Optimising Keywords Effectively in 2015 – What’s Changed?

When it comes to optimising keywords, content is widely overlooked despite it being the driving factor. It is likely to be the difference between your prospects choosing you ahead of your biggest competitors.

Advertising involves referencing and reminding people that they need to be up to date with the latest products. On the other hand, mass marketing puts us under pressure as we have to appeal to a much wider audience.

It’s impossible to appeal to everyone through short advertising ploys, so I guess that’s why websites with quality content need to exist…

The Wrong Kind of Optimisation – The Dangers and History of Keyword Stuffing

It all comes down to how you utilise your website of course, with many people optimising keywords the wrong way for some years before Google told us about their latest algorithm.

People were insistent on marauding through keyword research data in an attempt to learn every synonym in existence; hoping to use the same fundamental keyword in whatever piece of topical content that was being written. This lead to problematic, keyword-heavy content.

In some cases written content wouldn’t have anything to do with the keywords being thrown into the mix.

After Google introduced its Freshness algorithm we were seeking the best rewards through consistent uploading of fresh content.

Regular Updates Brought About Results

However, this didn’t necessarily monitor what that content was about, as Google were far more interested in discovering whether or not you were regularly updating your website. This wasn’t the road the SEO industry wanted to pursue, so what was it that changed?

Panda’s Influence on Quality Content

Search marketers went through a prolonged period of frenzied content creation after they realised Google weren’t penalising the quality of their written work whatsoever.

Google made the mistake of presuming search marketers would think it obvious that their content would need to be good even though poor content was working just as well.

Google needed to come forward and clarify the issue and they did so with the introduction of their latest Panda algorithm last year, which, instead of targeting just thin and duplicate content, would target thin and duplicate content that offered little or no value.

Making it to the Top

It’s essential that people realise the importance of detailed, comprehensive and informative content that answers all the questions of their audience, as this could ultimately get them to the top of Google’s search rankings without having to build another link.

Links are still an important part of the marketing process but if you’re consistently in the top 10, you’ve probably got enough links to make it to top spot.

The importance of appearing on other publications that you’re audience regularly read up on or visit is vital as people won’t do their research on just the one site. An example would be having your products reviewed elsewhere by influencers.

Search Is Growing

So when it comes to written content and optimising for keywords, it’s important to remember that your content must be relevant to the users’ intent.

Your internal links will only get you so far if you haven’t yet updated the way you see content, while your external links remain vitally important as, with smartphone ownership going through the roof, more and more people are searching all over the place.

Satisfying as many searchers in one go is what the cleverest SEOs will hope to achieve in 2015, especially if they’re hoping to rank for the biggest terms…