SEO In 2015 – 6 Predictions About How Our Industry Will Grow This Year

So the dust has settled on the New Year transition and we are now into 2015, offering a prime opportunity to look at the year ahead and what it might bring to digital marketing…

Firstly, I’d like to point out that I think traditional SEO grew into something entirely different a long time ago now. When Google started introducing counter measures to search engine manipulation, the industry matured and is now infinitely better. So with any luck, my primary hope for SEO in 2015 is that we will no longer have to have the, “is SEO dead?” debate anymore.

The fact is that SEO is the name for a huge industry. An industry that serves websites, and who want to gain a significant organic presence within the world’s largest search engines. As long as people are searching for digital information, SEO will exist. In 10 years’ time, SEO will have changed and adapted to wearable technology and platforms not yet even imagined. But how will 2015 shape the future of search and the progression of SEO?

1. Mobile – We Will Talk Less and Do More With Responsive Design

A common theme that will resonate throughout this article is ‘normalisation’. What I mean by this is things like ‘semantic’ search, ‘programmatic’ ad buying and ‘responsive’ website design, whilst all buzz words (and incredibly important ones) right now, will just be the standard in the future.

As the number of ‘multi-screen users’ has increased and devices of all sizes have come into the market, having a website that ‘responds’ to the displaying device is vital to ensuring that the user gets a premium experience. If you are building a new website this year you must ensure it is responsive in design. Mobile searches are so prevalent now that Google will inform users if a website is ‘mobile-friendly’ or not:

Whilst responsive design isn’t a specific ranking signal, we know that engagement is, and users will be much more engaged with a responsive website. A frustrating mobile experience can spell the end of a relationship with that customer, even after all the hard work of getting them to your site in the first place. I saw a newly built website just today that had been built without any display size considerations at all. Heart-breaking.

Take away point – Web design must be responsive by default.

2. Hummingbird, Semantic Search And Less Keyword Focus

Referring to the theme of ‘normalisation’ again, semantic search has been a big play for Google for a considerable time now, and will continue to move forwards. The introduction of the ‘Hummingbird’ engine, which now processes all Google’s search results, is a key testament to this. If you aren’t too sure what is meant by semantic search, then click on the links below to do a quick search on Google for the following queries:

The movie with ‘The Dude’
The national sport of the UK

Pretty cool huh? Or maybe you’d just expect Google to be able to answer these questions now? Well, that wouldn’t be possible without the daily advances that search engines make in understanding the intent behind our queries. Past search behaviour, personalisation, chronology and resources like Freebase and Wikidata. These are all influences in determining the results displayed from a particular keyword string and they are becoming smarter all the time.

This means that search engines will continue to put a greater emphasis on the semantics of words, and less on specific keywords. How does this affect the optimisation of your pages? Rather than focusing on specific keywords, think more about the usability and relevance of the page in question. Does the page have sufficient content? Are the links on the page to sound and trustworthy sources? Is there engaging and relevant imagery or useful tools to accompany the text?

Websites will continue to evolve and to offer better design, as well as more engaging content. Businesses that want to rank and continue to provide search engines quality engagement signals, will need to ensure they keep up with more than just a keyword focus.

Take away point – Create holistically beneficial pages for your audience.

3. Greater Diversification Of Search Results Pages

‘Organic’ search results have changed massively over the years. As search becomes smarter, so will the results. As of the middle of last year, 36% of search results displayed Schema influenced rich snippets, but hardly any websites had implemented Microdata for their content. 2015 should see more webmasters ensure that Schema implementation is a plan for their clients’ websites. Schema helps the search engines understand more about the content that exists on a website and to display more useful information in the SERPs. Below is an example of Schema in practice (reviews and recipes):

Take away point – Implement Schema to help the search engines understand your content.

4. Core SEO Values will always yield that extra 5%

Getting the basics right will go that extra mile to ensuring that you are ranked from 1st to 5th, instead of 6th to 10th. We are firm believers in building on a solid infrastructure at Ingenuity Digital. Ensuring that title tags and Meta data are of the right character / pixel length and are targeted to the page in question. Do the tags correspond to the page and are they engaging? Do you have quality trust signals on the page? A disclaimer, testimonials, cookie policy, contact details, business VAT number, for example. Are canonical tags setup? Do your images have alt tags? Making sure that that SEO best practice is adhered to will go a long way in ensuring optimum SEO performance, and this won’t change in 2015.

Take away point – Get the basics right first. Walk before you run.

5. Link Building = Relationship Building

Another reference to ‘normalisation’, but this time with regards to link building. In 2015, link building will continue to be all about building valid relationships. Spammy link building is a dead practice, and I for one couldn’t be happier about that. Links should always be built for relevance to the user, but remember that quality links are still one of the most important ranking factors and will continue to be a key SEO focus in 2015.

Think about the relationships that you or your client has in order to identify potential link building opportunities. What types of knowledge or data does the business have and how can this be used to create valuable and easily ‘linkable’ resources? The strength of link building in 2015 will be directly down to the power of relationship building, but there will still be easy wins, and these will be more than likely to come from pre-existing relationships and rapport that has been built in the past.

Take away point – Content, brand and relationships are the key to building links.

6. Build Amazing Pages & Create Amazing Experiences

Have a think about a poorly designed website that you have seen today. I bet you can probably think of at least one, or maybe more? Well think about this, there will be a time when poor website design will be a thing of the past. No, I don’t think that will be in 2015, but I do think it is coming and we will see a greater emphasis placed on the importance of web design (and user engagement) from the likes of Bing, Yahoo & Google.

Amazing digital experiences need to be at the forefront of your digital marketing plan. Don’t rest on your laurels, but instead be the innovator in your industry. Companies like Airbnb and Uber have already shown how quickly industries can be disrupted in 2014. Stay ahead of the curve with creative ideas all aimed at providing an amazing customer experience.

Take away point – Invest in all aspects of your website. Make it as good as it can be. Then make it better.

We will also see a greater proportion of websites going fully secure with sitewide SSL certificates in 2015. There are numerous reasons why this is a good idea, but this is something that I will be covering in a later post.

If you think I have missed anything then feel free to comment below!

If you need help with any aspect of digital marketing then feel free to give us a call on – 02033199510