Digital Marketing and SEO Trends Brands need to prepare for in 2017 and beyond
The beauty of the internet is that everyone comes to know what’s going on at the moment. There are a lot of stories trending all over the world, others going viral in blogs and videos.
One thing that is common across the internet today is the need for attention. Almost all website owners look for that one, elusive, thing: attention. You need to get the right audience and feed them the right content to keep them hooked.
Our aim is to get an audience returning to your website every other day. In light of this, you need to be alert to the SEO and digital trends in 2017. With the desire for attention, the case for internet traffic comes up too.
Search engines are advancing and making changes to their algorithms. This is one of the reasons why any credible webmaster will need to look at the structure of their website. You have to test your marketing techniques to ensure they are in sync with the search engines.
The intention is to get traffic on their website. With this in mind, you need a strong strategy to increase the returning audience on your website.
Different Ways to Follow SEO and Digital Trends and Techniques
SEO marketing is an area where so many companies heavily invest. It is all about making sure your website spots at the right place and at the right time.
It must attract target the right people. On doing so, you can convert the organic traffic you get into credible revenue streams. It is how to do this, and turn the views into revenue, that has proven elusive to a lot of people today.
High ranking websites
Google and Bing are two of the biggest search engines in the world at the moment. These two marketers invest a lot of money and yield significant returns. There are various other search engines, which you can use to conduct a search.
A quick glance at some of the latest online SEO tools and techniques, you will find most of them aiming at increasing your visibility on Google, Bing, or both.
What are these search engines working towards? You must make sure that you are able to get the answers you need. And all this happens without spending a lot of time flipping through pages.
If you are alert, you will realise that Google shows the audience a snippet of answers to their questions on the results page. This is, in most cases, in the form of numbered steps and bullet points.
Why is this necessary? It is all aimed at helping the people who are searching for something online, get help as fast as possible. You might actually have benefited from this in the recent past too. There is so, no need for you to click on any of the links that you receive from the search results.
In 2015, this was possible in around 28% of search questions. Two years down the line, we are seeing this in over 30% of search questions. There is so much more in store for the future.
Intentional search results
You will notice that there are a lot of searchers online today. They are looking for more specific information on the internet than before. There are specific SEO optimization terms that people are using.
These go a long way in making sure that they get exact results for what they need. Take the case of someone who is searching for a wristwatch. Instead of searching the internet for wristwatches, a user will instead search for waterproof wristwatches.
With this in mind, the search engine algorithms redefine accordingly. As a result, you get precise results for whatever you are looking for.
For the expert webmaster, this means two things:
- You have to understand your audience
- You have to use keywords effectively
To understand your audience, you must know the things that they search for, and how to present them in an easier way. With time you should understand the structure of their requests, and this will make your work a lot easier.
The specificity of client search terms also helps you to structure your keywords in an appropriate manner. It is easier for you if you can work on long tail keywords.
These usually have a better anchor on the search results. Your phrases need to be between three and four words long. As per the digital marketing strategy, you should meet the needs of the customer.
Building Links
One of the most important things that you have to look into when ranking your website is how to use links. A lot of people end up worrying more about how to generate links. The challenge most of the time is in making sure that your links are not spammy, or considered spam.
Instead of worrying about this, create good content. Quality content drives traffic and generates links for you naturally. People are currently more inclined towards sharing links and enjoying it. Thus, they have not had the chance of reading through.
The secret to building quality links lies in generating content. It must be so good that whoever reads it will definitely want to share it with those in their circle. The good thing is that you need not ask people to share your links, they will do it of their own volition.
To make things work, structure your content in such a way that you have info graphics accompanying the content. You might also want to add reports and detailed case studies. These will actually perform better than an average blog post.
Such content has a stronger appeal to the audience. Also, the audience will be more inclined to read it as compared to a general plain blog post.
Go mobile
Whether you like it or not, everyone is going mobile in one way or the other. Currently, there are many mobile applications structured around mobile SEO marketing content. Content on the go is one of the reasons why people appreciate their mobile devices.
You are not chained to one platform, but you have access to a lot of options. Since 2015, the mobile commerce market has grown three times faster than other e-commerce. Yes, 3 times! And it’s growing faster than ever.
It is no secret that there is a huge amount of web traffic generating from mobile devices. During the design stage, it is important for you to make sure that you consider the mobile angle in all your design.
As you are designing the pages, make sure the layout is good for mobile devices. Also, the offer that you have on your website should be accessible on mobile devices.
Google, for example, is prioritizing mobile content when indexing results. You also must understand the industry your website is in before you go mobile. There are other areas where desktop content is still the key traffic driver as compared to other mobile devices. These are as follows:
- Travel websites
- Science
- Telecommunications
- Electronics
We must also appreciate the impact of change, tastes, and preferences on the online business. While the industries mentioned above might not have much mobile traffic currently, this does not mean that this status quo will be maintained over the coming years.
The percentage of mobile access keeps growing over time. Depending on the type of website or clientele you are targeting, you need to make sure the mobile version of your website is functional. You will fall in love seeing the traffic growing at a fast pace.
