15 Online Marketing Trends by SEOFIED

15 Online Marketing Trends for 2015

Index This whitepaper will cover: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3 An Established PR Team .................................................................................................. 4 Enhanced Content Marketing ........................................................................................ 6 Location-Based Marketing is For Real ............................................................................ 8 Paid Social Media Advertising Pays Off ............................................................................... 10 Mobile-First/Responsive Design as Standard ..................................................................... 12 RLSA and Retargeting on More Platforms........................................................................... 14 The Rise of Facebook Video Advertising............................................................................ 16 QR Codes Will Become Irrelevant ........................................................................................ 18 Digital Marketing Classes at Universities ........................................................................... 20 Social Media to Provide Ecommerce Revenue................................................................. 22 Marketing Automation is a Must .......................................................................................... 24 Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Algorithms Will Secretly Update ......................................................................... 27 Readability to Become a Ranking Factor .......................................................................... 29 Schema Will Become Vital For SEO .........................................................................................31 Links Will Come From Content Marketing .................................................................. 33 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 35 How to Contact Us ....................................................................................................... 36

INTRODUCTION

In order to keep your site relevant, it’s essential to stay on top of the ever-changing digital marketing landscape. Old SEO best practices like adding your website to online directories, guest blogging, and keyword stuffing are not only frowned upon by Google in 2015, they can lead to manual penalties

that

outright

remove

your

website from Google’s search engines.

Last year, we predicted 14 Online Marketing Trends for 2014, and our predictions were largely right with the exception of “Quantified Self” in digital marketing, as wearable tech is still very much in the trial-and-error phase. Perhaps the Apple Watch will succeed where the Galaxy Gear and other predecessors have not, but we’re not convinced that it will be a major trend in the coming year partly because of its failure to catch on in 2014. While data security was in fact a bigger issue with the devastating iCloud celebrity photo leaks and Sony Hack, it did little to rattle consumer trust in purchasing products from online retailers as digital shopping grew in 2014 and will continue to grow in 2015, with an estimated 204.2 million shoppers purchasing on digital just in the U.S. alone. Yes, consumers are worried about having their private information stolen and care about data security, but as the estimated growth numbers for 2015 and following years seems to signify, it’s not enough to stop users from digital spending and

usage.

AN ESTABLISHED PR TEAM

A public relations team reaches out to reporters, businesses in similar fields, and industry bloggers or experts on behalf of your company to build and form relationships that your business can leverage for added exposure and elevate your websiteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s organic ranking. A great PR team is able to pitch relevant content that makes up your content marketing initiatives such as brand stories, interviews, and placements in order to feature them on top authoritative websites in your industry.

AN ESTABLISHED PR TEAM

Companies realized over the past several years that in order to boost and maintain top organic SEO rankings, it’s essential to publish high quality content that is beneficial to users, and link to other high domain authority websites in their industries. This is exactly what PR professionals have been doing for years. The difference is that this year more brands need to get their content seen as content marketing has become a much more serious undertaking for most businesses in the digital marketing world. Furthermore, as audiences continue to move towards digital placements and away from print publications, PR professionals are being forced to understand what constitutes good PR in terms of SEO more than ever before. They are now tasked with pitching to high level outlets and convincing them why your company’s website deserves to be featured on theirs. A smart PR team will only pitch to websites that are relevant to your industry, and garner significant attention from your target audience.

In 2015, public relations won’t be just about getting your content out there to be seen, watched, read, and shared, it’s about getting your brand name in front of an audience that actually cares about what you have to say, and ensuring that your content will be stylistically in line with the various platforms that it is published on. By pitching and creating content to be featured on top industry websites to an audience that cares about what you have to say, an established and dedicated PR team can drastically improve your website’s overall SEO rankings, thus generating more online traffic and revenue for your business. In 2015, this will become a required resource for businesses that are looking to drive traffic and sales from organic search.

