The Changing Face of SEO

Search engine marketing is constantly changing. What works today will undoubtedly be shunned tomorrow. For that reason, you can never get too comfy with your search engine optimization techniques. Even if you were in great shape a few years ago, you can be sure everything has changed since then. And if you’re prepared to face tomorrow with your SEO, you’ll need to revisit your tactics in a year or two.

Having an idea of where we’re going is definitely helpful. Some things may never change, like the need for search phrases in search engine searches. Other things, however, need to be addressed even now. What should you be focusing on for the future? Let’s take a look.

Mobile Searches

Whether you use your mobile devices to conduct searches or not, the fact remains: over 60% of internet searches now take place on phones and tablets. It’s obvious that mobile searches are taking over, especially when we take this statistic into account. If you’re not doing it, that doesn’t mean no one else is, either.

Now, when you also consider that 84% of time on mobile devices is spent in apps, then you know regular search engine searches just won’t cut it. How can you provide results for people who need results that include apps? Google doesn’t do it. Bing doesn’t do it. Even the lesser known—but funnily named—DuckDuckGo doesn’t do it.

Right now, you can make use of Spotlight on the iPhone. It searches within apps. Just keep in mind that it won’t be the only option forever. If you want to get ahead of the mobile search curve, keep an eye out for the options that will allow searches within apps.

Voice Searches

Siri pretty much changed the world, didn’t she? Maybe she wasn’t the first voice-activated personal assistant, but Apple made her a star. Now there’s Google Now, Cortana, and Alexa, all from the biggest names in technology. We can access these search assistants through pretty much any device, including tablets, phones, and watches.

What do these voice-activated search assistants change? The way we ask, of course. Instead of typing awkward phrases into a search box, we ask our assistants in natural language. Rather than “nail salon Nashville,” we ask Siri, “Which nail salon is closest to me?” Location services help the search engine take care of calling up the answer.

The change that voice assistants brought has spilled over into the algorithms used for Google and Bing. A more natural search phrase is definitely preferred with these favored internet search engines now, too. We can only expect that natural phrasing to get more popular as SEO continues to grow.

Social Searches

As we grow ever fonder of social proof, it’s easy to understand why social searches are also growing in popularity. We want to see what our friends and family have to think about particular topics, and Facebook lets us do that. Right now, 1.5 billion people search for people and content on Facebook every day. Most of those searches are for people, yes, but the percentage of searches for content is growing.

Influencers play a huge role in marketing and helping consumers make decisions. If you’re not optimizing your shared social content for searches, then you’re missing out on a huge piece of the puzzle. And while many people use social media channels to funnel traffic to their own websites, this might not always be a possibility. Even now we can see how some CTAs on Facebook or Twitter simply take the reader to another page within the social network. It’s not a huge win for the companies using social marketing, but we don’t always have a say in how search marketing works.

If you’re hoping to brush up your SEO and search marketing tactics so you can catch up and keep up, give us a call. None of this has to be scary or hard, but you may need an expert to walk you through the confusing parts.