Here are some key factors to focus your SEO strategy towards in 2016.
When it comes to SEO strategy, most businesses are lacking structure. Many businesses don’t have a digital marketing plan (or a marketing plan of any kind, in many cases). Unfortunately, smaller local businesses are often the worst offenders here. Micro budgets require a solid ROI, but cutting corners leads to weak results in search marketing.
Mobile Optimization – More Important Than Ever
2015 showed a major increase in mobile search and spending. Statistics from this past year showed that the vast majority of web traffic and paid clicks comes from smartphones and tablets over traditional laptops and desktops. Optimizing your website for mobile should be a key focus, if it is something you haven’t done already. Along with mobile optimizing, you’ll need to take it further; keeping a mobile mindset for all of your web and product based decisions will lead to further success in SEO. This includes everything from mobile design, mobile search marketing and advertising to mobile e-commerce, mobile payment and coupons. Developing a great mobile experience for users will help bring customers back to the site.
User experience is Key
A potential customer’s decision to act or not comes down to their overall experience. As mentioned above, one of the main factors of positive user experience is making websites mobile (and multi-device) friendly. In addition, users won’t return to your site if they can’t find what they’re looking for. Historically, marketers were focusing their efforts on trying to promote what they want people to see. Now, high-ranking SEO sites focus on what the users want to see. Using this strategy will ultimately help a website achieve an SEO boost and grow user retention rate.
Consider Optimizing for Voice Search
Along with the growth of mobile searching comes greater – and much newer- demand for voice search. As this feature is becoming more readily available on mobile devices, more people are using this feature to locate the products, businesses and services they’re looking for. As the trend for voice search grows, it means that more businesses should be optimizing their sites to pull in these consumers. In order to optimize for voice, you should consider shifting the keywords to “voice search-friendly” phrases.
Make images Unique
Although images aren’t as important to SEO as they used to be, it’s still valuable to have unique images on your site. Having unique images will make your site stand out, compared to hundreds of sites that use stock photos. Images not only drive extra traffic to your website, but provide it with a whole new type of backlink that many professionals overlook. Having these higher-quality backlinks can help your website rank higher with search engines.
Size Matters
Longer articles- with copy between 700 and 1,500 words- are known to perform better in search. This trend is significantly different than it was two or three years ago, when 300 to 500 words was considered to be a long article. Longer articles are gaining significantly more traffic while ranking higher in SEO, and this is because there are more words and images to rank on the page. Another great tip is to break up long-form content with subheads, bullet points and images throughout the copy. This makes long articles easier for users to read and digest.
Conclusion
2015 proved that mobile is the future of digital marketing. By focusing on SEO with a mobile mindset, along with implementing correct imaging, copy length and offering a solid user experience, site rankings will improve as the New Year progresses. As more businesses implement new marketing strategies for the New Year, focusing on these SEO topics will help keep businesses ahead of their competition.
Need help developing an SEO strategy for your business’s website? Contact us at Kraus Marketing to learn about our SEO services. We can be reached at (973) 998-5742 or online at www.KrausMarketing.com