User experience
Another area where you have to pay attention is the user experience (UX). On SEO, you have to make sure your website gives the audience an experience they will appreciate. It is easier for people to stay on your website longer when they are able to engage with your content better.
One of the challenges that most webmasters have is a high bounce rate. You have people who come to your website, but they do not really spend as much time on it as you would like them to. This, in the long run, hurts your efforts.
By improving the UX on your website, you will see a reduction in the bounce rate, and, in the long run, this translates to a better conversion rate.
You have a higher chance of turning views into a following, and before long you can even turn this into revenue. You will also be in a better position to get people sharing or following your page because of the content posted.
Voice search
With the continued advancement in technology, a lot of people are moving towards voice search. We have seen huge improvements in features like Siri on mobile devices.
Over the years, even the voice search function on Google is getting better, and this is one of the SEO trends that you will experience more often as the year rolls on.
Amazon’s Echo and Google Home have also been enhanced, in a manner such that you can now conduct a quick search. You do not have to type anything on your computer or your phone.
You will have the answers you need, and the good thing about this feature is that the advancements and improvements are continuing – it will only get better and become more popular.
Consider the fact that you can now schedule your Uber ride without having to lift a finger. As the year goes by, we will see more and more of this technology getting implemented in search engines. This is important for local business and there is no better way to prime your website for future success than this.
Invest in social media
One of the digital trends of 2017 has to be social connections. We are social beings, and this is one thing that social media has proven repeatedly over the years.
The thing about social media is that it is not static. There is so much growth in social media that we are forced to admit that we are yet to see the best of business integration into the social sphere online.
Businesses have migrated to social media, and those who have done it well are reaping amazing benefits. But, those who have not ventured into social media are missing out on the goldmine that is free traffic.
Another good thing about social media that you have to consider is that your market is wide and endless. On a daily basis, there is so much engagement that takes place on different social applications online.
People are discovering new brands and services on social media on a daily basis, and you cannot ignore the impact of that on your website.
When it comes to customer support, more and more clients are getting in touch with the companies involved through social media.
From Twitter to Facebook or even Instagram, this is one of the best sources of free traffic that you cannot take for granted. Besides, referrals on social media usually have an immediate and lasting impact, so you have to find a way of tapping into this.
Lengthy content
What is the average length of the content you post online? There are webmasters who worry about the attention span of most of their audience. Thus, it is wise to say the length of the content you share will depend on the audience you are writing for.
Search engine algorithms are considering quality long content ranks better. The search results actually favor content that is around 2,000 words over brief 300-word content.
For most marketers, this is not news, especially for those who have been in the industry for some time. A lot of marketers have been working on this for a very long time. They are successfully reaping results without bearing much pain.
If you value organic ranking and are keen on getting value for your effort, you should work to improve the length of your content. The challenge lies in creating engaging content that can keep the attention of your audience. While lengthy content is a good idea, it should not be boring.
There are ways of making this work for you. Here are a few ideas you might want to consider:
Bullet points
These help in breaking down the content into sections that are easy to read. It will get the attention of your audience.
Engaging tone
Understand your audience. Talk to them in a tone that they will appreciate. You do not want to give an impression that you are talking down to your audience.
Paragraphs
In line with the engaging content, keep the paragraphs short. You must make sure they are brief and to the point.
Progressive web apps (PWA)
This is one of the areas where Google is investing. There have been discussions held in seminars and conferences, Google has even gone ahead and publicised it on their developer website and their webmaster blog.
Most of the e-commerce websites are currently not supporting AMP, and those that do, do not often fully embrace this concept. However, there is still so much to look forward to.
A lot of websites are very heavy, and even if you have optimized your mobile site, chances are high that it will struggle to load very fast on some of the mobile devices that clients use.
However, search engines like Google are not just worried about pushing content at a faster rate, they also place a lot of emphasis on security. Your website needs to be properly configured on HTTPS. It is easy to see that soon, Google will be pushing webmasters to redesign their websites to support PWA.
User Search Intent
Digital and SEO trends in 2017 show the importance of optimization for user search is used as a tactic to boost local SEO. However, many brands have still failed to be a key part of SEO strategy. This will help you to create user specific content on website.
For this, you must create a page with a view to how a user will land on its page. For example, you must think from a user’s perspectives that will a user arrive on a page to do an information search or transactional search.
It is divided into three main categories:
- Providing answers to immediate queries of user.
- Reach to the searcher by identifying pre-determined destination.
- Provide assistance to the searcher to complete a purchase.
Conclusion
There is a lot that we are yet to experience in SEO and search engines. The latest SEO update started with major promises and is living up to the hype. As the year goes by, there is still so much that we can look forward to.
As a webmaster, you should never rest on your laurels. The internet is all about change. Businesses today are all about change. You should embrace these changes and push your website a notch higher.
Search engine algorithms always get updated and improved from time to time. With these changes, you have to adapt your website to rank higher and better.
If you do not pay attention to such changes, you will find your website ranking poorly for the specific keywords you are targeting. This eventually means you will be losing out not only on traffic but also business opportunities.
Getting your business ranking high is not one of the easiest things to do. However, with an effective digital marketing strategy and following latest digital and SEO trends, there is a world of opportunities out there that you will surely fall in love with.