2012 was a tumultuous year for every SEO agency and if you don’t agree with this stamen, it’s either you’ve been living under the rock, totally in denial or one of those wallflower firms that have deliberately ignored the many developments that transpired in the SEO sphere.
There were definitely ups and downs and a few days into 2013, here is a quick recap of the top SEO lessons of 2012.
Ranking Fades into the Background and Conversion Occupies the Foreground
This is not to say that search engine optimization is at the brink of extinction. However, what separates an everyday SEO agency from a proficient SEO company is the ability of the latter to focus ranking efforts on keywords or tactics that produce real and tangible business results. This is why it is no longer enough to talk about ranking and traffic. These metrics should be closely tied in with the conversion.
Treat Social Signals as Major Ranking Factors
The correlation between social signals and SERP performance is still one of the most highly controversial topics in search engine optimization. Yahoo and Bing have already confirmed that social signals are definitely factors in their algorithms, but Google has been rather vague about this.
That being said, basing solely on the growing base of social network users and the growing number of social channels, it is safe to say that social media marketing will continue to gain momentum. Hence, it would not be surprising if one day social signals will be the primary ranking factors. So, build your social presence as if you were building links.
Link Building without Good Content is a Frail SEO Tactic
It’s not uncommon for an SEO agency to sound like a broken record reiterating over and over again the centrality of content in SEO success. You will be surprised though that despite Google’s witch hunt for bad content, there are still online marketers who are focusing primarily on the number of links they can build rather than the number of links they can earn by dedicating significant resources on content marketing.
Further, when you talk about content marketing, don’t be confined to articles or white papers. Work with a proficient SEO company and you will get a plethora of content execution including infographics, explainer videos, podcasts and viral pieces.
Social Networks as Search Engines
Ask yourself: how many times have you used social networks to search for a topic, brand or service you were interested in? Shocked to realize that there were multiple instances? You are not alone. Online marketing has been teeming with synergistic relationship across several channels and this is an example.For crying out loud, YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google!
As such, you don’t just need to create a strong social media presence to improve your SERP performance. You also need to implement SEO practices when doing so. For example, if you know the search terms or keywords that your target market or audience is using on search engines. There is a high possibility that they are using the same when searching on social channels.
It’s another year for SEO and whether you were successful or not in 2012, the year that was taught every Internet marketing company vital lessons to march forward onto 2013.
