SEO Industry Trends: A look at what's in for SEO in 2014 – Sheetal Technologies

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an inevitable activity for your business. There have been several speculations about the future of SEO. However, the fact remains that SEO is not an optional strategy. It’s inevitable if you want to make the online presence of your business more prominent and easily accessible. SEO is here to stay and will survive as long as there are search engines. The online presence of your business irrespective of its size has mattered a lot in the past; in 2014 it will matter more than before. Needless to say the dependency on search engines will be more than ever before. To make your business visible online you have to change your approach towards the SEO techniques and make use of those that will give you a better return on investment. Let’s take a look at what the SEO industry trends will be in 2014.

• Give importance to content marketing- Have a good content strategy in place. This is important in terms of SEO because, Google will increase the SERP (Search Engine Rank Page) and offer better rankings for your business only if your website has impeccable, original and useful content. Regular updates on the company and the industry to which your company belongs through a wide variety of communication platforms such as newsletters, blogs and whitepapers is something that you should think about in 2014. A good content strategy is the one that engages the visitors, keeps them in the loop, answers the queries and clarifies their doubts.
• Give a thought to #hitlinks- Google is focused on formulating new algorithms to check the quality of links and discourage the link spammers. You need to plan your link building strategy carefully. The #hitlinks are the link from a high page rank website or from a website that has a domain authority. To acquire #hitlink engage your target audience with your expertise, create quality content, distribute free and relevant content in the form of e-books and info-graphics, also ask for feedback from the subject matter experts and your loyal clients/customers and last but not the least connect with influencers in your industry. These are a few primary SEO techniques that you should consider in 2014.
• A professional and pleasant website design matters- A professional looking website is likely to earn the trust of your visitors. A good and pleasing website which has great content will drive the users to buy your products, signup for online subscriptions and share the content with their peers. A well-designed website is an effective tool that will give people accurate perceptions of your products or services.
• Think about optimizing a mobile site that loads quickly- These days most of the business happens on the go. People are using mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. This makes it easier for them to get the information they are looking for. It’s also the era where consumers make decisions on the basis of the reviews they get from their friends, family and forums. Therefore Google is giving importance to mobile compatible websites that can be loaded quickly. Have a mobile compatible websites are no longer optional. There is a rising popularity of Cloud based Content Delivery Network (CDN) hosting solutions because people are checking information on their tablets and smart phones.
• Authorship authority and in-depth articles matters in 2014- Google is giving importance to the quality and

Google authorship authority of the content that you publish in your blogs, newsletters and company updates. It’s not about the quality of the single piece of work, but the entire work done by your content writer which will be taken into consideration by Google. Keeping this mind, in 2014, the companies are likely to take into account the author profile while recruiting their content team members. Another point worth mentioning is that, in-depth articles are the need of the hour. Thanks to the new algorithm Hummingbird that was released in August 2013, which focuses on the in-depth content that are relevant, precise and crisp. The content should be user focused and not focused for the search engine ranking.

SEO is an important tool to propel your business to the next higher level. If we have left out any critical points, please share it with us in our comment box.