Content, Social, Links

1. Content Still Rules the Internet – The phrase “Content is King” still applies today as it did in the past. Google continues to search out high-quality content to serve up to their online search customers. To make sure you get the best ranking, you should have plenty of high-quality content on your site. Include written content, along with videos or audio podcasts.
2. Strive For Organic Links, Not Paid Links – Google has come down hard on paid links. Even links, with anchor text back to their site, that marketers used to embed in press releases that were sent out to their publication channels are considered “paid links.” You can still get points from Google for an organic link coming back to your site from bloggers or journalists who are unaffiliated with you who choose to write about your product or service. Then, it’s considered a legitimate earned link.
3. Social Media using with Google+ – If you want to use social for your SEO efforts, you can’t ignore Google+. The Google +1 shares can have a good impact on your search ranking. In addition, Google will index things quickly that get shared on their Google+ platform. You can also get a little boost by setting up a business page on Google Places or just add a company page to the Google+ social media account. That way you can start to build a Google+ community to promote your business.
4. Stay Up to Speed – If you want Google to smile on you, make sure all parts of your website load quickly. Otherwise, slow-loading pages tend to get ranked lower too. More efficient websites, ecommerce shops, and the like will receive a benefit of being ranked more favourably. However, it isn’t just Google that smiles. Your customers will appreciate the fact that your site works well, pages load quickly, and they aren’t left with a feeling that you are behind the times. Keep an eye out for technologies that weigh your site down, like Flash, or poorly coded Javascript and Ajax. Get rid of these and focus on providing a streamlined, speedy, delivery for all your web pages. This will ensure more content sharing and lower bounce rates.
5. Be Proactive With Technical Issues – Aside from speed, there are other types of technical issues that can sink your ranking with Google. Google’s Panda and Penguin updates has made it even more important to be as proactive as possible fixing any technical issues on your website. If you have any technical problem that creates duplicate content or affects your site-wide navigation, you’ll end up being penalized by the search engines. Even if they never hurt you in the past, you can be sure that’s not the case after the Panda and Penguin updates.
6. Don’t Get Caught Up with Keyword Optimization – Google tends to be more interested in keyword themes than single keyword optimizations. If you focus too much on one specific keyword or keyword phrase, pasting it on various pages on your site, you’ll end up doing more harm than good. Instead, look for a topical theme you want to promote as being expert within and then get several keyword phrases to use in different areas of your website. If in doubt, use fewer keywords, not more.
7. Adopt Structured Data to Simplify Things – With so much content out on the Internet, Google and other search engines had to come up with a way to review it quickly and reformat it for proper display results. That’s where structured data or HTML tags come in. By making use of structured data, the content is more easily interpreted. If you use it on your web pages, you’re likely to be seen more favourably because Google can now tell what type of data you have, whether it’s a recipe, a product listing, or a news story.
8. Expect Big Changes To Continue – Google isn’t done making changes to their algorithm. With the introduction of new technologies like mobile marketing, it’s only natural that they would have to add new algorithm changes. That means Internet marketers have to always know what’s going on with new algorithm changes and any new trends in the market place. Some of the big things to stay ahead of in the future are mobile SEO, social media marketing, and brand signals.

The importance of mobile SEO is evident in the daily use of smartphones and tablets by a growing portion of the population. The way a customer behaves can vary by what platform they use to connect to a website, whether it is a desktop or a smartphone. By optimizing for mobile SEO, businesses can take advantage of those behaviours. Responsive web design is one way to appeal to a growing mobile demographic. It offers mobile visitors a way to see data on the website that is specially tailored to the smaller screens of mobile devices. It can also allow for more scrolling, rather than clicking, which is advantageous on mobile devices.

Social media marketing is also impacting SEO ranking more and more. If a business doesn’t choose to participate, they’ll be at a disadvantage of those that do.

To develop brand signals that appeal to the three main areas of SEO (content, social media marketing, and links), it’s important to get the brand’s message across all three areas through an online marketing strategy. If you have a good brand that always gives the visitor a great experience when they visit, you’ll create brand signals that are strong and help you increase your exposure.

Learn to Earn Google’s Trust – To make sure Google always looks at you in a favourable light, avoid black hat techniques like keyword stuffing or paid links with anchor text. Always take time to develop high quality content and you will be well on your way towards earning Google’s trust. Make sure your site is easy to navigate, speedy, so that both your customers and Google will be impressed.

Don’t Get Stuck Chasing the Latest SEO Trends

Instead, get started making more actual revenue, beginning with having our team of seasoned SEO professionals take a look at your business and tell you what we find. We’ll conduct a free SEO audit that will take a good thorough look at your site, your competitors and let you know what it will take (and cost) to help you dominate your niche online.

Some information from:

King Kong