Upward Brand Interactions' 2014 SEO Predictions

Last week we unleashed our 2014 marketing predictions on the world. This week, we’re back with round two, but this time we want to focus solely on search engine optimization (SEO). As one of our core service offerings, we enjoy nerding out and talking about the future of search. Here are a few things we expect to see in 2014.

Local Is Global

A growing percentage of online searches are from people searching for a product or service near them, and search engines are responding by increasing the number of ways in which they promote local search results. As a result, more businesses will find it necessary to optimize for each physical location they have, even for businesses that are looking to target nationally or globally.

Content + SEO = Happy Family

Google’s continual efforts to crack down on duplicate, repetitive or useless content will result in more websites taking a proactive approach to the existing content that’s on their site. The space between what’s good for SEO and what’s good content marketing will narrow, as the two becoming increasingly linked.

What Do You Know? Users Actually Matter

Websites that place a strong emphasis on understanding user behavior will have a strategic advantage over websites that don’t. Google and other search engines are rewarding sites that have an intuitive interface, are mobile and tablet responsive, and provide useful information. More businesses will pay attention to how well the website is actually serving the visitor, rather than simply providing a bunch of information on the web and assuming they’ll find what they need.

Look at the Pretty Pictures

The growth of image-sharing websites—in addition to the increasing competitiveness of search marketing and the need to find every strategic SEO advantage possible—will make creating and promoting unique images more important. Although still not the most important aspect of SEO, having multiple, interesting and relevant (read: not just smiling strangers) pictures on your site will grow as a basic SEO best practice.

As If SEO Wasn’t Hard Enough

The need for businesses to respond quicker to SEO changes and visitor behavior is increasing in speed and frequency. If you want visitors to come back to your website, you need to offer them something different; nothing discourages a repeat visit more than static content. Webmasters and search markets will need to work even harder/smarter at responding to the needs of the niche they’re working in. Do your customers need to understand a particular trend or topic that’s in the news? Don’t have a 3-month strategy for responding—respond today.

Getting Back to the Basics

In a world where technology and digital are flooding into our lives daily, it is important to remember the power of people. Instead of racing to the finish line to get your latest product out to the world before the competition, find out what your consumers want. Embrace their referrals and get them talking about you. Focus on UX and make it easier for them to accomplish any CTA.  Design simpler websites, use storytelling instead of promotion only through media or social, participate in conversation and be human. Showing shreds of humanity is the best way to resonate, gain and keep loyal consumers.

ID Card

Business “personalities” could make a big impact in 2014. “Personality” identifiers are going to show up across all channels, and a well-rounded strategy will be the only way to take advantage of these additions. With the continued expansion of Google’s Knowledge Graph, Rich Snippets, and Author Tagging, look for transparent, branded business personalities to cut through the competition. We could see some form of social or author ranking to appear mid-2014 as well.