You need to realize that there’s now a variety of ways on how your visitors can land on your site or blog.
This occurs once they’re searching for directions, looking for things to buy, or researching for your content from their various electronic devices.
So where this leads to is what’s the future state of the search engines when it comes to Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.
This since individuals are now connecting to your data using far more effective, intelligent, and sophisticated agents and methods, other than using the once mighty search engines.
So how can you as a site owner or online marketer who’s involved in SEO, effectively adapt to this defined shift in user behavior. We still need to ensure that our site, brand, product, or service, and the information that we provide can still be found by the users.
There are a handful of identified alternate methods which can all effectively guide your visitor through the maze, which is now heavily dictated by social media, apps, and mobile browsing.
Thinking Beyond Search Engine Optimization
There’s no point in just focusing on SEO any longer. You need to think in terms of your webpage content, the keywords that you use, and the exact context that you’re wanting to optimize for.
If you go offline and have an actual sale or event, or some type of a live performance, doing so will now usually generate more online traffic, get you more inbound links, and ultimately convert better, than using the conventional traditional SEO methods.
Doing so should get you into “discovery” apps, such as Google’s Field Trip app for instance, which is always looking out for new and exciting things or events which are both local and trendy.
Content marketing is no longer just for search or online marketing since a great article can now make the jump from digital, and merge into real-life.
Getting The Semantic On
When using semantic markup such as by schema.org, what doing so does is it helps third parties to interpret and then use your public HTML better. This as a result will increase your chances of non-search apps using your data while increasing its value.
Google will allow you to include schematic markup by using their webmaster tools. Although it’s just currently for “events” at the moment, it does however offer potential for those involved in SEO to take immediate action without the need for assistance from developers.
Most SEO pros have been recommending this for awhile, but outside of a few niche verticals, very few has taken advantage of this.
For instance, just by using NAP, which is the name, address, and phone number semantic markup, and including it on your Web pages, and then making sure that it matches exactly with the data that’s provided on the Google+ Local page, doing so can make a substantial difference when it comes to your local results listing.
Finding Different Ways To Go Local
The concept of mobile apps are taking over what SEO once was and did. What they’re doing is driving increasing amounts of visitors to sites which are usually untraceable. Siri, for instance, just assumes that you’re looking for something that’s local.
So what you need to do is find different ways to make your content as locally relevant as possible.
For example, a software developer can create a list of their geographical resellers and their service partners, and then build local pages for each of their locations and optimize them for search, as well as build Google+ Local pages.
What doing so does is it gets your brand directly into the local search results, even if your reseller network may be national. Any other product or service who has a national reach should be going local specific as well.
Going Social Media With Your Content
Social media now has immense search and authority metrics and is expected to become a lot more prominent. So you need to make sure that your brand, product, service, or content, has an engaged and active social presence.
The direct connection between your social profiles and your web based content needs to be distinct enough and be machine discoverable, which also feeds the intelligence agents so they’ll know who’s the authority.
This whether the source is a brand or a person. Although Google+ may not currently be the highest profile social network, it’s now vitally important to have a digital identity reference with them, which identifies real authoritative individuals and brands.
The brand itself needs to be both an expert on the subject as well as you the individual needs to be brand experts, creating content in areas where you’re doing business.
Decide If You Need An App
Consider if you even need a mobile app at all. You may just be better off making your content data available while just working with other app developers. You may get away with getting your information into other apps by getting credit or a citation.
If you decide that you definitely need an app, then consider the various cross-platform vendors to reduce creating various updates and versions while increasing speed-to-platform issues. There are however some advantages and disadvantages to this approach.
What To Do… What To Do To Get More Traffic
It’s already being established that we’ve already arrived and perhaps crossed the search engine optimization era. This because your users, visitors, and customers are now coming from a variety of different areas of the Web.
An example is they using the discovery type of apps and sites such as Yelp or Foursquare, instead of using the traditional Google or Bing search engines.
So make sure that you adopt the post search movement by discarding the traditional methods of SEO, and getting your business or site found in the new world of mobile, mobile apps, social media, and everything else that’s in-between.