2015 – Go Ahead in SEO Writing
This time of the year is really a time to be keenly observant. You should be able to take a good look at the things that happened in 2014, to get an idea of the trends that are most likely to take priority in 2015. Before we look at the seven factors let us examine the patterns in 2014 that led to them.
Patterns that shook the SEO world in 2014
The year 2014 was such a tough year for many SEO experts. This is because Google made drastic changes to its algorithms. This includes the many updates for Panda as well as the introduction of Penguin. In 2015 content quality and inbound links have started playing a major role in rankings and this trend will continue up to next year. The trends and patterns that shook the SEO world in 2014 have been summarized below:
- Google’s Panda algorithm, which was released in 2014, went through multiple updates that shut down many low-quality websites. These websites were taken out of the SERPs and many others were affected.
- Another shocker, the Penguin algorithm, was released in April 2014. It changed the face of the industry, forcing many SEOs to adapt other tactics and strategies. Companies that did not follow practices had in Penguin-unfriendly SEO practices were dropped from the search results while others saw their rankings disappear.
- The hot topic of debate became negative SEO, such that Google responded by launching the Disavow link tool. The tool enables webmasters to specify backlinks that should be discarded or discounted by Google when it evaluates links to their website.
- Guest blogging became a popular way of building credible links for acquiring guest blog links. Thus, many tactics for acquiring guest blog links emerged.
- • Websites that indulged in anchor text over-use and those that used paid links were shut down.
7 factors that will determine your survival in SEO in 2015
The simplest idea for survival would be on creating value for the reader. This is because ultimately, that should be the goal of any website. The reality is that competition keeps increasing, so writing valuable content may not be enough. So you may have to employ strategic methods in a pragmatic approach so that you can weed out competition and rise to the top of SERPs. We will examine the 7 strategies that will most likely dominate the SEO landscape in 2015 below:
Content value
The higher the value of the content the more likely your website will get good ranking on Google. Quality content has been emphasized by Google this year and the trend is likely to continue up to next year. You can tell whether you have quality content by using the following points:
• Uniqueness of the content/topic
• Content with useful information that actually benefits a reader
• Content marketing
There are indications that content marketing could turn out to be the next big thing. Experts say that it may turn out to be the next SEO. As a basic rule, content marketing attracts backlinks, and adds value for the website user. Content marketing may be gaining momentum but it is much more challenging than SEO. Here, you have to generate more content of high quality, circulate it, and ensure that it gets published widely with enough social signals to generate quality SEO material. Since Google takes valuable content seriously, a solid content marketing strategy will be the key to getting to the next level in SEO.
Author Rank
Author Rank is anew aspect that will help Google develop trust and authority scores for individual authors. This would definitely affect search results ranking for their content. Authors would be ranked based on the following factors:
• Quality of backlinks to your content
• Timely and topical content
• Page rank
• Social sharing of your Google+ posts
• Your comments and shares
This simply means that Google will be assessing your reputation, authority and the reception of your content to establish how valuable you are as an author. Author Ranking provides writers with methodology to build their Google+ profiles, and ensure their online presence is streamlined and connected across all social networks and blogs where they are contributors. Writers who are well-informed and produce quality content will definitely reap rewards of a higher author ranking.
Social media
Shares, tweets, retweets, Google+ and mentions will become valid ranking factors this year. They are trophies every webmaster should take seriously. Social media can influence the visibility of your website in search results in the following ways:
• Your likes, shares etc will indicate to search engine that your content is new and interesting.
• Your content will increase in the search results of your online friends and followers.
• Search engines will also be able to find and index your content faster.
• Your domain authority and the number of inbound links to your website will increase.
Mobile technology
Mobile technology may not affect SEO directly but it will play a role in every webmasters fortunes. Google was among the first companies that realized about this trend in web browsing due to the growing presence of tablets and smartphones. The convenience for usage of these gadgets will be highly influential this year.
Localization
Google has developed a taste for local websites. This is evident in many searches and it is safe to assume that this year we will witness an increase in this preference. Localization includes map data, listings, citations and information sites. These sites will enjoy higher rankings and visibility on Google.
Media
Videos and images have become very popular on the internet in recent years. Search results that include videos have been getting higher ranking than text-only content. This is one of those trends that will continue into the coming years. It’s becoming important to add related non-textual media to text content, because this adds value and makes the content more resourceful.
The trends that have been listed above are the ones that will play a key role in SEO this year. So take action and change with the times. This will give you an edge over other SEO writers.
