As we all know, Google makes frequent algorithm changes to better serve their search users. They want to deliver the best, most relevant results for people using their search engine. In 2015, this means even more changes for the SEO, Internet marketing industries, and all businesses who market on the Web.
Mobile SEO
Mobile traffic will surpass organic traffic from traditional desktops for most businesses.
Website mobile compatibility can no longer be ignored or put off, especially for local SEO. Your website MUST be responsive and render well on all mobile devices. Mobile traffic from the people who use their smart phones and tablets is now expected to surpass traditional desktop searches in 2015, so Google is right on top of that by rewarding those sites that offer better mobile user experiences and give mobile visitors a clear, readable website to visit.
Content
Value-added content will be king.
Gone are the days of writing content around your keywords. Content will need to primarily focus on a meaningful topic that will help viewers in some way by relating to your website topic. Google is thought to have moved past actual keyword phrase matching and evolving into matching meaning of phrases to deliver appropriate results to searchers. This is especially important for the SEO copy writing industry. Focus will now be more on meaning and context in 2015.
Website Architecture
Security, error fixing, and easy crawlability will be top priority.
For online shopping stores, this is a no-brainer. It is recommended that your entire website now to be under the https URL and directly recommended by Google. Encryption and security for websites that transmit sensitive data has always been an issue, but now is being rewarded even more for all sites that house their websites under secure layers of protection for visitors. Although this is what Google wants, some smaller companies with brochure websites don’t have the budget to switch to https yet. The effect for brochure websites will be seen less than online stores for now.
Fixing the errors that Google reports are important as always, but now may be more of a ranking factor due to user experience. Google released a blog in Q3 2014 that changed their best practices for sitemaps and feeds. They want more current data on which web pages have changed and when. This means your website needs to update often for freshness and report it clearly so the spiders can crawl and report back to Google current, useful information.
In Practice
SEO and Internet marketing require patience and time to get good, sustainable results. Good rankings don’t happen over night, and they certainly don’t happen with websites that try to deceive their visitors. Transparency, relevancy, and authority are what you need to focus on for this year’s campaign.
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