As one of the most cost effective inbound marketing strategies available, you may already know that search engine optimization (SEO) boosts search engine rankings, website traffic, leads, and sales, and brings greater overall brand visibility.
With 2017 halfway over, it is important to review your SEO campaigns to make sure they are taking advantage of the latest best practices.
Our team of experts at KEO Marketing has compiled several trends we have observed in the professional SEO services space since the start of the year.
Voice Search Is Gaining Traction
Users are increasingly interacting with search in numerous ways, and this shift is expected to continue in the coming months.
People are communicating with search engines via intelligent virtual assistants, like Apple’s “Siri” and Amazon’s “Alexa,” as well as smart devices, and other innovations. In fact, the CEO of Google recently stated that nearly 20 percent of all queries on Android and iOS devices are voice searches.
If voice search remains at its current growth rate, industry experts believe that more than 50 percent of searches will be voice search or image search by 2020.
As such, marketers will need to focus on incorporating longtail keyword phrases, common questions, and natural language keywords, for their content; schema markup, and website code to help search engines return more informative results for users. Refreshing your strategy to relevant topics for content based on what people are asking with their voice is important now.
Rich Media Content Is Becoming the New King
Many online viewers, especially younger generations, say they dislike fluff. Dense content featuring rich media is quickly becoming the new preference.
You can see examples in the search space right now; Google, for example, is opting for content that includes more diagrams and short videos. Content featuring GIFs, infographics, or short instructional videos is more appealing to these users than traditional longer content.
Step back and think about what the best way to communicate the story of your content is and experiment with video, rich media and short chunks of content. You’ll find that busy professionals appreciate you connecting the dots in engaging and visual ways work best.
AMP: The New Google Standard
Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, is a relatively new standard developed by Google to help you build better mobile sites. In a nutshell, AMP is a lighter, simpler version of traditional HTML. It is optimized to load fast on a mobile device. We encourage you to develop AMP pages in tandem with your traditional website design and development practices.
User Intent
It is vital to predict your users’ intentions and optimize your content accordingly. Focusing on keywords alone is not enough.
Instead, analyze and determine your users’ intent. Figure out what question they have, or the information they’re looking for and then optimize your content based on your findings.
Looking for More Trends?
Now that you know some of the latest trends in the professional SEO services space, it is time to take action.
With a focus on business to business (B2B) marketing strategies, creative, messaging, infrastructure, execution, analytics, and results, KEO Marketing has helped Fortune 1000 companies, and medium-sized businesses exceed their marketing and sales goals.
Contact us today to schedule your company’s complimentary consultation, or for more information about our professional SEO services.
