15 Online Marketing Trends

for 2015

2

This whitepaper will cover:

Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3

An Established PR Team .................................................................................................. 4

Enhanced Content Marketing ........................................................................................ 6

Location-Based Marketing is For Real ............................................................................ 8

Paid Social Media Advertising Pays Off ............................................................................... 10

Mobile-First/Responsive Design as Standard ..................................................................... 12

RLSA and Retargeting on More Platforms........................................................................... 14

The Rise of Facebook Video Advertising............................................................................ 16

QR Codes Will Become Irrelevant ........................................................................................ 18

Digital Marketing Classes at Universities ........................................................................... 20

Social Media to Provide Ecommerce Revenue ................................................................. 22

Marketing Automation is a Must .......................................................................................... 24

Google’s Algorithms Will Secretly Update ......................................................................... 27

Readability to Become a Ranking Factor .......................................................................... 29

Schema Will Become Vital For SEO ......................................................................................... 31

Links Will Come From Content Marketing .................................................................. 33

Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 35

How to Contact Us ....................................................................................................... 36

2

Index

INTRODUCTION 3

In order to keep your site relevant, it’s

essential to stay on top of the ever-changing

digital marketing landscape. Old SEO best

practices like adding your website to online

directories, guest blogging, and keyword

stuffing are not only frowned upon by

Google in 2015, they can lead to manual

penalties that outright remove your

website from Google’s search engines.

Last year, we predicted 14 Online Marketing Trends for 2014, and our predictions were

largely right with the exception of “Quantified Self” in digital marketing, as wearable tech

is still very much in the trial-and-error phase. Perhaps the Apple Watch will succeed where

the Galaxy Gear and other predecessors have not, but we’re not convinced that it will be a

major trend in the coming year partly because of its failure to catch on in 2014. While data

security was in fact a bigger issue with the devastating iCloud celebrity photo leaks and

Sony Hack, it did little to rattle consumer trust in purchasing products from online retailers

as digital shopping grew in 2014 and will continue to grow in 2015, with an estimated 204.2

million shoppers purchasing on digital just in the U.S. alone. Yes, consumers are worried

about having their private information stolen and care about data security, but as the

estimated growth numbers for 2015 and following years seems to signify, it’s not enough

to stop users from digital spending and usage.

.

AN ESTABLISHED PR TEAM 4

A public relations team reaches out to reporters, businesses in similar fields, and industry

bloggers or experts on behalf of your company to build and form relationships that your

business can leverage for added exposure and elevate your website’s organic ranking.

A great PR team is able to pitch relevant content that makes up your content marketing

initiatives such as brand stories, interviews, and placements in order to feature them on

top authoritative websites in your industry.

AN ESTABLISHED PR TEAM 5

Companies realized over the past several years that in order to boost and maintain top

organic SEO rankings, it’s essential to publish high quality content that is beneficial to

users, and link to other high domain authority websites in their industries. This is exactly

what PR professionals have been doing for years. The difference is that this year more

brands need to get their content seen as content marketing has become a much more

serious undertaking for most businesses in the digital marketing world. Furthermore, as

audiences continue to move towards digital placements and away from print publications,

PR professionals are being forced to understand what constitutes good PR in terms of

SEO more than ever before. They are now tasked with pitching to high level outlets and

convincing them why your company’s website deserves to be featured on theirs. A smart

PR team will only pitch to websites that are relevant to your industry, and garner significant

attention from your target audience.

In 2015, public relations won’t be just about getting your content out there to be seen,

watched, read, and shared, it’s about getting your brand name in front of an audience that

actually cares about what you have to say, and ensuring that your content will be stylistically

in line with the various platforms that it is published on. By pitching and creating content

to be featured on top industry websites to an audience that cares about what you have to

say, an established and dedicated PR team can drastically improve your website’s overall

SEO rankings, thus generating more online traffic and revenue for your business. In 2015,

this will become a required resource for businesses that are looking to drive traffic and

sales from organic search.

