2012 is already more than half over and there have been a lot of developments so far this year in the SEO world. Search Engine Optimization is no longer just the process of repeating keyword after keyword and optimizing links, with the new developments by search engine engineers, it’s becoming more important than ever to fill your earned, owned and paid media spaces with substantial content. It will not only improve your SEO results by leaps and bounds, it will help to establish you as a thought leader in your field, which will ultimately lead to more satisfied customers.
Google’s SERP and the Search Results Ranking Algorithms Behind It
Updates to Google’s Panda algorithm and the creation of Farmer and Penguin have heavily dented content farms and poor quality websites by gunning down sites that utilize black-hat SEO techniques like cloaking, keyword stuffing, link schemes, and deliberately duplicating content. What is prized these days are sites with high-quality content and natural looking links. The thought being that sites that are of good quality will naturally want to be shared, creating a network of organic links.
What all this means for your website is, it’s vital to keep content current and lively. As search technology continues to grow and learn, slipping into bad content development habits will only hurt you.
Social Media + Search Engine Optimization
Social spaces and SEO practices aren’t mutually exclusive anymore. And more than just having up-to-date content on your social spaces so people can easily find you in search, the integration of the two on Google SERPs means that it’s becoming an even more powerful tool to get your name out to potential customers.
Although it started a little slow, Google+ is quickly gaining traction and interest. If your company doesn’t have a Google+ space yet, it’s worth looking into as it’s becoming important from a SEO perspective.
Author Rank is also gaining ground. Basically, the person who wrote the content of your website, if he or she is well known and respected, will actually improve your site’s ranking. By using author markup, you can publicize who wrote the content. If that person earns popularity in social media sites (particularly Google+), he or she will receive links and +1s. The more of those your website gets, the better off it is in search.
Even at the New Year, we were talking about how social media and being mobile would influence 2012. It’s definitely true and continues to gain momentum. The popularity of live integration of mobile devices continues to increase as more and more apps allow the ability to check-in or employ frictionless sharing. Facebook is accessed more on mobile devices than on computers, and that’s saying something. Mobile is less of a niche- it is a necessity. If your website isn’t at least mobile optimized, it’s time to give us a call.
