2017 SEO Trends: Digital Recharge

The landscape of Organic Search is moving much closer to an integrated online experience in terms of touch points in marketing campaigns. No longer are the days of using gamification to gain short-term results organically. In a world of instant accessibility, it is imperative that we obtain a deep understanding about the customer’s journey.

Capitalizing on opportunities to expose a brand to potential customers earlier on in the buyer’s journey places us, as practitioners, in the driver’s seat. In today’s digital space marketers must be able to connect the dots, from PR to SEM, in order to achieve true and evergreen success.

What’s more, mobile is a rapidly growing audience in search as Google has even reported a 20% increase in mobile’s share of online sessions in the last year alone! With all those factors in consideration, we must be able to achieve visibility as a consumer moves along the buyer’s journey. Even better if we can help usher a visitor along the buyer’s journey!

More often than not this is something that is easier said, than done.

A few tips that we want to keep in mind when strategizing or building content:

• Be sure to identify and optimize for moments when your audience engages via mobile
• Understand consumer search intent signals between mobile users and desktop users
• Create mobile-specific content that resonates on the small screen
• Bring the consumer along the buyer’s journey with story telling and micro-moments
• Optimize mobile design for site speed

In the same vein of targeted content, link building (more accurately, link earning) has started to rely more heavily quality backlinks vs the quantity of backlinks.  By placing an emphasis on creating high-quality content that is built specifically for a desktop or a mobile audience, respectively, we also open up the doors to opportunities to earn links from relevant outlets.

The concept of high-quality content can essentially be roughly defined in three areas:

• Visual layout: Are we using relevant imagery? Does the flow of the page layout inspire me to read on?
• Engagement: Would including a video make sense? What type of CTAs are we using? How can we personalize the experience?
• Technical: How does the code structure work with the visual layout to provide users a positive experience and to give the proper signals to help the algorithm understand the page in more detail?

All in all, digital marketing success in 2017 and beyond will governed by our ability to speak to the needs and pain points of true web visitors. We cannot predicate our strategies on slight of hand and smoke and mirrors. We must not only think of how we speak to our user personas but also their potential path on the journey to a sale or form fill.

With the prevalence of smartphones and the mobile-first web, taking a data driven approach to how we position our storytelling based on a user’s device will payoff in spades as any given company continues to build their marketing strategy and expand into other channels.