ENHANCED CONTENT MARKETING 6

Content marketing is information relating to your business or industry that is of interest

and beneficial to your potential and existing target audience. Great content marketing will

attract and bring your target audience back to your website and eventually lead to online

sales. More than ever before content marketing is a required part of any good online

business’ SEO plan, as businesses need to now find new ways to drive traffic and links to

their website without manually building them with black hat SEO techniques. If you aren’t

doing content marketing already, you’re missing out on tons of potential sales that could

take your online business to the next level.

CONTENT MARKETING THEME PARK

WHAT WILL INTEREST YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

ENHANCED CONTENT MARKETING 7

As online businesses begin to realize how important content marketing has become

to establishing their brand and elevating their website’s position in the SERP (search

engine result pages), more business will begin to publish more content more frequently.

As a result, the content marketing pool is growing larger and more cluttered, and it will

become increasingly difficult to reach your target audience. It is important to remember

that content marketing efforts should not rely on generic, unremarkable content, but

rather keep in mind the idea of “quality over quantity.” Instead of creating and publishing

content just for the sake of saying you’re doing “content marketing,” focus on actually

engaging and helping your target audience. For example, infographics, blog posts, and

videos should be easy to understand for users and be perused over in several minutes,

while more extensive material targeting potential clients such as whitepapers and case

studies should go into detail and provide more analytical data about your company.

In a May 2014 study, B2B buyers were divided by the amount of time they spent engaging

with different pieces of content before making a purchase. At least 30% of the buyers

interacted with infographics, blog posts, and videos for 5-10 minutes, but this same material

didn’t come close to a 20% engagement rate over 10-20 minutes. Whitepapers and case

studies, on the other hand, had engagement rates of over 30% in 10-20 minutes when

buyers were invested in researching a website’s content, while having low interaction in

the shorter time frame. Content marketing is hard to measure in terms of lead generation,

so you have to be patient with the process as well. Results will most likely not be immediate

and obvious, but by enhancing your content marketing with information that is useful,

interesting, and has a stickiness factor that brings your target audience back to your site

instead of a competitor’s, you should see an increase in online sales. If businesses commit

the time to enhance their content marketing efforts and make sure it’s done right in 2015,

they are sure to see an uptick in website traffic and online sales.

LOCATION-BASED MARKETING IS FOR REAL 8

Have you ever searched for the nearest location of a retailer, restaurant, or other brick-

and-mortar store on your smartphone? If so, you’ve used your smartphone to research

prices and read customer reviews before deciding to buy a product and take it to the

checkout counter. If you have accessed a mobile device to quickly get information in the

past year, you have demonstrated why location-based marketing will become more utilized

and continue to grow in popularity with customers and businesses in 2015.

LOCATION-BASED MARKETING IS FOR REAL 9

The “Why”

Let’s face it - smartphones and mobile devices make our lives easier when we’re on the go.

Quickly looking up product/service information and reviews, finding nearby store locations,

and comparing prices in-store are all capabilities that have evolved over the past several

years. Customers aren’t just researching your products before leaving the house- now

they are reading reviews and comparing prices while looking at the actual products in your

physical store.

The evolution of location-based marketing will continue in 2015 with beacon technology,

which allows businesses to send notifications to customers based on their current real-

time location inside their stores. The beacon platform company “Swirl” has said that the

majority of the top 100 retailers in the U.S. are already testing and implementing beacon

technology. Customers are either purchasing online or their purchases are influenced by

mobile devices even though they’re at a physical store location. In a 2014 Q3 study, 44%

of respondents said they visited a brick-and-mortar store to buy a product, but instead

purchased it online. The percentage of total U.S. in-store sales influenced by mobile

jumped from 5% at $159 billion in 2012 to 19% at $593 billion in 2013. The San Francisco

Golden State Warriors, a professional basketball team, have demonstrated the intuitive

power of beacon technology as they have implemented it for fans attending their home

games. Users who have downloaded the team’s mobile app receive a message that simply

says, “Did you know you can upgrade your seats?” when they’re on the arena’s escalators

heading towards their seats. Since they started sending the notifications, the team’s seat

upgrade revenue has increased by 69% per game. From 2014 to 2015, the number of

people who use location-based services will jump from 150 to 175 million, and location-

based marketing spending will increase from $3.1 to $4.4 billion.

