Techies from around the globe visited New Orleans to attend the Collision Conference this past Spring. The conference consisted of 11,000 attendees, 200 world-class speakers across 5 stages that touched on Design, Marketing, Development, and Technology.
For all things marketing related, the Marketing Stage was the place to be. I had a chance to listen to the Wizard of Moz speak about the 5 biggest trends in SEO for 2016. Below are some key takeaways.
Twitter accounts for 6% of all Google search results. Google + has lost some of its traction (although we’d still recommend having a presence there for now) and Google is aware of the shift . There is more interaction on Twitter about industry specific topics than Google+ causing it to show up more often on Google searches than a post from Google+.
Google+ was put in place for a need in authorship across Google, but now they are moving away from that with less emphasis on Google+ in Google searches. No longer do you need a Google + to write Google reviews. While Google+ is still important for any company (because it is Google), Twitter should be a key component in social strategy.
“Twitter is the new Google+,” -- Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder and CEO of Moz.
Your company’s website and online presence needs to align around targeted customer intent, not traditional keywords focused optimization. While it is important for your company to do keyword research and to utilize keywords in your content marketing, your company must now take it a step further in understanding the intent around a specific keyword or phrase.. The content needs to add value to the user. The user want questions answered or very specific information, which is why they are searching in the first place.
Google has also placed emphasis on a responsive design for all devices. This allows all users to view Google as they would on a mobile device. Another change you may notice is the added feature of Google answering your question on the top of the search results - via a featured snippet. While you may think this would hurt the amount of clicks to websites, if you are the featured website or a website near the top of the page it increases the clicks to your site.
Let us know your thoughts on other SEO trends you feel are changing digital marketing in 2016 and beyond.
And if you’d like to discuss your own SEO plans or needs, please contact us today!
