SEO Checklist - 2014 - Ireland

seachto7

Hi guys and gals,

I've dipped in and out of here over the last few years, but have been out of the SEO game for a year or so now, and am trying to "reskill" myself in it, if it's possible!

I know there is no definitive answer as to what someone should be doing to achieve good rankings, but what do you think are the fundamentals in 2014 that one should be doing in the field of SEO in Ireland?

The last time I was doing some SEO (granted it was small scale), I first looked at on page factors.

So, if the website was well built and its content was of decent quality, then, that was a good start.

Obviously, I used any of the Wordpress tools like Yoast for each page.

Is Webmaster tools still an important part of it all? For example, using it to spot alerts or to index websites?

Obviously the social media side of things now plays a huge part.

I am not 100% sure how to put a strategy together for social media (yet)

The last time I would have been involved in any kind of link building was about 2 years ago.

I wouldn't know where to start with a link building campaign in 2014.

SEO Moz has some good free SEO guidebooks, which are useful.

But, what are the main areas of on and off page SEO you think are key in 2014?

bdo

IMO, accepting that you have done all of the on-page SEO, off-page SEO has moved on to:

- do keyword / trend research
- create content (lots of it, different kinds) and publish it
- promote it , immediately, using social media.The content won't get found without it.
- get / encourage natural links to the content
- test, test, test
- measure, measure, measure

seachto7

It's the encouraging natural links is key I think.
The tricky parts are test test test and measure measure measure.

djburchgrove

Hi Seachto. The first thing I'd advise you to do is read up on the updates that have taken place for the Google algorithms in the past year or so.

Hummingbird, Penguin and Panda updates have resulted in the most drastic change in Google's algorithm in the history of the engine.

Metadata and Meta Tagging, though a few years ago were important, are now almost obsolete. There is less of a focus on Keywords now too, although it still plays a massive role in adwords targeting and finding content, so you still need to be as up to date as ever, however thinking about your keyword analysis and placement in a slightly different way.

The main thing Google is now looking for is the variation and readability of content. The more your content matches what people are searching for, the more likely you are to appear higher up in the rankings.

Varied content, like a previous poster has mentioned is also very important. Try using short sentences, clear paragraphs to increase readability. Images, Video, and other types of media on your page, if relevant are going to help your chances when it comes to social shareability.

Social is becoming a much bigger part of the SEO conundrum these days, and if your content is deemed shareable, in comparison to your competitors you could have the jump on them.

Regular, easy to read, helpful, attractive content is the way forth.

tricky D

djburchgrove wrote: »

The more your content matches what people are searching for, the more likely you are to appear higher up in the rankings.

More than just 'what people are searching for', Google is now putting more emphasis on how people search in the sense that more search queries are less purely keyword-based and becoming more asking/answering questions-based. Think of it as people talking into their devices asking questions as opposed to tapping in keywords. Then throw in what Google is doing with the likes of Knowledge Graph (still in flux) and what it's trying to do with semantic relationships and how they are adapting search results to reflect this trend.

seachto7

I was doing some small scale stuff with a college newspaper supplement before the Christmas. Obviously it was a local paper, but we would have shared teasers etc online leading up to publication as well as links to some of the main stories when it came out.
I suppose I am none the wiser as to what worked or what didn't work, or what I could have done better.
But good to see that content is key.
On my own blog I rarely if ever see any hits, but not everything I put up would always be newsworthy, and I just share it on twitter and FB.