Ridiculously Smart SEO Tips To Rule The SERPs In 2016

The search industry has been affected by numerous changes in 2015. The review of the performance on search by many marketers and companies would have made one thing clear SEO is not going to be the same in 2016.

Well, that’s what all of us say at the end of each year and it is true to each word. 2016 will also be a mixed bag of various old-school and new-age techniques which together will work towards defining the success of a brand.

So without spending more time, let’s dive into the world of search engine rankings and bring out the best SEO techniques that will ensure success throughout the year.

1.Page Tagging

Mobile has already overtaken desktop for an online search in 2015, and 2016 will only notice a sharp increase than the current year. Mobile is all set to dominate the search sphere in the future and the signs will be noticeable very soon.

2015 also saw the introduction of the mobile-friendly algorithm from Google that has ensured that businesses and marketers become serious about responsive websites. Heading tags will be rolled out in a greater rate and frequently than what is done now. Websites will become more uniform till the H5 tags.

2.Conversion Rate Optimization

CRO has been creating quite a hype lately. You may be getting a good number of visitors on your website, but SEO will now have to consider CRO to ensure that the visitors are converting into leads and customers. Web tracking and event tracking will be considered more important KPIs in Google Analytics as it will help in understanding how to get the visitors to convert quickly in a short span. The use of CRO will make sure that the various stages in the buyer’s journey are optimized to get maximum conversion rates.

3.The Age Of Apps

The rise of mobile users has compelled companies and marketers to divert some percentage of the marketing budget to app development. With Google considering to index the apps in its SERPs it has become inevitable for businesses to tap this avenue.

Online stores have already started including all the functions of a web store in their apps. Thus, it will be no wonder that you will start seeing app content as an immediate result of the SERPs. Businesses need to capture the attention of mobile users and for that, they will need to develop and market apps.

4.Structure Data And Direct Answers

The direct answer feature is an attempt from Google to show the most relevant and high-quality answers to the users’ queries at the top of the search page.

The need of quickly consumable results on mobile has pushed the growth of this particular feature. Today close to 19% of queries are directed to rich answers. In order to get commercial success with the help of your answers, you will need to provide structured data for all the elements in your website. Structured data, in simple terms, is tagging the data on your web pages to enable easy understanding of the content.

5.Considering All The Stages of Buyer’s Journey

There will be various phases of SEO in 2016. Companies and marketers will have to construct their SEO initiatives keeping in mind all the phases.

This new way of generating SEO strategies includes building distinctive campaigns for the different steps in the user journey. For instance, there could be separate keywords to be targeted at various stages of the user journey. You will be able to target different habits per user based on the segmented keywords for the various stages.

6.Interactive Content Will Take Over

Content has been the ruling king, however, there will be one more feather in the crown of the King Content in 2016 and that is interactive content.

Infographics are already a popular form of interactive content and are still untapped by most marketers in their online marketing initiatives. However, online quizzes and contests are already popular and have increased user engagement and interaction for many brands.

Conclusion:
Mobile will be the centre of attraction in all online marketing endeavours. As marketers and brands are all set up to embrace the new trends in the new year, it is still to be seen what the real-time Panda and Penguin updates will bring about as far as SEO tactics are concerned.