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING PAYS OFF 10

The “What”

Social media has changed a lot for businesses since the days of just creating a Facebook

company page to garner likes and promote brand awareness. Social media advertising

has now become an integral piece in marketing, and an estimated 89% of companies with

100 employees or more will use social media marketing in 2015. Platforms like Facebook,

Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat aren’t just providing open-ended,

mass advertising to random users, but offering targeting capabilities that help brands

reach a specific audience that wouldn’t come across their business in other marketing

channels. Social media advertising is no longer a supplementary marketing option, and

will become a required resource for online businesses in 2015.

SOCIAL ADVERTISING AUDIENCE TARGETING

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING PAYS OFF 11

The “Why”

With very little average organic engagement on brand posts from Facebook fans at 0.073%

and Twitter followers at 0.035% in 2014, paid social media advertising is necessary for

companies wanting to reach target audiences in 2015. Social media platforms leverage

likes, follows, comments, actions, and the profile of users to find your target audience and

show them your ads. With every new update social media is becoming more customizable

for users, and platforms are doing an excellent job of finding your potential customers

while they are scrolling through their feed, checking up on friends, reading up on the latest

news, and updating their statuses.

In 2015, social network ad revenue will be at $8.76 billion and is estimated to grow to $10.64

billion by 2016. Paid social media ads are becoming more competitive as well, and to reach

your audience, you have to utilize the targeting options provided on each platform. Paid

social media ads are not meant to be used like television commercials or print ads, which

are sent out to mass audiences. A specific type of paid ad that will be instrumental on

social media in 2015 are videos. This past year, 49% of B2B marketers said they posted and

shared videos on their business’ social media platforms. Facebook alone has over 1 billion

video views per day, and this amplifies the impact that video and paid social media ads will

have on digital marketing in the coming year.

MOBILE-FIRST/RESPONSIVE DESIGN AS STANDARD 12

The “What”

As search continues to be the lead driver of traffic for the overwhelming

majority of online businesses, desktop’s dominance on organic and paid search has been

slowly waning the past few years, and in 2015 mobile will account for at least 50% of all

search. Mobile site speed, mobile functionality, and mobile SEO are now factors that will

have to be taken into consideration to generate traffic to your website. Optimizing your

digital presence with mobile as a priority will help boost your online ROI as search engine

functionality becomes streamlined and adopted by more users for mobile devices in 2015.

MOBILE-FIRST/RESPONSIVE DESIGN AS STANDARD 13

The “Why”

In 2015, it is estimated that 59.6% of mobile phone users will access and use search, and

$12.85 billion will be spent on mobile search ads- accounting for 50.1% of all projected digital

search ad spending. Studies have shown that in the retail and financial services sectors,

mobile already takes up half of all organic search. Despite this shift towards mobile, search

marketers claim that 64% of mobile sites are less effective than their desktop counterparts.

With the lack of user-friendly mobiles sites and 48% of smartphone owners researching

products through search engines instead of visiting brand websites or downloading apps,

now is an opportune time to optimize your site for mobile functionality. Some of the

essentials your website should have in 2015 is a fast load time, spaced-out, large buttons

for easy mobile navigation, and allowing quick, but password protected access to their

accounts via mobile.

A great mobile experience not only leads to increased and faster online sales with happy

customers, they will also remember how easy it was to use your mobile site and come

back for future business. Having a prolonged load time, small, hard-to-click buttons,

and jumbled design elements will force users to immediately leave your site and go to a

competitors’ as users will be much less patient in 2015 when on mobile. Whether they are

using their favorite handheld device to find a local business, look up a business’ phone

number, purchase or review a product, or login to a personalized account, make sure that

this year your mobile site ranks well via search and that you provide users with an intuitive

and fast mobile experience.

