If you look back on the SEO industry from 2011 to 2015, you will see remarkable changes not only in content strategy but in digital marketing as well. But 2015 so far has come up with distinguishable modifications in SEO trends that will make you curious about what is going to be next in the industry. The entrepreneurs can take their businesses to the leading frontline by adopting these top 5 SEO trends for this year. The SEO trends for the next few years are also expected to be based on these trends.

1. Say Hello to Social Engagement Optimization

Google, the largest search engine, has modified the algorithm to fetch more original and user-need-based content from unlimited data uploaded on it every day. Different factors contribute to make the content original including social media. Google has also modified its algorithms to cater to the rise of social media optimization, and has also improved itself to receive idealistic social signals. The fresh trend of optimizing your website on search engines using social media is called Social Engagement Optimization.

Various factors, which contribute to optimizing the content with social engagement, include the following:

Social queries: When people ask questions on social media referring to your website or open the link to seek direct answers on the website

Traffic generation: Real time traffic including active followers on Twitter and Facebook, people who open the link and stay on the page for a considerable period of time and people who return on the website using the stream of your social media presence. Twitter and Facebook ‘likes’ do not leave much stronger impact as compared to ‘shares’ and ‘discussions’.

Search queries: When people search your brand name in the search bar or enter questions related to your brand

Correlation: Matt Cutts, Google web spam head, has revealed the difference between correlation and causation in a speech delivered in 2014. According to the speech, correlation of links is more imperative for search engine optimization than causation. For example, Google will optimize links shared on Google+ more than those shared on other social media platforms.

2. Brand Mentions are the Next Milestones in Link Building

Backlink building has been redefined as implied links and express links. When a keyword is directly hyperlinked, it is called express link and when a link is optimized by referral, it is called implied link. When someone reads about your brand and searches it by entering the name in the search bar of a search engine, your brand is optimized by implied link building technique. Note that the technique of implied link does not work if someone reads about your brand but does not search about it.

Relevancy and trend-setting on social media can help you build implied links and improve your search engine ranking by brand mentions technique.

3. Mobile Friendly SEO is a Must-Have Digital Order

The growth of mobile e-Commerce and mobile research has made it vital for the entrepreneurs to include mobile search SEO strategies in their business plans. Optimizing your website for mobile friendly SEO is also important to meet Google’s criterion which is now penalizing the websites that are inefficient in offering user-friendly mobile services. Mobile friendly labels launched in November 2014 have led to a sudden rise in mobile responsive e-stores and websites. The entrepreneurs may face severe business setback if they don’t modify the web pages for mobile phone screens. If you want any technical assistance for mobile SEO, you can hire SEO professionals. To make your search hassle-free, I have listed some reputed SEO companies as follows:

1. TIS India
2. SEOTonic
3. Solvonix Technologies

4. Semantic Search Optimization is the Key to Keyword Strategy

The Hummingbird update released in 2013 by Google totally altered the meaning of ‘reading between the lines’. The new form of content analysis was revealed as semantic search or semantics. It is an order of linguistics which focuses more on the meaning of content than on the content components like keywords and backlinks. Here are the factors which make your content ready-to-optimize according to semantics rules.

Conversational Queries: Take the example of Siri and Google Now. The software not only reproduces the direct meaning of your questions, but also finds relevant questions. If you ask Siri about the food stores in California, it will respond by telling you about the names of stores as well as directions to the stores assuming that you are on the move. In order to escape the translations of your content intent, use long tail keywords and latest semantic indexing.

LT and LSI Keywords: Long-tail keywords help you expand the globe of your target market. For example, a fresh flower seller is also the competitor of chocolate producers and gift logistic services. On the other hand, latest semantic indexing or LSI keywords refer to keyword stemming or producing synonymous keywords to the main keyword. For example, the company Apple can also be translated as the fruit apple. If you use Tim Cook, iPhone or iPad in similar post, Google will translate it as the company and not the fruit.

5. Increased Online Security is a Less-Known Must-Have Factor

Web pages, blogs and e-stores are also scrutinized by the search engines for the security they provide to the customers and visitors. Apart from improving your secure links, you may also use the security certificates and HTTPS links instead of HTTP to improve your search engine ranking. The entrepreneurs need to keep a check on the security systems used by the support team to keep the customer information safe as all the Content Management Systems will be soon optimized for security scrutiny of your web pages.

As 2015 is the beginner year for all these major trends, it is a good time to build a good foundation and practice them in order to build better portfolio in upcoming years. The assessment strategies of Google and other search engines will become stricter in the next few years and preparing for the tough exam beforehand is the best way to stand out in the competition.