Google’s job may appear to be an easy one. Create search engine algorithms to optimize search and rank pages and put them at the top of the search page depending on their ranks. Simple, isn’t it? Think again. The news for the Tech Valley is that Google happens to make around 500-550 minor adjustments to its search engine algorithms during a regular year. Why you may ask, to that they will answer- to be at par with the trends of their users and to set the pace for SEO.
2012 saw some incredible trends soaring and getting popular among the young and old. While some were political, others were about plain music and dance moves. And during that year, Google took the liberty to carry out massive changes on ranking of pages for their searches. You can expect 2013 to be much trendier and thus, also expect many more changes to Google’s SEO techniques.
One thing is certain though, you can never tell what will become popular and what won’t. After all, Gangnam Style is still in the news. Now that you’re worried sick if your page’s rank is going to fall, don’t worry. There are luckily a few predictable steps that Google is going to take, and all that you have to do is stay in their good books.
And watch out for them!
1. Now You Will Be Ranked: One thing you can surely expect is Author Ranks to play a decisive role in search rankings. Google has been and will continue to monitor authors of content all over the web. Based on the reputation of that author (as determined by the strength of sites they have content on and feedback from social media as measured by sharing, tweets, etc.) a ranking will be assigned to them.
A higher rank may well be used to increase the rankings of sites that publish content by that author. However, very low ranked authors, contributing a lot towards a website could have a negative impact on the sites ranking. As a blogger, your ranking will be determined by the reputation you already have. The content that is published on blog right from its inception will be the deciding factor. Google may assign you ranks on the also on the basis of your expertise and authority in commenting and blogging in your own niche topic.
To further push this process everything you publish likely will be automatically linked to your Google+ profile. The bottom line is your reputation and the reputation of contributors to your blog will be given considerable weight in determining the search ranking of your site. So look out for everyone who comes onto your blog and contributes towards it.
2. Become Google friendly by being mobile friendly: With over 1/3rd of the Internet traffic sourcing from mobile phones, the responsiveness or comparability of the page or blog is something that should be taken care of. Fact is, Google gives preference to sites with mobile responsiveness.
The problem is you will never know if your site was properly accessed from a mobile and the best precaution would be to create a mobile version of the blog or site.
3. Social Media will a Must Have: Social media will continue to grow in importance. If you have a website or blog and have not yet fully integrated the major social media outlets such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. then it is time to do so.
And just attaching the logo on tour website or page will not work. Integrating it will involve a proper connection. If everyone can share the page, like it, tweet about it and add it to forums, then you can be assured that it is socially integrated. The concept is if people can find it on social media outlets and are looking for it there then the search engines want to make certain it is just as easy to find by people doing related searches. A great idea it maybe, but it sure is a pain for the page’s author.
4. Co-Citation is another possibility: Co-Citation is a relatively new term in reference to Search Engine Optimization and search engines. In the past, in order to get credited or gain authority and rankings it was required to have a link posted to your website from other websites.
It was by counting these links and the assigned value of the site they came from that a ranking could be determined. This may be changing. The downside of using only the backlink method of determining influence is that often you do not actually get a link even when something is attributed to you. But Google, as you might have guessed, is getting smarter all the time. It has figured out how key phrases are being manipulated to get maximum searches by creating a dozen Backlinks for it.
As the search engine algorithms get ‘Smarter and Sharper’ they will continue to use and improve on these concepts to make search results more relevant and less likely to be manipulated artificially. This is one thing you can surely expect from 2013.
