SEO 2012: The year where Guest Posting, Pandas and Penguins, and Creating Value through Quality Content emerged.
Let’s look at how SEO played out in 2012 so that we get an idea of how things, patterns and trends, will roll out in the year, 2013. The year, 2012, was a rough ride due to several changes: frequent Google’s algorithm updates, Panda updates, and the introduction of Penguin. In organic rankings, content quality as well as inbound links from high authority sites still play major roles, but let’s look at other major factor that will direct SEO practices in 2013.
Before we plunge into SEO prediction for 2013, let’s look at major patterns that dominated the year 2012.
Google’s Launched Furry Animals – Panda & Penguin
Google’s Panda algorithm, originally launched in the year 2012, went through many updates that affected tens of thousands of low-quality website: they were kicked out of the SERPs.
In April 2012, Google Penguin algorithm forced many SEO companies to adapt their SEO strategies and tactics. Companies engaged in Penguin-unfriendly SEO strategies saw their rankings drop, often without prior warnings. The same year, Google became smarter – were able to distinguish between high quality content that added “real” value and those posted for the purpose of SEO only. In the year 2012, “value” became the most governing factor.
In addition to Google Penguin updates, Guest blogging became the major way building authority links back to the site. Acquiring guest blog links, rather than building links from low-quality websites, emerged as the major SEO strategies in 2012. Likewise, negative SEO was also making rounds, to the degree that Google came up with a Disavow Link tool. This tool empowered website owners to specify backlinks they thought should be discounted or discarded by Google while evaluating links back to their website. Over-exploited SEO tactics, like the over-use of anchor text, were devalued and ousted. Lastly, website using “paid links” were dropped too.
7 Ways You Can Survive SEO in 2013
The ultimate goal of all website must be to simply focus on creating value to the reader. But as the competition becomes high, you need to employ SEO strategies in a realistic way to help your site rise to the top of the search engine rankings.
These are the seven SEO tactics and strategies that will dominate the SEO scene in 2013.
1. Content Quality
When it comes to SEO rankings, adding value and posting quality content on your site still plays crucial roles. Google made it very clear that good quality content will be paid with high rankings, and we expect this trend to continue over the next year in full force. Quality content means how unique the content and topic is; how resourceful and information rich the content is i.e. – no thin content.
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing is considered to be the new SEO. In general, content marketing not only attract backlinks, but also adds value to the reader/user. Although it may seem challenging – because you have to create more high quality content and circulate them and make sure they get published in widely with enough social signals – the effort will eventually pay: your website will generate significant SEO value.
So, in the year 2013, building a strong content marketing strategy will be one of the main strategies to assist you to climb in the next level in search engine rankings.
3. AuthorRank
Other metric deciding high SERPs is AuthorRank, a new tool that Google introduced in 2011. Although studies are still going on to determine its value, nonetheless, we can assure you that AuthorRank will play a major role in determining the credibility and value of the content published on your site.
Long ago, it was difficult to determine the quality and credibility of an online content. While users has to go manually to verify the facts on articles, search engines still had difficult time to figure out the authenticity of the information. That’s why, Google introduced a new tool, AuthorRank, and the situation has changed, ever since.
AuthorRank is used to cut down spam contents that plague the internet. It provides searchers better and more relevant content to its users by filtering out useful information that surface when they are searched through Google. In future, Google uses this AuthorRank tool to determine the quality of the content by looking at the reputation and credibility of its author.
4. Social Signals
After much discussion and debate, SEO experts have finally accepted social signals to be valid ranking factor. In 2013, and many years down the line, social signals will play a crucial role for high search rankings. So, a like, a share, or re-tweets, or mentions, and most importantly, +1s are seen as trophies by many webmaster, and something they must be after.
5. Responsive Design
Although Responsive/Mobile design will not directly improve the ranking of a page, nonetheless, it will still increase your fortunes. Early on, Google noticed this trend in web browsing because of growing use of Smartphone and tablets. Responsive design isn’t explicit SEO factor, but it surely improves the usability of the website, letting people access website through wide variety of devices, and will likely be the element every webmaster considers in 2013.
6. Localization
It’s apparent that many search engines, including Google prefer local website and information. So in 2013, it would be safe to say there will be increase in this preference. Websites applying local SEO – map data, citations, listings, and review on local directories – will enjoy high visibility and rankings.
7. Media
We have consistently seen that including images and videos along with content, rather than text-only content, are often ranked higher. The emergence of media content will be the most important development in the 2013. It is becoming ever more important to include non-textual media into the text content because it enhances readership and makes the content more resourceful, making it high quality content.
Well, there you have it: 7 shockingly simple factors that will play major role in 2013. Do you have any other factors that many influence SEO in 2013? Share with us in the comment box below.
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