ENHANCED CONTENT MARKETING

Content marketing is information relating to your business or industry that is of interest and beneficial to your potential and existing target audience. Great content marketing will attract and bring your target audience back to your website and eventually lead to online sales. More than ever before content marketing is a required part of any good online business’ SEO plan, as businesses need to now find new ways to drive traffic and links to their website without manually building them with black hat SEO techniques. If you aren’t doing content marketing already, you’re missing out on tons of potential sales that could take your online business to the next level.

CONTENT MARKETING THEME PARK

WHAT WILL INTEREST YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

ENHANCED CONTENT MARKETING

As online businesses begin to realize how important content marketing has become to establishing their brand and elevating their website’s position in the SERP (search engine result pages), more business will begin to publish more content more frequently. As a result, the content marketing pool is growing larger and more cluttered, and it will become increasingly difficult to reach your target audience. It is important to remember that content marketing efforts should not rely on generic, unremarkable content, but rather keep in mind the idea of “quality over quantity.” Instead of creating and publishing content just for the sake of saying you’re doing “content marketing,” focus on actually engaging and helping your target audience. For example, infographics, blog posts, and videos should be easy to understand for users and be perused over in several minutes, while more extensive material targeting potential clients such as whitepapers and case studies should go into detail and provide more analytical data about your company.

In a May 2014 study, B2B buyers were divided by the amount of time they spent engaging with different pieces of content before making a purchase. At least 30% of the buyers interacted with infographics, blog posts, and videos for 5-10 minutes, but this same material didn’t come close to a 20% engagement rate over 10-20 minutes. Whitepapers and case studies, on the other hand, had engagement rates of over 30% in 10-20 minutes when buyers were invested in researching a website’s content, while having low interaction in the shorter time frame. Content marketing is hard to measure in terms of lead generation, so you have to be patient with the process as well. Results will most likely not be immediate and obvious, but by enhancing your content marketing with information that is useful, interesting, and has a stickiness factor that brings your target audience back to your site instead of a competitor’s, you should see an increase in online sales. If businesses commit the time to enhance their content marketing efforts and make sure it’s done right in 2015, they are sure to see an uptick in website traffic and online sales.

LOCATION-BASED MARKETING IS FOR REAL

Have you ever searched for the nearest location of a retailer, restaurant, or other brickand-mortar store on your smartphone? If so, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve used your smartphone to research prices and read customer reviews before deciding to buy a product and take it to the checkout counter. If you have accessed a mobile device to quickly get information in the past year, you have demonstrated why location-based marketing will become more utilized and continue to grow in popularity with customers and businesses in 2015.

LOCATION-BASED MARKETING IS FOR REAL

The “Why” Let’s face it - smartphones and mobile devices make our lives easier when we’re on the go. Quickly looking up product/service information and reviews, finding nearby store locations, and comparing prices in-store are all capabilities that have evolved over the past several years. Customers aren’t just researching your products before leaving the house- now they are reading reviews and comparing prices while looking at the actual products in your physical store.

The evolution of location-based marketing will continue in 2015 with beacon technology, which allows businesses to send notifications to customers based on their current realtime location inside their stores. The beacon platform company “Swirl” has said that the majority of the top 100 retailers in the U.S. are already testing and implementing beacon technology. Customers are either purchasing online or their purchases are influenced by mobile devices even though they’re at a physical store location. In a 2014 Q3 study, 44% of respondents said they visited a brick-and-mortar store to buy a product, but instead purchased it online. The percentage of total U.S. in-store sales influenced by mobile jumped from 5% at $159 billion in 2012 to 19% at $593 billion in 2013. The San Francisco Golden State Warriors, a professional basketball team, have demonstrated the intuitive power of beacon technology as they have implemented it for fans attending their home games. Users who have downloaded the team’s mobile app receive a message that simply says, “Did you know you can upgrade your seats?” when they’re on the arena’s escalators heading towards their seats. Since they started sending the notifications, the team’s seat upgrade revenue has increased by 69% per game. From 2014 to 2015, the number of people who use location-based services will jump from 150 to 175 million, and locationbased marketing spending will increase from $3.1 to $4.4 billion.

