2015 is about to finish, but the amount and volume of changes are so big, you can’t really say whether the last SEO trends was the final one. The year has been full of surprises and challenges for marketers with Google revealing quite a few updates for ranking. If you have missed any of the major SEO trends, it is high time you should know it before creating and implementing strategy for the upcoming year.
While SEO Canada services can help you understand these trends, it’s better to do your homework before consulting them.
So, here you go!
- Google Really Opened Up!
This year’s massive difference has been Google’s approach. The dominant search engine finally spoke to the marketers for their own betterment through all those algorithm updates.
Experts believe Google’s approach was concentrated towards developing customer-centered businesses, which is why the amount of updates was way too much compared to previous years.
It implemented Mobilegeddonfollowed by pre-announcement. That’s enough to amaze the internet crowd, because it never did that on any previous occasion. Before the implementation of Mobilegeddon, HTTPS had been implemented for safe searches.
Unlike Hummingbird, Google revealed RankBrain’s deployment to Bloomberg, perhaps they were impressed by a massive coverage of Mobilegeddon provided by BBC and WSJ. Moreover, Google changed its approach by revealing its updates to journalists rather than webmasters, for its own optimization.
RankBrain and Mobilegeddon didn’t do any harm, rolling out at the expense of Panda and Penguin – Google’s traditional updates. But all these developments indicate Google has a proactive strategy and a tendency to change the big picture.
- A Step Into Artificial Intelligence
Google’s RankBrain is a system based on artificial intelligence, used to process search results by means of machine learning. It has made Google’s ranking job much easier, considering it has to take care of over 3 billion searches conducted each day.
That’s something to please the people with limited amount of interest in internet searches.
According to Google, this invention has become the third most important signal for displaying search results. Earlier, the giant search engine faced a lot of trouble due to human hand involved in search quality rating. Due to search spam techniques, Google panicked and hired junior staff for analyzing and penalizing websites, and vet SERPS.
With RankBrain properly in place, ranking pages and penalization has become much easier.
- Implementation of Mobilegeddon
This has been the most talked about event of 2015 – Google’s ranking algorithm for mobile searches. Experts believe:
- It’s a clear indication from Google, that the brands should consider what customers require, or lose their ranking for good.
- Google’s taking investment in mobiles seriously and everyone else should follow the suit.
Well, that’s a great news for cell phone users as the ranking algorithm favors sites that have been optimized for mobiles. Doesn’t matter whether you have a great brand, you need to change your website to be able to appear in mobile search results.
- Search Guidelines
In November 2015, Google launched a comprehensive search quality guidelines in a large document consisting 160 pages. These guidelines pertain with the processes involved in decision making, although much of the decision making criteria is based on Google’s own discretion.
Most of the portion is related to the content quality. You need to understand what is a low or bad quality content according to Google?
In simple words, following attributes account for low content quality:
- Inadequate time
- Inadequate effort
- Lack of, or limited, expertise and skills
So, if the main content on your website has any of these attributes, it needs betterment big time!
- App Indexing
Google used to display app-only content for couple of years including 2015, but the content needs to match the webpages. However, last month saw some changes. Now, Google also shows trial previews of apps that users have not installed, along with the app-first content.
According to SEO experts Canada, app indexing has gotten a larger share of SERPs, than ever before. So, with focused SEO efforts, you can now influence local rankings and mobile apps a lot better.
Summary
Other SEO trends in 2015 include
- Google Adwords with Customer Match feature, allowing marketers to upload email addresses on Google
- Improvement in content distribution because of Google Answer Boxes
- Knowledge Graph to help grow knowledge, rather than mere content
So, what are you waiting for? Use this information and set a nice strategy for the upcoming year.
