5 Unfamiliar SEO Tasks That Web Marketers Will Have To Conquer In 2014

The New Year is all about making resolutions and improving things from the past; however, for those in the marketing space hoping to improve their SEO this year, it’s important not to forget the new things that will need some work over the next few months.

There were quite a few problems as well as new updates that were introduced in 2013, so it’s important to consider them now before more new updates start popping up in the SEO world. Moral of the story: They’re unfamiliar, you’ve probably never heard of them before, they haven’t always been on your radar when thinking about improvements, but they’re not going anywhere.

I talked with Scott Langdon, managing partner of the nationally recognized SEO firm higher visibility, about this very subject. He explained that 2014 is going to force many SEOs to think outside of the box and work with subjects they didn’t dealt with in the past.

According to Langdon these are the 5 unfamiliar SEO tasks marketers will have to conquer in 2014:

1. Semantic SEO Semantic SEO is a strategy that adapts to Google’s new way of thinking about search results. In 2013, Google worked to bring up results on SERPs based on related terms as opposed to exact keyword or keyword phrase matches. We’ve seen Google move toward this idea before, but it was the Hummingbird Update that really sent a clear message to marketers. The update changed the algorithm to work better with the way people search today, which is more conversational.

How to Respond: An example of a semantic search system would be pulling up things that are related, much like you see in the Knowledge Graph on the right hand side of many SERP. For example, if someone types in “car,” Google will pull up results about renting an automobile, mechanic shops, etc. even if the word “car” does not appear in the actual result. Similar topics are enough. As a small business, it’s a good idea to keep this in mind when creating content or optimizing for a page. It’s not as much about keywords anymore—it’s more about relevance.

2. Cocitation Practices. On a similar note, cocitation refers to what is around a link as opposed to the anchor text of the actual link. This is not to say that anchor text is not important, it just means that linking specific keywords isn’t going to be as important.

How to Respond: An example of focusing on cocitation might look like this: Instead of saying “For more information about entrepreneurship visit Forbes,” you might be better off saying “For more information about entrepreneurship, visit Forbes.com” This point is slightly different than the others because this method has been encouraged in the past, but it’s important nonetheless and it will be more important in 2014 as Google starts to move away from keyword importance

3. No Keyword Data. Google encrypted the keyword data that you once saw for your WebPages claiming that it will help create extra protection for searches. Losing this data meant that marketers could no longer see what keywords users were using to find and land on their website. Therefore, optimization was made more difficult and the announcement left many in a panic.

How to Respond: There are quite a few things you can do to respond to this change. AdWords still offers data, which you can use to see which pages are earning the most traffic, and Google does still offer some organic keyword data. You can also still see which landing pages are getting the most attention (I recommend setting up a filter for all “not provided” traffic to see where those people landed) as well as where you’re getting your organic traffic. This might not give you the exact keywords people are using, but it will give you a pretty good idea about which optimization tactics are working and which is not. Finally, don’t forget that Bing and Yahoo haven’t encrypted their data.

4. Google+ Integrates with YouTube. At the very end of the year Google decided to have all of your Google+ information synced with YouTube. This means that if a user wanted to leave a comment they have to have their account synced to a Google+ account. Comments are not being sorted by relevance (those in your Google+ circles will appear at the top) and users can start a conversation on YouTube through their Google+ circles. YouTube creators are also able to better moderate comments with the new integration.

How to Respond: Users did not take this change positively, which you can read about, but for small businesses the show must go regardless of opinion. Because people can start conversations and now leaving comments is more meaningful (particularly in a business setting), businesses should be focusing on a video strategy that will appear on YouTube. Create “how to” videos or post interviews so that people start to share them with their circles. This step should also make it easier for Google to gather data for ad targeting, so creating and working with a YouTube account now is a good bet for the future.

5. Google Review Extensions and Shared Endorsements. Both of these new features center around reviews. With review extensions, advertisers can now add a 67 character review for users to see right on the SERP before they even click the ad. With shared endorsements, Google will bring up items that you were searching for before and then, if available, will pull up a review from someone in your Google+ circles (side note: you can easily opt-out of the feature).

How to Respond: These changes make it clear that reviews are going to be incredibly important in 2014, and this is something that many weren’t used to in the past. Sure you cared about reviews, and the Knowledge Graph design did make them more important, but now people are going to have yet another place to see what people are saying about your company. Shift your priorities a little bit in 2014 and put reviews at the top.

Why It Matters and What All the Changes Mean

As you can see, there is a trend with the way Google changed in 2013 and the way Google will surely move this New Year—keywords just aren’t as important. They still matter, and building links and optimizing for keywords is great, but it’s obvious that Google is trying to make this less of a priority for marketers. Langdon’s advice is to take this trend and run with it. If Google wants your priorities on quality content and reviews so much so that they are making these changes, by all means, go for it.

Hopefully tweaking your strategy won’t be too drastic, but either way, these new and unfamiliar tips for the New Year should help set you on the right path.

Image Source: Google Images