According to SEO expert Jim Yu, brands will need to pay close attention to emerging SEO trends in the New Year. With the search and content marketing world having undergone major changes in 2015, Yu stated there is now a trend towards the use of “search and social data to guide content creation”.
Yu went on to list the SEO trends that brands will need to focus on in the New Year. Amongst the trends were optimised mobile apps, which Yu believes will become a “significant factor for search and brand exposure in 2016”.
He stated that 52% of all time spent on social media is “consumed” by mobile apps and that in order to keep customers engaged with the brand, apps need to be optimised.
“Well-designed mobile apps should align with the organization and the brand message that you are promoting,” he said.
Yu also stated that structured data will become more significant in the New Year and that brands will need to focus on this as it enables better communication between websites and search engines. He added that as search engines are now more intelligent, they are more dependent on structured data.
Companies will also need to pay attention to site layout, which is expected to become more significant in 2016.
“Site features, such as the layout, will be an important part of rising above the noise of the modern content battleground,” Yu said.
Customers who are unable to find what they want on a poorly designed and difficult to navigate website are likely to go straight back to the search results. Yu pointed out that 50% of potential sales are lost due to customers not being able to find what they are looking for quickly enough.
Yu also stated that marketers should optimise their online presence during 2016 to increase brand visibility, particularly by increasing the use of social media.
He advised companies to stop thinking of website development and social media marketing as two different entities treating them as two parts of a brand’s overall web presence.