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING PAYS OFF

The “What” Social media has changed a lot for businesses since the days of just creating a Facebook company page to garner likes and promote brand awareness. Social media advertising has now become an integral piece in marketing, and an estimated 89% of companies with 100 employees or more will use social media marketing in 2015. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat aren’t just providing open-ended, mass advertising to random users, but offering targeting capabilities that help brands reach a specific audience that wouldn’t come across their business in other marketing channels. Social media advertising is no longer a supplementary marketing option, and will become a required resource for online businesses in 2015.

SOCIAL ADVERTISING AUDIENCE TARGETING

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING PAYS OFF

The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whyâ&#x20AC;? With very little average organic engagement on brand posts from Facebook fans at 0.073% and Twitter followers at 0.035% in 2014, paid social media advertising is necessary for companies wanting to reach target audiences in 2015. Social media platforms leverage likes, follows, comments, actions, and the profile of users to find your target audience and show them your ads. With every new update social media is becoming more customizable for users, and platforms are doing an excellent job of finding your potential customers while they are scrolling through their feed, checking up on friends, reading up on the latest news, and updating their statuses.

In 2015, social network ad revenue will be at $8.76 billion and is estimated to grow to $10.64 billion by 2016. Paid social media ads are becoming more competitive as well, and to reach your audience, you have to utilize the targeting options provided on each platform. Paid social media ads are not meant to be used like television commercials or print ads, which are sent out to mass audiences. A specific type of paid ad that will be instrumental on social media in 2015 are videos. This past year, 49% of B2B marketers said they posted and shared videos on their businessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; social media platforms. Facebook alone has over 1 billion video views per day, and this amplifies the impact that video and paid social media ads will have on digital marketing in the coming

year.

MOBILE-FIRST/RESPONSIVE DESIGN AS STANDARD

The “What” As search continues to be the lead driver of traffic for the overwhelming majority of online businesses, desktop’s dominance on organic and paid search has been slowly waning the past few years, and in 2015 mobile will account for at least 50% of all search. Mobile site speed, mobile functionality, and mobile SEO are now factors that will have to be taken into consideration to generate traffic to your website. Optimizing your digital presence with mobile as a priority will help boost your online ROI as search engine functionality becomes streamlined and adopted by more users for mobile devices in 2015.

MOBILE-FIRST/RESPONSIVE DESIGN AS STANDARD

The “Why” In 2015, it is estimated that 59.6% of mobile phone users will access and use search, and $12.85 billion will be spent on mobile search ads- accounting for 50.1% of all projected digital search ad spending. Studies have shown that in the retail and financial services sectors, mobile already takes up half of all organic search. Despite this shift towards mobile, search marketers claim that 64% of mobile sites are less effective than their desktop counterparts. With the lack of user-friendly mobiles sites and 48% of smartphone owners researching products through search engines instead of visiting brand websites or downloading apps, now is an opportune time to optimize your site for mobile functionality. Some of the essentials your website should have in 2015 is a fast load time, spaced-out, large buttons for easy mobile navigation, and allowing quick, but password protected access to their accounts via mobile.

A great mobile experience not only leads to increased and faster online sales with happy customers, they will also remember how easy it was to use your mobile site and come back for future business. Having a prolonged load time, small, hard-to-click buttons, and jumbled design elements will force users to immediately leave your site and go to a competitors’ as users will be much less patient in 2015 when on mobile. Whether they are using their favorite handheld device to find a local business, look up a business’ phone number, purchase or review a product, or login to a personalized account, make sure that this year your mobile site ranks well via search and that you provide users with an intuitive and fast mobile experience.

