With the New Year comes new and fresh SEO practices that are worth checking out and should be considered seriously as a contemporary content marketer. In the US alone, 12 billion web searches are performed every month, which makes SEO one of the most significant efforts that get visibility, drives traffic, and boosts your brand image. If you are wondering what SEO trends will be the biggest hit of 2016, then look no further. We’ve put together a list of the top six most important SEO trends to watch out for in the New Year.
Last year, mobile searches surpassed computer searches for the first time. This change in the way people do searches will only grow more prominent in 2016, which will result in heading tag usage playing a greater role in the New Year. Ensuring that your website is mobile friendly requires that pages load differently in varying mobile devices and browsers. To do this, it is important that you foster a uniform structure to all your content pages right down to the H5 tags you use, all of which will make way for optimized pages for both mobile devices and browsers.
In the next year, social media content from such platforms as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook will become more important on the SERPs. In fact, as of now, 76 percent of content marketers use Social Media as a means of boosting their SEO. In 2016, marketers will work to make their tweets and Facebook posts rank on the SERPs. Additionally, some SEO experts predict that there will be more social media content indexed by Google and other search engines, which will blur the lines between what’s considered the web and what are considered social media.
The importance of content has been known for quite some time now. However, in 2016, it seems that there will be more emphasis placed on interactive content. Online quizzes already have their place as a massively popular selling point. However, they’ve never been able to gain too much leeway with users. This will change with the use of interactive content, although similar to online quizzes, will do more to encourage user engagement and their interaction with a brand. There will be a growth in interactive content on apps and mobile use as smartphones are ideal for user interaction.
Videos are an excellent way to keep users entertained and engaged. However, one lesser-known fact about using this form of media is that they improve your page ranking on the SERPs. One report found that videos make up a whopping 63 percent of all Google searches throughout the world. On top of this, Google has begun to pay attention to blended searches and results. This is an enormous opportunity to snag a spot on the first page of search engines by using videos in your content.
Twitter has begun to experiment with a feature called Moments, which aggregates images, videos, and posts from unfolding news stories and live events into one channel that people can look at. This makes it so that users essentially become the content creators themselves while other users can watch events as they unfold firsthand. Twitter is not the only one to experiment with a live feed, as many other platforms are trying out the use of advanced algorithms to compile news stories. This means that in 2016, those news articles that don’t automatically source will lose ground.
Local SEO is only getting stronger with time. As a content marketer, it is critical that you let Google know your location and what you’re offering so that you increase your chances of showing up on pages seen by a relevant audience. With Google’s “Pigeon” update, local SEO has gained even more prominence as it has forced marketers and businesses to focus on their local tangent. Make sure that you use location-specific keywords and personalize your content based on your target audiences’
