SEO 2015, Part 1: Your Recipe Must Make Use of Newer Ingredients

The Search Engine Optimization kitchen is soon going to get a revamp. What’s cooking? The same, old recipe, but in a different flavor.

Do you remember the website optimization industry of yesteryear? Does it have any resemblance to the industry of today? Well, evidently, there has been a sea change. And the tide is still on its high.

The techniques of the past are already dinosaurs; they are dying away slowly. The competition for survival online is cutthroat, and it’s time you betrayed old tactics and accepted contemporary ideas. Of course, the bottom line remains the same – your website is supposed to have some good, online visibility and quality traffic; it is supposed to effectively convert customers.

This year has been very crucial for Search Engine Optimization. Hit hard by Google’s Mobilegeddon and Phantom update, websites are still recovering, and optimization is turning into a sophisticated discipline for obvious reasons.

Here are some newer recipes that are being generously added to the optimization mix:

Mobile search optimisation is leading:

If you are still clinging onto the notion that your desktop site will suffice forever, you are only living in a fool’s paradise. Yes, Google has asked for responsive sites. But, optimising without mobile sites at the core, can take rankings to doldrums.

According to a study by GlobalWebIndex, “80 percent of adults now have a smartphone; the average time spent on a mobile device is 1.85 hours a day (over a half hour increase from 2012).” SEO PowerSuite reveals how, about 50% of the traffic a website gets, comes solely from mobiles.

Cutting the long story short, like you desktop site, your mobile site, too, will be equally accountable for the online presence of your business, for the content you are creating, and even for its the searchability.

And yes, configurations will hugely matter, because, according to BrightEdge, errors in mobile configuration led to a 68% loss in traffic last year. Cautiousness is recommended. Google’s turning too strict.

Content marketing is becoming indispensable:

Search Engine Optimisation will depend hugely on it. At the base, the discipline will still thrive on keyword research, meta tags, penalty recovery and indexing problems. But, content marketing will be the key to drive visibility.

“Data coming from the Content Marketing Institute in 2014 show that B2Bs and B2Cs are embracing content in the form of blog posts and web content as a key facet of their content marketing.” – SearchEngineLand.

In plain tongue, an optimisation plan without a content plan will be as good as no plan. High-quality is still a critical ingredient. But, the factors that determine ‘quality’ are the newer seasonings. User experience, of course, will be a priority. Creativity has to merge with technicality to boost the visibility of websites. Every SEO service in India has to understand this requirement.

Social signals not to be thrown out of the window:

Social media activities are like Oxygen; website cannot breathe without them. Your site has to have an active account in Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ and every other major social media platform of modern-day.

Social Media Optimisation of today is more about building trustful relationships than strategic visibility boosting. So, even if a user ditches clicking on the website link provided on such pages, he would still be welcomed by your brand. This is important, so as to indulge him without forcing him to indulge.

Get rid of inactive pages and fake accounts. Also, pay heed to Google+ a lot, because it is a brainchild of the search engine king, itself!

Search Engine Optimization is a funny recipe. It keeps changing its taste preference from time to time. But, it is one nourishment that websites cannot do without. So, polish up your skills and tools before the search engine radar gobbles your site up. Burp!

And yes, do come back for Part 2 and Part 2 is here – http://lnselindia.blogspot.in/2015/06/seo-2015-part-2-revised-renewed-refined.html