RLSA AND RETARGETING ON MORE PLATFORMS

The “What” RLSA is Remarketing Lists for Search Ads, which shows users ads who have already visited and exited your site while they’re still on search engines and typing in your targeted list of industry keywords. RLSA ads are effective because of their higher click-through-rates and lower cost-per-click, but retargeting ads on social, display, mobile, and video channels are also prevalent and more efficient than other pay-per-click ad campaigns. RLSA and retargeting ads will continue to gain traction as marketers realize the science behind converting users who have already visit their sites vs. first time users, and they will be used by more online businesses in 2015.

Welcome back and thanks for your purchase!

RLSA AND RETARGETING ON MORE PLATFORMS

The “Why” Has there ever been an instance where you searched for a product or service you needed and bought from the first site you visited from your search results? Google says that 49% of customers now visit 2 to 4 sites before making a purchase, and 96% of shoppers won’t buy anything as a first time visitor to a site. This is where RLSA and retargeting ads come into play because the more times you can bring a potential customer back to your site while they are still on search engines or online elsewhere, the better chance you have of them making a purchase from you instead of your competitors.

Compared to other PPC (Pay Per Click) ad campaigns, retargeting ads generally enjoy lower CPCs (Cost Per Clicks) with higher CTRs (Click Through Rates), but RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) campaigns provide even better results. Marin Software released their clients’ retargeting campaign data from April to June 2014 and the results showed that Google RLSA campaigns had up to 3 times higher click-through rates at a lower cost per click than other non-RLSA campaigns for the entire quarter-long period. Retargeting ads can be an effective PPC option as well, and worth the investment when spread out across multiple platforms, as evidenced in a study that found that marketers who implemented Facebook and display retargeting ads simultaneously had much higher CTRs than when only one of the campaigns was running. Marketers who take advantage of RLSA and retargeting ads in 2015 should also constantly update their campaign keywords and audience segmentation groups over multiple platforms, which will lead to increased exposure and brand awareness amongst potential customers. These ads have always showed tremendous opportunities for exposure and growth, but 2015 will be the year that the gap between intelligently-run RLSA and retargeting campaigns and traditional search engine marketing campaigns will be apparent in online sales

numbers.

THE RISE OF FACEBOOK VIDEO ADVERTISING

The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whatâ&#x20AC;? A study by Cisco predicted that by 2018, global consumer internet traffic will be 80% to 90% video. While YouTube is still the most popular digital video player in the U.S., Facebook is second and surprisingly beating out other reputable platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, Instagram, and Vine. Because of its native video player, autoplay feature, and targeting capabilities, 2015 will be the year that marketers invest in Facebook video advertising as a major channel to share branded video content.

THE RISE OF FACEBOOK VIDEO ADVERTISING

The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whyâ&#x20AC;? Content marketing has transitioned from text-heavy to image-based content and now is moving towards video-centric content. Digital video ad spending is expected to be at $7.77 billion in 2015, which is a 30.4% increase from 2014. Among video ad platforms, Facebook video advertising is expected to increase significantly in 2015 due to examples like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos that exploded on Facebook between June 1 to September 1 last year. In that 3 month span, 17 million ALS Challenge videos were uploaded on Facebook, and they were viewed more than 10 billion times by 440 million Facebook users. These videos were not ads, but they did demonstrate the capabilities and native video simplicity of commenting and sharing on Facebook compared to YouTube. Video advertisements on YouTube are previews of videos, are mostly regarded as a nuisance for users, and some can even be skipped in 5 seconds.

If a user wants to share a YouTube video, they must copy and paste the link onto their various social media platforms. On the other hand, Facebook video advertisements are native and already present on the platform, can be either set to autoplay as users scroll through their News Feed (giving them a quick preview of the video), or require the user to click on the video to watch it based on pricing options (CPM vs. CPC). There is no need to go through a 3rd party video platform to like, comment, or share an interesting video. Like its other advertising options, Facebook also allows specific audience targeting for its video ads, so branded video content can be displayed to users who are more likely to engage. The RBC Financial Group has estimated that Facebook could potentially make $700 million in 2015 with just autoplay native video ads. Other social media platforms such as Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat will also take steps towards enhancing their video advertising for businesses in the coming year, but 2015 will be marked by the sudden impact that Facebook will have on digital video

advertisements.

