on the human connection as a key factor in the success of their audience reach and engagement.
That shift in marketing focus has already begun with trending indicators that we must reach out and interact directly with potential clients or customers and in order to humanize our brand we need to stand out by reaching out, even on a one-on-one basis. Marketing success today is more and more about establishing a relationship and trust with prospective customers. Blogging campaigns and building genuine relationships with brand advocates and influencers and interactive engagement one-on-one in social media circles are showing positive results in this regard.
Today's Marketing Integration
In such a hugely competitive and evolving brand marketing environment, the focus for effective marketing implementation today means pulling together each of the various strategies and tools in our arsenal to work in tandem, converging to realize the same positive results. Marketing and SEO specialization is evolving quickly to a more 'content marketing strategist' centric focus moving forward.
Not only is how we reach out ever-changing but equally important who we reach out to. Previous marketing emphasis was often more on a broad form blanket reach approach but it stands to reason that with any successful marketing, especially online, we need to know who our potential market is and how we effectively target that more specific market.
The major search engines today are focusing more and more attention on providing us with the means to determine our best market reach through keyword planner tools, powerful website analytics and more. Knowing the dynamics of those searching online, including age demographics, geographical dominance, language, interactive dynamics and the most used search terms for particular industries, products and/or services are all coming into critical play for achieving greater results in our brand marketing efforts.
How we establish that all-important human connection is quickly becoming the defacto element of focus as we move forward with our audience and influencer reach strategy and marketing solutions.