Keeping up with the latest SEO developments has never been easy. By the time current trends are understood new ones appear. Sometimes, an SEO trend that worked wonders yesterday becomes suddenly ineffective, or in some cases, even harmful.
Here are a few trends that matter now, and that you will do well to consider.
1. Content quality overpowers keyword optimization
Make no mistake — keyword optimization is crucial for good SEO. But it’s not the first thing you should consider when creating content. Think about relevancy, value, authorship, freshness, accuracy, links, and calls to action. All these have priority. Keyword optimization comes after. Also, when choosing your keywords remember that keyword accuracy and relevancy are more important than search volume.
2. Authorship becomes more important
As Google continues to roll updates that promote authoritative content, the identity of the articles published on your site is becoming more important. You should not hide the author behind your company name.
Provide an author biography for every author, preferably at the end of each post. Provide a real name, even if it is not well known in your industry. Add a portrait picture whenever possible. Oh, and never use for the author of guest posts ‘Guest Post Author.’
3. Mobile optimization gains momentum
As the number of people who access the Web exclusively through smartphones and tablets continues to rise, it has become a must for every business to offer a mobile-friendly site. The quick mobile-optimization plugins that content management systems provide are not always good enough. Especially not when it comes to online stores. So, consider hiring web developers to optimize your site for mobile.
4. Ads retargeting brings better results
Research shows that 8 out of 10 of the people who visit an e-commerce website never buy anything from that site. Google ads retargeting can help marketers increase their conversion rates. It resends customized ads to those visitors who haven’t bought anything yet.
For example, let’s imagine Ellen visits an online fashion outlet and browses summer dresses. But she leaves without making a purchase. The shop can use Google AdWords to display the dresses she has browsed as ads on the next site she visits.
5. Discarding bad links
Google introduced not so long ago the Disavow links tool, which enables webmasters to remove bad links that harm their search engine ranking. This tool targets mostly those affected by Google’s algorithm updates, but it can also be used by webmasters who want to eliminate specific poor quality or offensive links. In 2013 it’s no longer enough to get good links – you must also guard against getting bad ones.