QR CODES WILL BECOME IRRELEVANT

The “What” QR codes were supposed to be the next big thing in marketing several years back, but they seemed to have never taken off. A 2013 “comScore” report found that since 2012, the number of users who have scanned a QR code has leveled off despite the continual increase of smartphone users in the past few years. Have you ever scanned a QR code or know someone who has? They’re in magazines, on street-level print ads, in the subway, and a myriad of other places if you pay close attention, but hardly ever used.

RIP QR Code 1994-2015

QR CODES WILL BECOME IRRELEVANT

The “Why” There are several different reasons why QR codes never achieved the levels of popularity they were supposed to when they were first implemented in advertising. One big reason is that QR codes were misplaced in areas such as underground subway stations with no WiFi and limited connectivity, in 15 second television commercials that gave viewers no time to scan QR codes, and on print ads in the middle of busy, congested streets where taking out your smartphone to snap a picture of a QR code is not a good idea. Another reason is that brands who did implement QR codes did not properly link them to their mobile sites, so users who would actually take the effort to scan a QR code were directed to pages that wouldn’t load or landing pages that weren’t optimized for mobile. Photo and video centered social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, or Pinterest that could’ve invested in QR codes haven’t up to now, and users are much more likely instead, to regram, repin, or retweet a branded hashtag for a coupon or offer instead of scanning a QR code. Even when researching statistical data for QR codes for this whitepaper, nearly all of the studies weren’t from 2014 or 2013, but from 2012. QR codes have plateaued and in 2015 will become irrelevant.

DIGITAL MARKETING CLASSES AT UNIVERSITIES

The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whatâ&#x20AC;? Some for-profit and online universities are already offering digital marketing classes, and digital marketing is rapidly expanding in many different business verticals. The proof lies in the 25 Hottest Skills of 2014 on LinkedIn, which included SEO at #5 and Online/Digital Marketing at #16. Businesses large and small have begun to realize the importance of creating and maintaining an online brand presence, and 2015 is the year that traditional universities will begin to roll out accredited college courses on digital marketing.

DIGITAL MARKETING CLASSES AT UNIVERSITIES

Digital marketing is a constantly changing landscape, but traditional universities can still cover and teach the preliminaries and basics. Remember, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not talking about an SEO or Digital Marketing degree. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just predicting a few additional classes that could supplement the most popular degrees of online marketers such as Public Relations, Creative Writing, Communications, and Journalism. Traditional universities could tout themselves as being innovators by offering digital marketing classes that educated the next generation of advertisers and marketers, and students who have a desire to work in these fields could enroll in these classes. Even in the last year here at Blue Fountain Media, we have had reputable universities from all over the country bring their students to our offices because they were interested in learning about digital marketing as a possible career choice.

DIGITAL MARKETING CLASSES AT UNIVERSITIES

SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROVIDE ECOMMERCE REVENUE

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram have all developed ecommerce alternatives for businesses and retailers to offer products and services directly from their respective platforms. These social platforms have been a source of influencing or driving online sales for brand sites for the past few years, but 2015 will be the year that businesses finally figure out how to effectively convert traffic directly on their social media profiles.

SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROVIDE ECOMMERCE REVENUE

2014 was the year that social media platforms started rolling out ecommerce solutions such as Facebook’s Shopify, Instagram’s experimentation with Like2Buy, Pinterest’s Promoted Pins, and Twitter’s “Buy It Now” Button. This coming year we will slowly see the results of these social ecommerce campaigns. The 2015 forecast shows that 89.0% of companies will use social media marketing, and that there will be a 26.6% increase in overall social media advertising revenue at $8.76 billion. The old adage says that “throwing money at the problem won’t solve it”, but when it’s this much money that is being poured into expanding the capabilities of social media into a source of online sales, marketers and brands will test and experiment different layouts, strategies, and tactics. Nonetheless, there will be challenges, as a 2014 Q1 study showed that social media only generated 1% of all online orders for ecommerce sites, and 43% of retailers said that less than 1% of their ecommerce traffic came from their social profiles. What offsets these discouraging numbers, however is that this isn’t social media’s first try at creating ecommerce platforms.

