Google is constantly looking into ways they can improve the SERP’s and stay ahead of the people attempting to game the algorithm. A number of years ago keyword tags and meta descriptions were still important for the search engines to gain an insight into what your website was about. In more recent years a keyword rich domain could hold that extra punch to get you one step ahead of your competitors.
Matt Cutts has clarified that moving forward Google aim to adjust the mix and focus more on other ranking factors that reflect company branding. So on top of the basic signals a well optimised site already follows, such as a well built website, link authority, high quality content, gaining a respectable page rank, keyword rich domains, how else can we start to show a websites worth?
Company branding and social interaction is big on the cards at the moment. It is yet to be seen or quantifiable how much worth this truly has but with SEO you have to evolve and live and learn as you do. In 2006 Twitter was launched, “Twitter” didn’t mean a thing “Tweeting” was something birds did annoyingly early in the morning. Due to branding across the web this domain now has more value and you would be hard pushed to find someone who has never heard of Twitter. Twitter and Facebook are now an integrated part of many companies internet marketing campaigns.
Customer Reviews has always been important in any form of marketing, word of mouth recommendations will always hold weight in people’s minds. There are numerous outlets to attract reviews for your site, but as a website owner this is something you must be actively involved with. Offering clients an incentive to leave you reviews on sites like Ekomi and Google places, Yelp to name a few. Reviews are part of the new revolution of links.
I don’t think we will ever move away from the classical SEO ranking factors of onsite optimisation and high quality industry specific anchored text links. As search engines add more to the mix SEO’s are going to have to add more strategies to their tool bag, a multi pronged approach is what it will take to ensure ongoing success for your business on the internet.