RLSA AND RETARGETING ON MORE PLATFORMS 14

The “What”

RLSA is Remarketing Lists for Search Ads, which shows users ads who have already visited

and exited your site while they’re still on search engines and typing in your targeted list

of industry keywords. RLSA ads are effective because of their higher click-through-rates

and lower cost-per-click, but retargeting ads on social, display, mobile, and video channels

are also prevalent and more efficient than other pay-per-click ad campaigns. RLSA and

retargeting ads will continue to gain traction as marketers realize the science behind

converting users who have already visit their sites vs. first time users, and they will be used

by more online businesses in 2015.

Welcome back and thanks for

your purchase!

RLSA AND RETARGETING ON MORE PLATFORMS 15

The “Why”

Has there ever been an instance where you searched for a product or service you needed

and bought from the first site you visited from your search results? Google says that 49%

of customers now visit 2 to 4 sites before making a purchase, and 96% of shoppers won’t

buy anything as a first time visitor to a site. This is where RLSA and retargeting ads come

into play because the more times you can bring a potential customer back to your site

while they are still on search engines or online elsewhere, the better chance you have of

them making a purchase from you instead of your competitors.

Compared to other PPC (Pay Per Click) ad campaigns, retargeting ads generally enjoy lower

CPCs (Cost Per Clicks) with higher CTRs (Click Through Rates), but RLSA (Remarketing Lists

for Search Ads) campaigns provide even better results. Marin Software released their clients’

retargeting campaign data from April to June 2014 and the results showed that Google

RLSA campaigns had up to 3 times higher click-through rates at a lower cost per click than

other non-RLSA campaigns for the entire quarter-long period. Retargeting ads can be an

effective PPC option as well, and worth the investment when spread out across multiple

platforms, as evidenced in a study that found that marketers who implemented Facebook

and display retargeting ads simultaneously had much higher CTRs than when only one of

the campaigns was running. Marketers who take advantage of RLSA and retargeting ads in

2015 should also constantly update their campaign keywords and audience segmentation

groups over multiple platforms, which will lead to increased exposure and brand awareness

amongst potential customers. These ads have always showed tremendous opportunities

for exposure and growth, but 2015 will be the year that the gap between intelligently-run

RLSA and retargeting campaigns and traditional search engine marketing campaigns will

be apparent in online sales numbers.

THE RISE OF FACEBOOK VIDEO ADVERTISING 16

The “What”

A study by Cisco predicted that by 2018, global consumer internet traffic will be 80% to 90%

video. While YouTube is still the most popular digital video player in the U.S., Facebook is

second and surprisingly beating out other reputable platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo,

Instagram, and Vine. Because of its native video player, autoplay feature, and targeting

capabilities, 2015 will be the year that marketers invest in Facebook video advertising as a

major channel to share branded video content.

THE RISE OF FACEBOOK VIDEO ADVERTISING 17

The “Why”

Content marketing has transitioned from text-heavy to image-based content and now is

moving towards video-centric content. Digital video ad spending is expected to be at $7.77

billion in 2015, which is a 30.4% increase from 2014. Among video ad platforms, Facebook

video advertising is expected to increase significantly in 2015 due to examples like the ALS

Ice Bucket Challenge videos that exploded on Facebook between June 1 to September 1 last

year. In that 3 month span, 17 million ALS Challenge videos were uploaded on Facebook,

and they were viewed more than 10 billion times by 440 million Facebook users. These

videos were not ads, but they did demonstrate the capabilities and native video simplicity

of commenting and sharing on Facebook compared to YouTube. Video advertisements on

YouTube are previews of videos, are mostly regarded as a nuisance for users, and some

can even be skipped in 5 seconds.

If a user wants to share a YouTube video, they must copy and paste the link onto their

various social media platforms. On the other hand, Facebook video advertisements are

native and already present on the platform, can be either set to autoplay as users scroll

through their News Feed (giving them a quick preview of the video), or require the user

to click on the video to watch it based on pricing options (CPM vs. CPC). There is no need

to go through a 3rd party video platform to like, comment, or share an interesting video.