Have you ever heard of F-commerce (Facebook) and #AmazonCart (Twitter)? Those were Facebook and Twitter’s first attempts at social ecommerce that never really quite caught on. Promoted Pins is not an ecommerce alternative, but beta tests showed real signs of promise in creating brand awareness and visibility for brands on Pinterest. Instagram also has taken initiative with their Like2Buy link that takes users directly to product landing pages, and has the most potential as an ecommerce platform because of the highest brand engagement rate on social media (4.21% compared to Facebook, 0.07%, and Twitter, 0.03%), coupled with its 300 million users and counting. Even if social media doesn’t transform into a major channel of online sales for businesses, it will become more integrated and influential in driving online traffic towards brand sites in 2015.

MARKETING AUTOMATION IS A MUST

The actual term, “marketing automation”, has been overused and its concept misunderstood since it started trending in 2013, but businesses who are able to build and run a successful marketing automation program will be able to not only generate more leads from satisfied customers, they will be able to turn them into repeat loyal customers. Marketing automation consists of software platforms that caters to the individual needs of users when interacting with an online business by segmenting and presenting them with personalized messaging that can lead them on a faster path towards a conversion while being more efficient for your business model. In 2014, marketing automation’s adoption rate soared to 52% among B2B marketers. Among marketing automation’s many features, email personalization is the most vital in converting a target audience into actual, long term customers.

MARKETING AUTOMATION IS A MUST

Marketing automation helps break down users into different list segmentations and creates a personalized experience for them based on their demographic, how they entered your site, and how much they interact or engage with your website. Too often in the past, online businesses put their customers in a factory line, running them through their offers and promotions, hoping to get lucky and make a sale. Promotional emails and ads were mass sent to potential consumers based on just age and gender groups.

YOUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; VE GOT (MARKETAUTOMATED, PERSONALIZED) MAIL!

MARKETING AUTOMATION IS A MUST

Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s consumer is much more wary of the advertisements and offers that they are constantly bombarded with when they are online or checking their email.

They will

blatantly ignore emails (or mark them as spam!) from businesses that email them everyday announcing a new sale. Consumers appreciate personalized emails that actually reflect the actions they took when visiting a site. 80% of email users have said that they find it useful and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind a business sending emails featuring relevant products based on their previous purchases. 71% of them also said they find it useful when an email features recommended products based on what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve looked at online, but have not yet purchased.

Another form of personalized emails is trigger

emails

that

send

out

when

users

abandons their shopping cart with products in it, send confirmation of a transaction, thank users for their purchase and ask for feedback, or welcome them

when

they

create an account or sign up for emails. A 2014 Q3 study found that these trigger emails had a 52.9% higher open rate and a 147.2% higher CTR than general email campaigns. Proper market automation to create a personal

online

experience

for

your users will be essential in 2015, and email personalization could be the difference between forming a bond with a lifetime customer or losing them to your competitors.

GOOGLEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ALGORITHMS WILL SECRETLY UPDATE

2014 saw some major Google algorithm changes with Panda 4.0 and 4.1, Penguin 3.0, and the introduction of Pigeon. Unlike previous years, Google seems to be set with the major updates they made in 2014 going forward, and rolling-out only monthly, minor changes. In 2015, Google will not have major announced updates like they did in 2014, but their continual changes will encourage digital marketers to employ best practices while maintaining an online presence.

