SEO Trends in 2014 have made some important shifts since the previous year. Press releases as a way to increase high PR backlinks, have decreased in importance and Google has down ranked links from the major Internet PR sites (See Marketing Prof’s article…). However, the wider distribution of press releases from affiliated news sites is still creating good good linking results for business. In early 2014, Craigslist changed its platform and now disallows external hyperlinks to websites. As a result, the value of Craigslist for generating organic traffic and leads will definitely be negatively affected. (See Bigger Pocket’s Blog…)

In 2014, I believe the focus for SEO will be on quality, customer-focused, content that is leveraged through social sharing and relevant backlinks from high PR-ranked websites.

There will need to be tighter integration of websites to social media, press releases and mobile applications. Optimizing for search engines will be congruent with optimizing web content for target customer groups. If the content you are creating and distributing is highly useful and relevant for your target market, it will likely be favored by the search engines.

2014 SEO Trends

• Reliance on original content will continue to expand
• Internet advertising and SEO will be more closely coordinated
• Online press releases are less important
• Google Places for Business, Google Authorship and Google Plus Business pages will help maximize SEO efforts on Google.
• Targeted, top local directory listings will be important for page one Google results
• Linkedin company pages will continue to increase in relevance and use
• Craigslist will decrease in importance as a source of top level organic search results
• Social media advertising will be as important as search engine advertising, but targeting and engaging the right audience will take research and testing.
• Video content will continue to expand and will become key to business SEO rankings.

2014 SEO Recommendations

• Use a business blog and publish customer-centric articles at least monthly; twice a month is optimal, weekly even better!
• Use Internet advertising in coordination with onpage SEO optimization efforts for maximum leads. Google Adwords quality scores are dependent upon a good website landing page experience.
• Use online press releases sparingly and focus on truly newsworthy content.  PRweb.com, PR.com and PRNewswire remain worthy resources
• Select the top five to ten local directories where people are finding, or likely to find, your type of business and fully develop and maintain those listings. Search your analytics to see which directories are currently being used by people to find your site.
• Develop, expand and regularly update your business company page on Linkedin.
• Test social media marketing possibilities to find which platform results in the best sources of traffic and engagement for your business.
• Develop a video creation strategy and use YouTube to distribute the content. Embed videos on your website, social media channels, newsletters and other places to maximize distribution.

Review other articles on SEO topics…

• SEO 80/20 Rule
• Meta Tags for SEO
• Basic SEO Ideas
• SEO Trends for 2013