Like its other advertising options, Facebook also allows specific audience targeting for its

video ads, so branded video content can be displayed to users who are more likely to

engage. The RBC Financial Group has estimated that Facebook could potentially make

$700 million in 2015 with just autoplay native video ads. Other social media platforms

such as Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat will also take steps towards enhancing their video

advertising for businesses in the coming year, but 2015 will be marked by the sudden

impact that Facebook will have on digital video advertisements.

QR CODES WILL BECOME IRRELEVANT 18

The “What”

QR codes were supposed to be the next big thing in marketing several years back, but

they seemed to have never taken off. A 2013 “comScore” report found that since 2012,

the number of users who have scanned a QR code has leveled off despite the continual

increase of smartphone users in the past few years. Have you ever scanned a QR code or

know someone who has? They’re in magazines, on street-level print ads, in the subway,

and a myriad of other places if you pay close attention, but hardly ever used.

RIP QR Code 1994-2015

QR CODES WILL BECOME IRRELEVANT 19

The “Why”

There are several different reasons why QR codes never achieved the levels of popularity

they were supposed to when they were first implemented in advertising. One big reason

is that QR codes were misplaced in areas such as underground subway stations with no

WiFi and limited connectivity, in 15 second television commercials that gave viewers no

time to scan QR codes, and on print ads in the middle of busy, congested streets where

taking out your smartphone to snap a picture of a QR code is not a good idea. Another

reason is that brands who did implement QR codes did not properly link them to their

mobile sites, so users who would actually take the effort to scan a QR code were directed

to pages that wouldn’t load or landing pages that weren’t optimized for mobile. Photo

and video centered social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, or Pinterest that

could’ve invested in QR codes haven’t up to now, and users are much more likely instead,

to regram, repin, or retweet a branded hashtag for a coupon or offer instead of scanning

a QR code. Even when researching statistical data for QR codes for this whitepaper, nearly

all of the studies weren’t from 2014 or 2013, but from 2012. QR codes have plateaued and

in 2015 will become irrelevant.

DIGITAL MARKETING CLASSES AT UNIVERSITIES 20

The “What”

Some for-profit and online universities are already offering digital marketing classes, and

digital marketing is rapidly expanding in many different business verticals. The proof lies

in the 25 Hottest Skills of 2014 on LinkedIn, which included SEO at #5 and Online/Digital

Marketing at #16. Businesses large and small have begun to realize the importance of

creating and maintaining an online brand presence, and 2015 is the year that traditional

universities will begin to roll out accredited college courses on digital marketing.

DIGITAL MARKETING CLASSES AT UNIVERSITIES 21

Digital marketing is a constantly changing landscape, but traditional universities can

still cover and teach the preliminaries and basics. Remember, we’re not talking about

an SEO or Digital Marketing degree. We’re just predicting a few additional classes that

could supplement the most popular degrees of online marketers such as Public Relations,

Creative Writing, Communications, and Journalism. Traditional universities could tout

themselves as being innovators by offering digital marketing classes that educated the

next generation of advertisers and marketers, and students who have a desire to work

in these fields could enroll in these classes. Even in the last year here at Blue Fountain

Media, we have had reputable universities from all over the country bring their students to

our offices because they were interested in learning about digital marketing as a possible

career choice.

DIGITAL MARKETING CLASSES AT UNIVERSITIES 22

SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROVIDE ECOMMERCE REVENUE 22

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram have all developed ecommerce alternatives

for businesses and retailers to offer products and services directly from their respective

platforms. These social platforms have been a source of influencing or driving online sales

for brand sites for the past few years, but 2015 will be the year that businesses finally

figure out how to effectively convert traffic directly on their social media profiles.

SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROVIDE ECOMMERCE REVENUE 23

2014 was the year that social media platforms started rolling out ecommerce solutions such

as Facebook’s Shopify, Instagram’s experimentation with Like2Buy, Pinterest’s Promoted

Pins, and Twitter’s “Buy It Now” Button. This coming year we will slowly see the results of

these social ecommerce campaigns. The 2015 forecast shows that 89.0% of companies

will use social media marketing, and that there will be a 26.6% increase in overall social

media advertising revenue at $8.76 billion. The old adage says that “throwing money at the

problem won’t solve it”, but when it’s this much money that is being poured into expanding

the capabilities of social media into a source of online sales, marketers and brands will

test and experiment different layouts, strategies, and tactics. Nonetheless, there will be

challenges, as a 2014 Q1 study showed that social media only generated 1% of all online

orders for ecommerce sites, and 43% of retailers said that less than 1% of their ecommerce

traffic came from their social profiles. What offsets these discouraging numbers, however

is that this isn’t social media’s first try at creating ecommerce platforms.

Have you ever heard of F-commerce (Facebook) and #AmazonCart (Twitter)? Those were

Facebook and Twitter’s first attempts at social ecommerce that never really quite caught

on. Promoted Pins is not an ecommerce alternative, but beta tests showed real signs of

promise in creating brand awareness and visibility for brands on Pinterest. Instagram also

has taken initiative with their Like2Buy link that takes users directly to product landing

pages, and has the most potential as an ecommerce platform because of the highest brand

engagement rate on social media (4.21% compared to Facebook, 0.07%, and Twitter, 0.03%),

coupled with its 300 million users and counting. Even if social media doesn’t transform

into a major channel of online sales for businesses, it will become more integrated and

influential in driving online traffic towards brand sites in 2015.

MARKETING AUTOMATION IS A MUST 24

The actual term, “marketing automation”, has been overused and its concept misunderstood

since it started trending in 2013, but businesses who are able to build and run a successful

marketing automation program will be able to not only generate more leads from satisfied

customers, they will be able to turn them into repeat loyal customers. Marketing automation

consists of software platforms that caters to the individual needs of users when interacting

with an online business by segmenting and presenting them with personalized messaging

that can lead them on a faster path towards a conversion while being more efficient for

your business model. In 2014, marketing automation’s adoption rate soared to 52% among

B2B marketers. Among marketing automation’s many features, email personalization is

the most vital in converting a target audience into actual, long term customers.

MARKETING AUTOMATION IS A MUST 25

Marketing automation helps break down users into different list segmentations and

creates a personalized experience for them based on their demographic, how they

entered your site, and how much they interact or engage with your website. Too often in

the past, online businesses put their customers in a factory line, running them through

their offers and promotions, hoping to get lucky and make a sale. Promotional emails

and ads were mass sent to potential consumers based on just age and gender groups.

YOU’ VE GOT

(MARKET-

AUTOMATED,

PERSONALIZED) MAIL!

MARKETING AUTOMATION IS A MUST 26

Today’s consumer is much more wary of the advertisements and offers that they are

constantly bombarded with when they are online or checking their email. They will

blatantly ignore emails (or mark them as spam!) from businesses that email them everyday

announcing a new sale. Consumers appreciate personalized emails that actually reflect

the actions they took when visiting a site. 80% of email users have said that they find it

useful and don’t mind a business sending emails featuring relevant products based on

their previous purchases. 71% of them also said they find it useful when an email features

recommended products based on what they’ve looked at online, but have not yet purchased.

Another form of personalized emails is trigger emails that send out when a users

abandons their shopping cart with products in it, send confirmation of a transaction,

thank users for their purchase and ask for feedback, or welcome them when they

create an account or sign up for emails. A 2014 Q3 study found that these trigger

emails had a 52.9% higher open rate and a 147.2% higher CTR than general email

campaigns. Proper market automation to create a personal online experience for

your users will be essential in 2015, and email personalization could be the difference

between forming a bond with a lifetime customer or losing them to your competitors.

