5 of the Latest SEO Trends Emerging from 2016

If there is one thing you can be certain of and that’s SEO is always changing and constantly evolving. Companies that keep up with the latest trends are the ones that are going to benefit most from their Google rankings. Those that ignore these trends do so at their own peril and will unfortunately fall by the wayside when it comes to rankings.

Following is a list of what we know works when it comes to not only improving your chances of rankings but also your consumer conversion rates. Follow these latest trends and your business will be going in the right direction towards being as competitive as it can be online.

# 1. Is your website mobile friendly?

This came about due to Google’s update last year and it has taken a while for businesses to realise that they either make their website mobile friendly / responsive to all devices or they will not rank. Technology has meant that mobile responsive sites are now a must have as more and more consumers search online using their mobile phones. Google woke up to this and now demands that sites that have priority on page 1 will be mobile friendly. If your current website is not displaying properly on a mobile phone then you need to take action and get this rectified immediately.

# 2. Does your website have lot’s of juicy content?

Google likes nothing more than indexing and displaying in the search results new relevant and exciting copy. This is now more important than ever for two reasons; firstly to satisfy Google and secondly to give your customers something to read. This now means that every page within your website must have relevant content based on the users search. Google will not display pages that are irrelevant or full of waffle. Write for your customer base and you will be fine, thinly worded pages with little or no relevant content is going to have no benefit what so ever. You need to be adding pages to your website with informative, relevant content that actually means something. Trying to game the system by stuffing as many keywords as possible on the page in the hope that Google will reward this is childish and no longer counts. Sure, it did in days gone by and was a popular ploy to improve rankings but this is deemed ‘black hat’ and will have absolutely zero benefit.

Related article: Content and SEO, The Perfect Marriage

# 3. Have industries best user experience.

Yes, that’s right your website has to have the best user experience possible. This means that when a person lands on your website they will not only find it aesthetic but they will find it easy to use, navigate and be able to get where they want to go withy a minimum of fuss. This is tied in with what’s known as conversion rate optimisation and is key to ensuring your website is able to convert browsers into buyers.

An issue with user interface and conversion is that many businesses nowadays tend to opt for the free or cheap template versions for their website. This just means that you end up having a website that looks exactly like everyone else’s with little or no thought put into your customers and what they are looking for. These are conversion killers and should be avoided at all costs. Make sure, what ever you do, that you get a professionally designed website by a team that knows exactly how the user interface and customer experience or journey will affect conversion rates. Simply designing a website is no longer good enough. You need trigger points and hot spots on the site to entice action and this is an evolving process. Essentially, you need to be constantly working on your website and making sure that it’s performing at it’s peak level. Remember if your not doing this then your competition will be.

# 4. Ethical back linking campaign.

Whoever you decide to partner with for your SEO needs to know one thing that’s paramount to ranking on Google. That is, you need to have a squeaky back link profile that is completely organic. Gone are the days when you could simply add a few links here and there and do this till you see results. Google is far too sophisticated for this and is looking for relevant high quality back links from seriously credible resources. Anything less that this will not suffice in the coming years and websites with dubious back link profiles will see themselves plummet in the rankings. Google is looking for sites that are very relevant to your industry niche – perhaps industry bloggers or influencers that are highly regarding will make a difference. In a nutshell, the harder it is to get the back link and the more valuable it is, the better it will be for your rankings. In terms of how this relates to your SEO agency you need to find one that understands these fundamentals and can comply with Google’s latest algorithmic changes.

# 5 Lastly, pay attention to the scams out there online.

That’s right. In the SEO space there are scammers out there and there are hundreds if not thousands of them all wanti9ng your business. They will tell you almost anything that you want to hear and promise you over the moon rankings in incredibly short periods of time. Please ignore these agencies as they will use the worst type of cheap SEO tactics to boost your rankings. They are always sugar hits and are completely unsustainable. In the next couple of years as people start to wake up and learn more about SEO (as it becomes more common practice), we can only hope that they will only engage with internet marketing businesses that use ethical strategies without these ridiculous promises. We are in fact starting to see a decline in these fake offerings like: ‘no rank no pay’ or ‘we will rank you in 90 days or you do not pay’ as businesses become more SEO savvy and start to see through these scams.