As we just celebrated the new year, we thought it would be good to take a moment to think about what we can expect for 2014 as a matter of SEO and Social Media.
2013 has been a pretty intense year when we talk about SEO. Google launched the new algorithm Hummingbird that is supposed to be a major change in the SEO sphere. A lot of rumors and theories have been presented, and a lot of questions asked: Should we change our SEO strategy? Is link Building obsolete? How can we create the content that bring traffic? And with all these changes it seems legit to be a little worried about 2014. But a major change like Hummingbird is not likely to happen again in 2014. Google will certainly update this algorithm, making it even more efficient and content oriented, but it will just be an amplification of what we have seen in 2013.
SEO:
Optimizing your Search Engine is becoming more and more complex and the trend will stay this way in 2014. The content is now king and old strategies are becoming obsolete. But do not wipe out what you have built yet. Link building still has a power and the relationship that you built through it are still a mainstay for your SEO strategy. Guest blogging is still in the game and even if it is becoming trickier to avoid to be labeled as spam while using guest blogging, this tactic is still one of the most efficient way to build high quality inbound links.
But for 2014, you need to add to your SEO to do list the content creation . The idea is to build fresh and high quality content to bring organic traffic. You can create 4 types of content : company information, Industry content (educational), customer support and sales content. But even if sales content, company info and customer support are important and should not be neglected, the focus for 2014 should be about education. As said before, the content has to talk to the customer, give him an added value that make him share the content in his personal sphere. And of course this content has to be linked to social media to make it sharable, and if the quality is there, go viral.
Social Media:
If you have a business that sells online, Social Media are not an option anymore. The new algorithm gives to Social Media a bigger place int he SEO process , and they are the highway of information, perfect to share your content. Facebook and Twitter, as the giants of the industry are launching more paid advertisement solutions to attract businesses . Being present on only one network is not enough anymore and new actors are entering the game to allow you to target more precisely your audience. For 2014 we should all start digging on the side of new networks for new opportunities and more important flows of content. Pinterest and Instagram offer a good way to share graphic content, and pictures for promotion. Snapchat is competing with Twitter for the micro blogging and can be an opportunity for you to show another face of your business to your clients and prospects.
Google + is on the way up, because we all assumed that with Hummingbird, Google is trying to push its Social Network that had some trouble competing with the king Facebook. Is it true? According to the head of webspam team at Google Matt Cutts, there will be no short term effects on your traffic whether or not you choose to use Google +. But on the long term, there will be effects and "early" adopters of Google+ will probably be rewarded.
To summarize and conclude, 2013 has been intense for SEO specialists and online marketers. The rules have changed but the game remains the same. New trends, new media, new ways to bring people to you. Because that is the main idea: how to bring people to you? Just paving their roads with signs is not enough anymore, you need to show yourself through your content, build an audience on social media by being social and innovative. Thinking outside the box and creating amazing content would be the recommendation for 2014. Be social, be fresh, be aware of changes and take it EZ.
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