2015’s SEO Essentials
Each of the last few years has had its own unique list of rules when it came to SEO and getting it right. The importance of appealing to the major search engines have grown steadily over time, which has of course led to more and more time, effort and money being pumped into SEO than ever before.
Sadly, there’s only ever a certain amount of room at the top and the more people there are vying for it, the harder it is to claim as your own.2015 is to be no different in terms of its uniqueness, but what will be very different about this year is how difficult it will be to get it right…at least comparatively speaking.
Google’s Hummingbird update has changed the face of SEO like never before and ushered in a new era of online promotion where big changes will have to be made on all fronts. As such, whether you have an internal SEO effort or go down the SEO outsource path with the pros, it’s vital to be aware of the SEO essentials for 2015, which include the following:
War on Spam
Right off the bat, 2015 is officially the year in which spam SEO is dead, buried and forgotten about. Each of Google’s efforts to date has been in some way geared toward reducing spam SEO or at least limiting its value – said value has now fallen below zero.
From keyword stuffing to garbage link building efforts and so much more, taking the easy way out or trying to force your way to the top will this year and from this moment forward earn you nothing but a black mark on your name you cannot get rid of. Google declared war on spam SEO some time ago – it’s looking like they may have won it.
Long-Tail Keywords
Another important change to be aware of is the new focus on long-tail keywords. Google is doing its level best to move away from being a simple keyword response machine and instead function in a far more ‘human’ kind of way.
For example, rather than entering the keyword “Manchester restaurants” and being returned with 5,000 results that match the two words, they’re instead looking more toward phrases like “Where can I eat for cheap on Euston Road in Manchester?” and returning extremely specific links – all of which are of value.
As such, from 2015 and onward it is vital to think more along the lines of conversational keyword searches, as opposed to robotic keywords.
Content Remains King
And to round off these three simple examples from the list of dozens, content has always been king but in this instance has really never been more crucial. No longer is it enough to ensure that a site’s content is at least unique and readable, but it must also offer something that none of its rivals does.
Unique text by definition doesn’t necessarily mean that said text isn’t dated or to a large extent irrelevant. To get ahead with SEO in 2015, content has never been more crucial and worthy of enormous efforts.