seo trends in 2016
TRANSCRIPT
SEO in 2016Digital Exeter
Digital Exeter
Building a strong Digital Community in Exeter | www.digitalexeter.uk
“A digital community? Well, there are many professionals in Exeter that have a job focused on digital. Whether they’re marketers, web developers or tech enthusiasts, we wanted to bring everyone together, in one welcoming environment, sharing knowledge through our bi-monthly Digital Exeter event.”
• SEO Strategist at Organic for 3.5 years
• 9 years in SEO and digital marketing: in-house, self-employed & agency side
• Worked across a wealth of B2B & B2C clients
• Client experience includes…
Who is this guy?
organic
CORE SEO TEAM
Combined SEO Experience of Core Team = Over 90 Years
User Centric Content in 2016
Content marketing
If 2014/15 was the year of content marketing, that makes 2016 the year of ‘user centric’ content marketing.
In 2013, the change to the way Google handled unnatural links in its algorithm drove a mass wave of long tail keyword focused website content production, to try and improve SEO visibility.
This year is more about creating the right content for the right person, at the right time.
= Content relevance is now king
Much published content achieves little interaction, therefore has minimal relevance or business value.
Content should be produced based on topic interactions and mapped to business goals - balancing supply with demand.
This approach will mean that you focus on content that is valuable - both to users and to your business. Google will reward your efforts.
Focus on quality, then scale the quantity.
Content ANALYSIS
Keyword research is dead (as we know it)… Long live ‘Intent research’! Map intent AND content types to improve user engagement
I need some running shoes
= hub page
I like Nike running shoes
= category page
Can i return my running shoes?
= FAQ page
What are best trainers for
road running? = blog post
user centric content
We need to think of the user first, what they want, how they want to consume the information and then create content that is unique and innovative for them, mapped to their customer journey.
Content types
Video in 2016
*http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/ip-ngn-ip-next-generation-network/white_paper_c11-481360.html
“Video creation will increase in 2016!
By 2017 69% of all consumer internet
traffic will be video!”*
video in seo
Video IN SEO
With the increase in video content, there are a number of things that need to be done to each video in order to stand out from the crowd:
• Understand your audience and the video’s objective- engagement vs. conversion
• Become an educator - solve people’s problems
• Embed videos onto your website and other relevant sites
• Ensuring relevant social markup is applied (Twitter Cards and Facebook OG) to maximise exposure is a crucial element
Video is a great way to get businesses engaging with users and as a way to outreach to influencers.
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine!
It’s a huge potential traffic source. Making sure your videos are optimised is a critical step:
• Optimise video content with relevant keyword labelling and descriptions, plus make sure your YouTube channel is optimised
• Consider engagement by medium, i.e. YouTube (full length) vs Vines (7 secs) vs Facebook / Twitter (20 secs)
• Be iterative with video production based on results - learn about your demographic and their engagement levels
VIDEO IN SEO
SERP Domination in 2016
Google is evil!Google has been increasing the information on its SERPs for years.
It wants to keep people on the SERPs to maximise it’s ad revenue.
You must work with these new features to try and dominate the SERPs, plus build brand awareness and trust for users which increases real estate:
• Tesco.com domain • Wiki - Knowledge Graph • News feed • Twitter snippets • Google Local
= integrated multi channel approach to SEO
Google ’Snippets’ Answer Box is a great way to increase your real estate on the first page - and traffic.
Google has been pulling answers directly from information pages for some time, but we are continuing to see more and more examples of these boxes, so creating the right content in the right structure is now more important than ever.
Ensure relevance and Q&A format, apply correct mark up.
The example to the right shows content from woorank.com which is ranking number 9 for the featured search.
it’s all about structure
Also in 2016…
Mobile optimisationMobile is set to overtake desktop usage in 2016. Mobile-centric UX and engagement strategies will be crucial.
The power of social
Up to 90% of all mobile device time is spent on mobile apps. Google now includes apps in its index.
Mobile apps
Relationship building Has to be the offsite focus. Do not pay for or even think about links - it is not a future proof strategy. Earn links through first ‘building relationships’ (also known as PR).
More content from Facebook and Twitter will appear in SERPs in 2016. Consider your multi-channel content strategy.
Voice search
Think Local
This is rapidly increasing. Optimise your copy for conversational and colloquial language - not just for keywords.
Localised results and Google Local are becoming increasingly prominent - your content strategy should reflect this shift.
also consider in 2016
