You do not need to know much about search engine optimization to know that the only constant is change. Here’s a look back at SEO trends in 2016 and how SonicSEO.com has kept your website current and ready for 2017.
Now Trending: Mobile Search and Voice Search
In some ways, 2016 simply witnessed the continuation of SEO trends driven by the pervasiveness of mobile devices—the increase in mobile search and voice search. As 2016 draws to a close, close to 80% of all Internet searches begin on mobile devices. And, because many states are instituting hands-free ordinances and people are using mobile devices to multitask, voice search is growing and is expected to continue to do so.
How We Make It Work for You
To capitalize on the mobile and voice search trends, we design your website to be mobile-friendly. That means:
- Structuring information in layers that is read top-down and prioritized based on users’ needs and your profit-generating potential—i.e., putting the content and functions that users want/need most and the products/services that generate the most revenue for you at the top
- Integrating what people are saying to search—i.e., keywords (including long-tail keywords)—into your content (and meta-content)
Whether your existing and potential customers are searching on mobile or desktop, they still want and expect a visually attractive and logically organized website. To make sure that images and videos are effective on any device, we make sure they are:
- Scalable so that they are viewable on any size screen
- Optimized so that they do not slow down loading speed (which is increasingly becoming a ranking factor)
- Tagged appropriately (i.e. appropriately file named, tagged using alt text, captions, etc.) so that they are readable by search engines
We monitor your website constantly, so we know when an element—text, image or video—needs to be “tweaked” to boost your performance.
Some Things Never Change: Quality Content and Keywords
Search engine optimization is more than 20 years old, yet in two decades, the importance of quality content and keyword-rich content has never dwindled. So, moving into 2017, top rankings in organic SERPs still require good “stuff” on your website, and we deliver.
How We Make It Work for You
While the idea of quality content has not changed, what qualifies as quality content has. For search engines to rank your website highly, we make sure your content is:
Relevant—the text, images and videos, etc. on each page comprise a unified presentation on a clear topic. In other words, if your page title is “Reno Traffic Accident Lawyer,” the words on the page, pictures, videos and links are all relevant to Reno, NV, personal injury law and/or traffic accidents.
Fresh—we update your website regularly through scheduled page revisions, blogs, updated meta content, etc.
Relevant keywords have always been a staple of quality content, but unlike years past, we are now incorporating long-tail keywords to help ranking as search engine algorithms evolve to provide better intent-based search results.
The Best SEO Strategy
Changes in Google’s results page layout, updates to search algorithms and user behaviors in light of all of it requires “big picture SEO.” In other words, your website content, layout and schema need to reflect the most up-to-date practices and be integrated with other parts of your global online marketing strategy—social media, paid ads, reviews, etc. SonicSEO.com delivers so that you can focus on the real work of running your business.