Talking SEO- in 2017
Our Melbourne SEO company is perfectly placed to give you the best strategic advice or search engine optimisation results. Internet marketing in 2017 is so different to how it was one or two years ago.
Once upon a time it was about keywords and back links, then info graphics came into the fore.
It seemed there was always some new “thing” to try.
The Google team have always sought to deliver the best quality results, based on relevance and trust- and their tolerance is narrowing as time moves on.
To keep your website ranking well in 2017 and beyond, you need to leave behind the thinking of previous years, and focus on the following:
- Ensure that your website has content that’s yours and relevant to the needs of your visitors
- See that your website design works well on a range of devices- and makes for a great user experience
- Take advantage of the opportunity to attract visitors- and business- through social media
- setting up and managing a Google+ profile
- generating an inbound traffic program to encourage activity and visitors to the website
Websites visits these days, carry a certain level of expectation from the visitor.
Not content to simply look at blinking icons or crazy animations, the visitor often arrives at a website wanting a question answered, a problem solved or some other concern addressed.
She carries a hope or belief that the answer to the question she is asking, or the problem she is trying to solve, will be there.
It’s true to expect that most visitors to your home or business will arrive via the front door- however those visiting your website could slew in sideways on any page, depending on what the search engine has directed them to, or what a friend’s link in an email has suggested.
All of your website pages should be clear in navigation, with a breadcrumbs trail and an easy way for the visitor to easily discover links to other important pages of your website.
For a refresher of the very basic principles of search engine optimization, take a look at our seo fundamentals explained article, for a quick refresher, or to review the basics once again.
Quality Matters in Search Engine Optimisation
From the onset, search engines have tried to return results based on relevancy and trust.
As time went on, rogue web masters and SEO practitioners tried to game the system by presenting content specifically for search engines which was of no real value to the end user of the web site.
This is where the problems began.
If searchers went back to a search engine home page, by bouncing out of a web site because it didn’t supply what they were looking for, then more processing power and resources were needed to deal with that query again. Multiply this repetitiveness by the number of people using a search engine at any given moment, and you begin to realise that this is all taking up some pretty serious resources.
If the visitor found the answer to their query a lot sooner, then this would represent a saving in resources back in the search engine data centre.
Quality matters here- search engines seek to return what they believe- or what their algorithms determine- is the best, and most relevant page to answer the user’s query.
There is less room to play- web masters need to lift their game to remain in the race.
The Future of SEO
The search engine optimization professional’s work will be more critical than ever. Everything will need to be done “by the book”, and survive the scrutiny of the advanced, forward-thinking Google robot.
The penalties will be harsh, forgiveness slow, and recovery even slower.
The lens of the microscope will focus more sharply on content, web master intent, and the notion of value applied to content. Our guess is that there will be advances in the assessment of images from an SEO perspective, too.
Now is the time to get it all sorted, if you need any help at all contact us today.