GOOGLE’S ALGORITHMS WILL SECRETLY UPDATE

Online businesses still get the majority of their traffic from organic search results, and Google is the most popular search engine in the world. Its search engine accounts for 93% of organic search traffic to websites around the world, so if your website does not rank well in Google’s SERPs, it’s hard to expect any sort of online revenue for your business. There are black-hat SEO techniques that can quickly boost your organic search rankings such as keyword stuffing, having duplicate content, and buying external links, but Google’s algorithm updates have come down hard on websites not employing best practices.

Panda 4.1 rolled out in September 2014 to penalize websites that had “thin”, duplicate, or machine-generated content, and rewarded websites that published useful and informative content that could help users. The sites that were hit the hardest from Panda 4.1 saw their organic SEO visibility drop between 68% to 79%, and sites with great content that experienced the highest elevated SEO visibility saw a 218% to 1,353% increase. Besides being negatively affected by major updates, websites that use black-hat SEO techniques can be discovered and punished by Google’s internal spam team with a manual penalty and literally disappear from Google’s search engine. Coming back from a manual penalty is a painstakingly long process and takes weeks, if not months to recover from. It is your responsibility to maintain your website with proper link-building techniques, publishing unique, interesting, and informative content, and keeping up-to-date with the trends and keywords of your industry. Even though we predict that 2015 won’t have as many major algorithm updates as last year, it is important to remember that Google makes about 500600 algorithm changes to their search engine every year. The best online brands in 2015 won’t have major site overhauls, but they will be constantly working to improve their website- not just for users but for Google as

well.

READABILITY TO BECOME A RANKING FACTOR

Readability is already a factor in Google’s search algorithm in determining where your content will rank in SERPs. Besides reading level and syntactical structure of your copy, readability also includes formatting and typography, as well as a measure of how well users can read your blog posts or articles on their desktop and mobile devices from a visual perspective. Google’s search algorithm and crawl robots have become much smarter in the past several years at ranking pages. Instead of providing results based on just exact match, Google is actually reading your copy and has put an emphasis on delivering results that are semantically related to a user’s query. In 2015, simply producing content with several links and keywords won’t be enough to achieve top keyword rankings, and readability will become a bigger factor in how Google and other search engines rank your content.

READABILITY TO BECOME A RANKING FACTOR

Producing content on a consistent basis that is uniquely sound and of interest to your target demographic can be a chore when you’re already working hard to maintain a SEOfriendly website. Due to pressure and time-constraints, in the past some webmasters were lazy or rushed through the process of publishing their material. They adhered to ranking factors that didn’t focus on the actual written value of their content, like including valuable links, having relevant keywords, and optimizing title tags. Their articles or blog posts, though poor in quality, ranked well and drove a significant amount of organic traffic to their website. Google has caught on to this, and has altered its search algorithm to actually read copy and even has added an advanced crawl feature that categorizes content based on reading levels of basic, intermediate, and advanced. The mission of Google and other search engines isn’t to present users with results that have the most links, or best optimized keywords or titles, but to provide results that will best answer the question of a user’s inquiry.

Readability has two aspects that must be considered when writing copy: language style and formatting. Your copy should be written in a style and manner intended for your target audience, not for search engines. Don’t patronize them by writing something that is overly technical, but remember to establish yourself as a credible source without sounding too elementary. Besides syntax and reading level, format your copy with a font that is legible, paragraphs or lists that make sense, and make sure that your content can be read and browsed over easily not just on desktop, but on mobile too, as about half of all organic searches this year will be on mobile devices. In 2015, expect to see a shift in how search engines rank content with a heavy focus on readability, and if you are willing to put the extra effort into your website’s copy, your business and users will both benefit.

SCHEMA WILL BECOME VITAL FOR SEO

Schema is code that you can tag your existing HTML code with to improve how your web pages will appear in major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. By tagging your HTML with schema markup, your webpage will appear in SERPs with rich snippets, which consist of additional text or images that appear below or next to your search result. While Google does not factor schema markup for search rankings, websites that have rich snippets in SERPs tend to have a higher click-through rate than those that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any additional text. Schema is still a relatively new and underutilized SEO practice, but in 2015 schema markup will play a vital role in organic search.

SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE RANKINGS

SCHEMA OTHER RESULTS

NO SCHEMA

SCHEMA WILL BECOME VITAL FOR SEO

You probably have already seen the most common types of rich snippets when doing your own searches in the form of publication dates, reviews, and ratings that appear below the page title. Schema can also enhance data markup for authors, products, businesses, events, images, videos, and hundreds of other categories and make them more prominent in SERPs with rich snippets. Search engine crawl bots index your pages, but when you mark up your HTML with schema, it tells search engines exactly what your content is, which can be particularly helpful for things that bots have trouble understanding like images, news stories, and ratings. This leads to a more prominent display of information and more realestate for your brand in SERPs. By intelligently displaying your content to users who are searching for related topics, search engines are giving your site an enhanced page result with rich snippets that look more official and professional.

A 2014 study found that only 1% of the sites researched had tagged their HTML with schema, but nearly 41% of search engine results had rich snippets that were from schema markup. In 2015 webmasters should begin to take notice of the advantage they can gain over their competition by implementing schema markup in their HTML, and even though there are no studies out (yet) that prove that schema markup boosts your site’s rankings, there is a correlation with sites that have schema in their HTML and having higher placements in SERPs. This year will be the official arrival of schema as essential in maintaining and elevating a website’s overall SEO, and and might join Google’s list of ranking factors in its search algorithm.

LINKS WILL COME FROM CONTENT MARKETING

Last year, Google rolled out its Penguin 3.0 update in October that targeted and punished sites that were incorporating black-hat link tactics like buying links, link building through guest blogging, and linking to numerous sites with low domain authority that are not relevant to your industry. Link relevancy is an important ranking factor in Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s search engine algorithm, and 2015 will be the beginning of a transition from traditional link building tactics to a more widespread adoption of earning authentic, relevant, and natural links through effective and share-worthy content marketing.

LINKS WILL COME FROM CONTENT MARKETING

The natural process of linking is to find content that one deems as valuable, and to share it on their own site. This was Google’s initial intention when it made the number of a site’s inbound links a key ranking factor in its search algorithm. Website owners began to manipulate the algorithm’s ability to judge link equity however, by purchasing hundreds of links, link-swapping with other random sites, or link building through guest blogging. Fast forward to 2014 when Google’s Penguin 3.0 update rolled out, and there have been efforts by Google since then to enforce new link-building tactics, commonly known as “linkearning”.

Comprising and earning links for your website is now becoming more about the quality of your links, rather than the number of links you actually have. The best way to earn links from other highly authoritative websites in 2015 will be through engaging and influential content marketing. Producing and creating “great content” will not only generate online sales over time, it will also cause users and webmasters from other reputable sites in your industry to link to your website more frequently. With consistent content marketing that earns your site well-deserved links, you will be ranked high for various and important relevant keywords in your business. Google has always encouraged content that is beneficial to users and urged them to link to useful websites, and 2015 will be the year that webmasters understand this and have an increased focus on enhancing their content marketing to earn more natural and authentic links.

CONCLUSION

2015 will be an exciting time for marketers to learn and build off of their digital marketing experience from the past year. We here at Blue Fountain Media have taken what we have learned in 2014 to present you with what we believe will be the most groundbreaking and resourceful digital trends that will come to fruition in 2015. While some trends like enhanced content marketing and mobile responsive design as a standard are relatively predictable, other trends that we think will be big this year such as Facebook video advertising and link earning through content marketing are educated guesses we have come up with based on our research, knowledge, and expertise. It is not likely that we will get all of the 15 digital trends of 2015 right, but we sincerely hope that you find this whitepaper helpful in creating and maintaining a digital presence for your website that will take your brand or business to the next level. Good luck, check out our other whitepapers, and look out for the 16 Digital Trends of 2016 next year!

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