Trends in the world of SEO are constantly changing. A major reason for this is the way Google operates. It's estimated that our friend Google makes major changes to their search engine algorithms at least one time every six months.
Smaller changes that can impact your business's search results happen far more frequently. SEO strategies that are working for you today may be completely ineffective in a year or less. And with how competitive the marketing landscape currently is, it'll be impossible for businesses that fall behind on SEO strategies to stay afloat.
In this article, we'll share with you five key strategies to use that will keep your business up to par with SEO trends.
1. Use Social Media to Follow the Thought Leaders in SEO
The vast majority of the top thought leaders in the world of SEO use their social media feeds to keep followers updated on daily trends. What better way to stay connected to all the moment-by-moment updates in SEO than by following some of these thought leaders on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?
Some of the best ones to start following include Matt Cuts, Chris Sherman and Rand Fishkin. All three of these experts have direct connections with SEO industry insiders. Because of this, they typically have information on major industry changes and general fluctuations before the information hits the media and tech blogs.
2. Start Subscribing to Blogs
SEO blogs written by industry experts are perfect for keeping yourself educated on the topics that impact your business. You'll also learn a lot about recent and coming changes in SEO.
Start subscribing to a handful of reputable blogs that have a proven record of knowing and understanding SEO. Browse these blogs on a daily basis to stay up-to-date on tips and news. To start out, check out the Moz blog, Quicksprout, and SearchEngineLand.
Once you start gaining a deeper understanding of SEO, don't be afraid to dive into some of the advanced blogs. The information you'll learn there will give you a huge leg up on your competition.
3. Create a Google Alert for SEO News
Is there any better way you can think of to keep up with SEO trends than by using Google, the very source of trends? While you could spend all day searching for the latest SEO trends on Google, a better approach is to set up Google Alerts.
The Google Alerts function will send you an email every time web pages with any of your pre-determined search terms turn up on a Google crawl. For example, you might set up specific Google alerts for terms such as "changes in SEO algorithms" or "latest SEO news."
4. Stay SEO Educated and Be Diversified
Regular and routine SEO education is absolutely necessary for your business to stay up to par with SEO trends. It's not enough to read a few SEO articles or blogs once every few months or catch up on in-depth information once per year. Important trends like IP targeting wouldn't be on your radar until after your competition is already doing it.
Instead, allow time for yourself to read SEO-related material at least once every week. If possible, try to spend one to three hours each week on SEO education.
Beyond that, it's important to use a wide variety of expert sources. Just one website or blog will give you a narrow view of SEO trends. The more sources you learn from, the more accurate of an overall picture you'll be able to paint.
5. Twitter SEO Streams
Most SEO agencies and professionals keep up to date with the SEO industry on Twitter. You can follow other streams or create your own using terms like "Google algorithm updates" and "Updates from Google." You'll also want to use Twitter to follow profiles of SEO industry experts and even reach out to them directly with specific questions. You might learn some important insider info that allows you to act before your competition.
Staying on top of the trends can sometimes feel like a time-consuming, impossible task. While there are many other ways you'll discover to keep informing yourself, these five tips are a great starting point.