SEO Isn’t Dead – Here’s Why
There are those who would have you believe that SEO is a dead practice, or at least not nearly as useful as it once was. But the truth of the matter is more so that the situation has simply changed. While things like link building and keywords are still important, they aren’t anywhere close to the only things you’ll need to worry about in today’s climate. Attention grabbing content, strong brand recognition, and an appealing, easy to navigate layout for your website are all just as important. One or two good elements won’t get you by anymore; you’ll need the whole package to be a success.
As Search Atlas can show you, internet users have a near infinite amount of content to wade through with any search, so it’s more important than ever to stand out from the crowd. You may just find yourself in need of a different approach if your current efforts aren’t providing the results you’re looking for.
Improved user experience
One of the best ways to attract positive attention is to offer a better experience than your direct competition. While it’s always advantageous to have a high Domain Authority, don’t get too wrapped up in trying to achieve an extremely high score if it isn’t necessary. You just need to be a step above the others in your industry to attract more attention.
One great way to do this is to optimize user experience. First, focus on what you can offer users across all platforms. This will include things like ensuring they can get to information quickly with relevant links in convenient locations or a visual design that makes it easy for any user to sift through content at a rapid pace. After all, convenience is one of the main points of the internet.
Adapt to all devices
Once your basic design is streamlined, you can focus on improving the experience across the board. You’ll want the best mobile support you can provide, especially since it isn’t uncommon for a person’s smartphone to be their main device. One of the most common complaints that can send users running for the hills is poor mobile support. You don’t want mobile users to have to constantly zoom in on content nor have any other common inconveniences reading text.
It’s often a good idea to essentially have two different sites: one for desktop and one for mobile devices. This ensures that every visitor will have the easiest experience possible. You may want to track how visitors tend to find your site to determine where you should focus the bulk of your efforts.
Take advantage of video
Arguably the biggest rise in SEO trends is the prevalence of and need for online video. It has been projected that by 2021 nearly 80 percent of online traffic will be video. This essentially means that if you aren’t using this trend to your advantage, you will be left behind. One of the easiest ways to do this is to optimize some of your content specifically for YouTube. After all, it’s already the 2nd largest search engine in the world, making it too big to safely ignore. Having optimized content on YouTube will also help improve your ranking in Google since over half of search results include video. You can also embed videos in your text based content to create more traffic and further capitalize on the video trend.
SEO may require a different approach from the old days, but it’s far from dead. Content creators will have to be more involved and aggressive with constantly increasing competition.
