Top 7 SEO Trends and Techniques to follow in 2015

As the search engines are get smarter and smarter, the SEO strategies are significantly changing. The techniques that worked for your business earlier may not help now, and may also hurt your business sometimes. Today, to address the reality you must follow SEO techniques that include, content management, mobile website optimization, ORM, brand building, social media integration and digital marketing.

We need to embrace ourselves with the latest techniques to keep pace with the same to be competitive and successful. Here are the 7 SEO trends and techniques that you should implement for your business this year.

Content is always king – Content will still remaining as a KING this year. Quality content will become more essential and important than ever. It’s no longer enough to have just an SEO strategy. We have been hearing the term content marketing more often in the place of SEO. Does the term “content marketing” becoming the synonym for SEO?

Though writing content seems like an easy task, but a well-written content that’s well optimized, impress search engines and loved by social media followers can bring lot of focus on your site. Creating content that resonate among people will attract search engine result and bring audience. Content marketing is maturing and trying out infographics and video marketing can just add value to your SEO techniques.

Mobile responsive website is must – As we know Search engines loves responsive website more which provides the best user experience, And now over 1.2 billion people using the web from their mobile device. In this year of 2015, Search engines are getting obsessed over mobile-friendly websites.

We have no choice left other than converting the website into mobile-friendly websites along with mobile-friendly SEO strategy to attract more users as well as grab and retain search engines attention. So Brands, it’s time to act immediately, if your website doesn’t currently have a mobile-friendly responsive website.

It’s a positive change that will enhance your customer experience, reduces bounce rates and increase on-site conversions. If you are still not ready for this change then you are going to miss the huge audience and lose the race.

Social Presence is unavoidable (especially G+) – Social media platforms are emerging as a customer-service channel more than as a marketing channel. 2014 has been a biggest year for social media platforms, which brought phenomenal changes in the way businesses are done. Social audiences are expecting their brands to engage and impress them in a more personal way.

93% of marketers use social media  for business and are getting serious about integrating their online presence on major social networks. Earlier, a business was just limited to integrating bigger social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but clearly from SEO point Google+ is ruling in the coming years. Especially, if your business comprises of lot of traffic-grabbing content then having Google+ in your SEO plan is a must. You are sure to have better search rankings for your website with optimized content and profile on Google+.

Focus more on Website Speed – While Google has his own algorithms and factors to determine search ranking results, now the speed at which someone is viewing your website content is also a concern. Way back in 2010, Google announced  that website speed will have greater impact on search engine rankings. It’s clear that Google wants to provide positive experience to users that stay tune for longer times. Simply by reducing redirects, using content distribution network, optimizing image, using YUI compressor for CSS and JavaScript you can dramatically improve your site speed. Never forget page speed is a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm not only for desktop but also for mobile sites, so start evolving.

Knowledge graph and Schema – With search getting complex day by day more and more people are adapting the schema markup in the SEO plans. Major search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing started Schema.org in order to makes it easier for people to find relevant information on the web.

On the other hand, The Knowledge Graph has been out for two years, there are still very few SEOs who really grasp the significance of Knowledge Graph Optimization. Google’s mission behind launching Knowledge Graph was to organize the world’s information to make it universally accessible and useful. By optimizing knowledge graph under SEO you are giving helpful information to users for making best decision.

Focus on ROI metrics than Keyword ranking – Are you still only focusing on keyword rankings and determining the success based on keyword positions, then it’s time to take a shift. Starts focusing in ROI metrics than rankings because end of the day it’s all about profit achieved in the business. We need to understand more about how your website visitors interact with your website which will help you devise better conversion and sales techniques.

Track your total revenue generated for all search terms, churn rate of keywords you are targeting which will help you to implement best strategy for your successful business. More than showcasing Fancy Ranking report, we need to know about the return on investment made which will measure the success and profit you made by investing in SEO.

Long tail keywords (LSI) – Long tail keywords are usually longer than normally targeted keywords. Such long keywords are less common, but highly specific to whatever you are selling. For example, if you sell “children toys”, you might not top the search ranking, whereas if you specialize in say, musical toys for boys, or educational toys for boys and girls, then keywords like “musical toys for 5 year old boys” are going to find those customers looking for exact product.

Long tail keywords are easier to rank in search engine than common once, yet conversion rate for such keywords are higher. By incorporating long tail keywords in your SEO strategy, you are inviting small but regular visitor/buyer to your website.