Since internet is now available easier by the day, having a website is getting common nowadays. And when the time changes, it's undeniable that the SEO landscape is also changing. But some never change, but grow more important by the day.
When we are talking about SEO, Google is the first thing that comes in mind. The company is taking a hardline approach. Poor link-building tactics, poor quality content and bad web design are just a few of the factors causing websites to get penalized.
Successful SEO strategies have to incorporate diverse components including brand building, mobile optimization, content marketing and social media integration. These strategies are the most common things to get seen by search engines that will shape the SEO success of your business.
Effective SEO has three pillars. A strong SEO strategy has three core components: contents, links and social media. These three pillars must have a mutual relationship with one another to create a beneficial outcome.
Content must be laser focused on your audience's needs to drive specific profit-generating actions. Social media is something that is very common today. Almost everyone has at least one account in one social media. The rise of social media has given the ability for websites to amplify their reach, signaling to search engines that users find your content valuable.
Links from high quality sites also reinforce that you're a trustworthy site.
Social media has been a promising market on the internet. It has matured to the point where it's intersecting with SEO to help determine search rankings. Although it was considered late to enter the market, Google made Google+ to compete with Facebook and others alike.
As its own social media, Google+ plays an integral role with SEO. The search engine giant is relying more than ever on human signals in the form of shares and mentions on social media to help feed information to its database. If a company/brand don't have a strong social media marketing presence and a strategy that makes it easy for people to share their content, a well-optimized SEO is getting further out of hand.
Social objects should be well-optimized for people to easily share among their connections. Humans are social creatures that tend to speak out loud about what they like and dislike. A website should be optimized so that its contents can be shared in a few clicks. This ensures a broader audience, better SEO and better recognition.
The rise of content marketing moves toward digital maturity. Brands need to become active in telling their own stories and creating content that resonates with their specific audiences. Content marketing is maturing, and as a result, marketers are able to effectively target content, measure performance and correct course to improve results (ROI).
With the release of Google's Hummingbird updates, it's getting more difficult for sites without a mobile strategy to rank well in search engines. This includes both a responsive design and a mobile content strategy. More than half of people in developed countries own smartphones, and more than a third own tablets. And the numbers in less developed countries are catching up at an alarming rate with affordable devices now readily available on the market.
Responsive web design ensures that your site looks great across a range of mobile devices. A mobile content strategy targets your content to the context, needs and behaviors of mobile users.
Building links is important for SEO. But building you brand is much more important. This is because a strong brand is playing an increasingly important role in SEO. Building your brand is a critical step to have a good ranking over time.
As you're developing your company's SEO plan, remember that all these trends add up to two things: integration and balance. Writing good content, to building links and developing your social platforms, all support each other.
Customize your plan by identifying your company's opportunity and weakness, and focus on the channels that bring you closer to your audience. After all the necessities are correctly addressed, good search engines rankings will follow.