What are this year’s top SEO trends? How can I be prepared? Should I adjust our internal strategy to stay ahead of the curve?

The holidays are over. We’ve rehashed the Top Fill-In-The-Blank lists of 2014

[take a look at our review of 2014 SEO Trends . You are back at your desk, back in the real world. It’s time to take a long look at your SEO strategies for the coming year, and how they may need to be tweaked to keep up with new trends.

So what is new for SEO in 2015? And more importantly, what specific actions should you do take maintain your successful SEO efforts this year? Find below the trends Galileo Tech Media will focus on this year, and action plans to keep you busy the rest of the day [you’re welcome!].

1. Mobile Optimization is unavoidable.

Google has announced that they are trying to put mobile users first, and are issuing guidelines and documentation to help you along your way to mobile optimization. Common mistakes include: page speed [we expect even faster page load when we’re on-the-go], unplayable videos [some videos just don’t play on smartphones], and faulty redirects [when the server is set to redirect all smartphone visitors to the mobile website’s homepage, ignoring visitors looking for a specific page within the site].

Action Plan for Today: Use Google’s free online testing tool for your mobile site, to see exactly how Googlebot sees your page, and review their technical suggestions to make it more mobile friendly. After entering your URL, the tool will return results like “text too small to read” or “links too close together” or “content wider than screen.”

2. Small Businesses should dominate local search queries.

If someone is searching for your business by name, heaven forbid they cannot find you! Your clients and customers are making their purchasing decisions while out and about. If your listing doesn’t show up when they search “law firm in my local area” – you’re missing the opportunity to earn that business.

Action Plan for Today: Use a tool like Yext to see where your company’s listings are found online. After entering your business name and phone number, you’ll see a results page that lists all the sites where your listing is located, and what information is missing. Print out this list, and dedicate someone to submitting and correcting the information.

Update your listings here: Bing, Yahoo!, Google.

3. Less Creating. More Sharing.

We are seeing SEMs put a lot of emphasis on creating new, quality content. It’s becoming as important as the technical aspect of SEO. It’s rightfully becoming a more and more important role within organizations. In fact, this author calls Director of Content “the job title that you’ll need to hire.”

But sometimes, sharing the content is just as important. In 2015, we’ll see organizations reusing content that already works through guest blogging, social sharing, and syndication. Repurposing your existing content is good for SEO and gives you the opportunity to reach your customers via different channels.

Action Plan for Today: Dive into your Google Analytics stats, and take a look at Behavior/Site Content/Landing Pages. Sort to view your most popular articles within the last couple of months [obviously, focus on evergreen content]. Consider the following:

  • Slightly modify the article to best suit the medium where you will share it.
  • Brainstorm spin off topics from the article, and create blog posts.
  • Consider using a service, like Outbrain.com, to help identify your most appealing content and syndicate it appropriately.

In our next installation we’ll talk about another big trend for 2015 – the role of Influencer Marketing on the SEO playing field.

Now, get busy on those action plans!