No one can tell what’s down the road for SEO especially this year. With search engines changing and upgrading their algorithms, anything can happen.
Basically, the landscape of SEO is changing at a rapid pace and it is causing chaos in some sectors where SEO consultants are sometimes caught unawares because they didn’t see the forest for the trees and were not prepared. SEO calls for some foresight, the ability to predict what the search engines will do. Often this calls for betting on the worse case scenario. Thinking outside the box and recalling past trends and actions, one can figure out what the search engines will do that could totally upend one’s efforts. This means preparations for any contingency. Thinking ahead will allow for a more efficient response when the time is due, if at all.
Next is the fact that search engines and social media like Facebook and YouTube, are looking more at content based sites and having their queries produce results that are more relevant to each surfer. Using gathered metrics from all over, today’s AI used in search engines is far more sophisticated than just a year ago. Sometimes a person need only type in one or two words and the search engines produce the best results. Taking that into account, this means more organic traffic is going to be the staple of the day.
Another factor involved is that the old techniques just might not work anymore. They may be fine in some respects, but should there be a paradigm shift overnight and you not ready, you could lose so much rank that you would have to start all over and wait months to reclaim your spots if at all. This bodes ill for those who have clients already and have set up SEO campaigns. That hard work, based on old algorithms, and tactics could suddenly crash without warning and you’ll be hard pressed to remedy things. It could get expensive and it could get overwhelming, but the writing is on the wall, SEO pros had better be ready for some major shakeups in 2016.
This is all due to surfer feedback and revenues. The search engines have to have happy surfers or they lose traffic and revenue. To combat this they want to know as much as possible about every surfer and his or her habits. This data is vital in placing web pages where they should be and maximizing the pages so that ad revenue can be generated. It’s all about money and efficiency nowadays. There’s no sympathy for the small guy, your results are either pulling in the money or they’re not.
SEO pros are going to have to study up and be vigilant at the same time. As search engine interests keep changing, so does one’s strategies and techniques. Companies that hire teams of SEO engineers are going to be pouring more money and assets into the game and for the small guy it’s daunting. No once can compete with the high end SEO companies. They’ll be owning the top spots on the search engines always. The smart SEO webmaster will realize that the big switch is going to be regarding quality, updated, and relevant content that gets mentioned on social networks. If not, all the bells and whistles aren’t going to do much good.