SEO For 2014

Search in 2013

This year has brought upon a lot for us to appreciate as marketers. As we close out 2013 algorithmic intelligence is varying faster than ever.
The buzz of 2013 and even more so the last few months has been upon the advancements of the Knowledge Graph, Local Carousel, Google Now, Hummingbird and the big change.
That's not even to point out Penguin and Panda, but those changes are more about what you may have done wrong in the past. We're here to talk about the upcoming.

The Future of SEO

While the "(not provided)" announcement was a slap in the face to SEO professionals, hopefully it has helped you to understand that our intentions shouldn't be so focused so solely or intently on ranking a keyword in search results.

After watching what Google has been doing over the last year or so, where do keywords tie into the above-mentioned rollout features? They each in some way or another tie into local, mobile, or social.

•    Will keywords help you with the Local Carousel? No, closeness and review generation will.
•    How will Google Now push your keyword strategy? It won't, but social efforts will.
•    Do you think that Google will give you a Knowledge Graph box for a keyword and link to your site? If so, you're dreaming.

Add in the Hummingbird update, and all of these changes tell us that Google is moving faster to bringing everything together through the tie-ins of localization and semantic improvements for conversational search, which is accepted on mobile.

SEO Isn't Dead, It's Converging

SEO at its core will never be dead. All of the on-site needs of long ago will remain important in 2014. All of the newer processes of creating informational, enticing, and perceptive content for link building and social digestion are still the hot topic now and will be heading into the future.

My point is that we need to watch the converging of our old silos into the new SERP display. SEO has taken on a converging role with other mediums which impact SERP display.

2014 Will still be Big for SEO?

Sites must be crawled professionally, content must be targeted, and yes we still want to rank where preferred. The focus as we move down the road is more so on what vehicles we use off-site to help drive traffic to our sites.

How we use the earlier discussed pillars alongside their continual convergence by Google will decide how successful your Search Marketing strategy will become.

Fast takeaways:

•    Don't build a local listing. Allow your viewers to help you build a local presence.
•    Don't build a brand. Build a community, a socialized brand, one that can keep your audience in tune with you in coincident.
•    Don't just optimize a site. Optimize an experience for those that are mobile and content hungry.