What Will SEO Look Like In The Next Six Months?

With all these changes taking place in Google it’s no wonder people are a bit concerned over how SEO will be changed going forward. However, it’s important to know that with all these algorithm changes we’ve learned a lot about the direction Google is taking us. I’ve noticed a trend developing and have started to leverage what I’ve learned. We can already conclude that Google will keep making SEO a huge part of their rankings and the basic elements will remain the same. However, I believe the algorithm is just getting a bit smarter and if you know how to tweak the fundamental elements you’ll do just fine. Next,

People often get nervous when Google launches a new update thinking it’s going to change the SERP’s completely by introducing new ranking factors. Some of this is true, but the truth is they’ve simply just tweak their elements and you can do the same on your end to stay ahead of the competition.

Here are a few factors to pay close attention to from now going six months forward.

Theme over Keywords

First, Google is going to be paying more attention to the theme other than the keywords used within your content. Why? Their trying to avoid ranking just based on the amount of keywords used within content and external links to any given page. Google’s new search algorithm will be able to skim through a site and know exactly what keywords you should be ranking for. In the past you would create a separate page for each topic utilizing different keywords for which you want to rank for. However, Google will be able to relate pages by understanding the theme and what audience your trying to attract. Next,

Utilizing keywords is still very important however your focus should be NOT to rank individual pages, but focus on build an entire high quality website. Each page will be as important for ranking your website and this is why deep-linking is beginning to play an important role in SEO.

User Engagement

The better the user experience the more value Google gives to your page and this is their ultimate objective. You have to remember this is why Google gained popularity in the first place – By using a system never used before that produced the best results. For this reason Google has started to emphasize the importance of LSI (latent semantic) and long-tail keywords because there precise to the human search pattern. Going forward the way users engage with your content will explain a lot about your website and the value it provides. The philosophy is very simple and it’s based around the notion:

The more value you provide the longer people will engage on your page. The signals of engagement will be the following…

  • Social shares
  • Lower bounce rate
  • External links
  • Mentions
  • Searches
  • Etc

If you want to increase your value going forward than start focusing on user engagement and the elements that matter.

No SEO Methods Are Dead

What do I mean? I think white-hat, black-hat and grey-hat will all still be important and still effect the way websites are ranked. Just because Google is getting smarter at distinguishing between natural link building and manipulative this doesn’t mean some of the strategies won’t work. I think all the different types of link building will still produce great results and those able to change the strategies will be the ones to succeed. Remember…

Some of the strategies we see today have evolved from banned SEO techniques several years back. Bloggers just found a way to tweak them making them better. Google is trying to catch up and when they do, creative bloggers will just find another way to beat the algorithm. It actually hurts me to make this statement, but the reality is there’s a very fine line between white-hat and black-hat SEO.

A Shift in Search Engines

This will obviously depend on choice and I have to admit I’ve been using Yahoo.com & Bing.com slightly more. The truth is companies learn from each other and Google has changed the way search results are organized and displayed. This means other search engines had years to learn what they were missing and tweaked their algorithm to be more effective. Here’s what I think will be happen in about six months from now…

Other search engines will matter more and will begin to produce the kind of results we are looking for. I’m not saying Google won’t hold an enormous share of the user search pattern, but the others will start to pick up momentum. In the end it’s good for all of us who have a blog or business generating money. We might be able to attract more visitors converting into a higher ROI.

There’s a reason why Yahoo and Bing are NOT obsolete and it’s because they always find clever ways to attract people and are constantly making changes each month improving their search engine.

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