As the second half of 2016 takes off, the debate is still raging on the place of search engine optimization (SEO) in online marketing. Most marketers believe this is the holy grail of online marketing yet naysayers argue search engines are making things harder by refusal to give search engine ranking factors. There is no denying that websites which are leveraging SEO strategies remain at the top of the ranking.
The ongoing debate is making an already convoluted industry even harder to understand. Nevertheless it is important to invest in an SEO consultant because the expertise they bring to the table is invaluable. These specialists improve your ranking on SERPs, promote your brand, increase conversion and ultimately make you a niche authority over time.
By improving user experience an SEO expert makes it easier for search engine spiders to index your pages. How do they do it? Well, strategies keep changing and today these are some of the most applicable SEO techniques:
- Focus on more keywords: With advances in keyword research tools it is now possible to rank for different keywords based on their value. This helps you to invest on the keywords that really matter using tools like Google’s Keyword Planner among others.
- Mobile optimization: Mobile traffic has already passed desktop traffic with 80% of adults owning a Smartphone. More mobile devices are being launched and SEO consultants are now focusing on responsive web design.
- Social content: More marketers are using social media to boost SEO and for many good reasons. Social media posts are now more important than ever as they are ranked separately. More social media content is being indexed on Google and this is an easy way to improve visibility.
- Video is king: Internet users love video and in fact Forrester Research predicts more than 77% of online traffic will be video by end of 2017. Your SEO consultant will help you leverage video content to improve ranking on search engines.
- Website audit: This is the simplest yet the most ignored SEO strategy. Running an audit not only reveals underlying problems but also helps to optimize performance of the site. Everything from the URL to the links is checked and the SEO specialist then gets down to work.
There are many other strategies being used but whatever you do don’t ignore SEO.