GOOGLE’S ALGORITHMS WILL SECRETLY UPDATE 27

2014 saw some major Google algorithm changes with Panda 4.0 and 4.1, Penguin 3.0,

and the introduction of Pigeon. Unlike previous years, Google seems to be set with the

major updates they made in 2014 going forward, and rolling-out only monthly, minor

changes. In 2015, Google will not have major announced updates like they did in 2014, but

their continual changes will encourage digital marketers to employ best practices while

maintaining an online presence.

GOOGLE’S ALGORITHMS WILL SECRETLY UPDATE 28

Online businesses still get the majority of their traffic from organic search results, and

Google is the most popular search engine in the world. Its search engine accounts for 93%

of organic search traffic to websites around the world, so if your website does not rank

well in Google’s SERPs, it’s hard to expect any sort of online revenue for your business.

There are black-hat SEO techniques that can quickly boost your organic search rankings

such as keyword stuffing, having duplicate content, and buying external links, but Google’s

algorithm updates have come down hard on websites not employing best practices.

Panda 4.1 rolled out in September 2014 to penalize websites that had “thin”, duplicate, or

machine-generated content, and rewarded websites that published useful and informative

content that could help users. The sites that were hit the hardest from Panda 4.1 saw

their organic SEO visibility drop between 68% to 79%, and sites with great content that

experienced the highest elevated SEO visibility saw a 218% to 1,353% increase. Besides

being negatively affected by major updates, websites that use black-hat SEO techniques

can be discovered and punished by Google’s internal spam team with a manual penalty

and literally disappear from Google’s search engine. Coming back from a manual penalty

is a painstakingly long process and takes weeks, if not months to recover from. It is your

responsibility to maintain your website with proper link-building techniques, publishing

unique, interesting, and informative content, and keeping up-to-date with the trends and

keywords of your industry. Even though we predict that 2015 won’t have as many major

algorithm updates as last year, it is important to remember that Google makes about 500-

600 algorithm changes to their search engine every year. The best online brands in

2015 won’t have major site overhauls, but they will be constantly working to improve their

website- not just for users but for Google as well.

READABILITY TO BECOME A RANKING FACTOR 29

Readability is already a factor in Google’s search algorithm in

determining where your content will rank in SERPs. Besides reading level and

syntactical structure of your copy, readability also includes formatting and typography,

as well as a measure of how well users can read your blog posts or articles on their

desktop and mobile devices from a visual perspective. Google’s search algorithm and crawl

robots have become much smarter in the past several years at ranking pages. Instead of

providing results based on just exact match, Google is actually reading your copy and has

put an emphasis on delivering results that are semantically related to a user’s query. In

2015, simply producing content with several links and keywords won’t be enough to

achieve top keyword rankings, and readability will become a bigger factor in how Google

and other search engines rank your content.

READABILITY TO BECOME A RANKING FACTOR 39

Producing content on a consistent basis that is uniquely sound and of interest to your

target demographic can be a chore when you’re already working hard to maintain a SEO-

friendly website. Due to pressure and time-constraints, in the past some webmasters

were lazy or rushed through the process of publishing their material. They adhered to

ranking factors that didn’t focus on the actual written value of their content, like including

valuable links, having relevant keywords, and optimizing title tags. Their articles or blog

posts, though poor in quality, ranked well and drove a significant amount of organic traffic

to their website. Google has caught on to this, and has altered its search algorithm to

actually read copy and even has added an advanced crawl feature that categorizes content

based on reading levels of basic, intermediate, and advanced. The mission of Google and

other search engines isn’t to present users with results that have the most links, or best

optimized keywords or titles, but to provide results that will best answer the question of a

user’s inquiry.

Readability has two aspects that must be considered when writing copy: language style and

formatting. Your copy should be written in a style and manner intended for your target

audience, not for search engines. Don’t patronize them by writing something that is overly

technical, but remember to establish yourself as a credible source without sounding too

elementary. Besides syntax and reading level, format your copy with a font that is legible,

paragraphs or lists that make sense, and make sure that your content can be read and

browsed over easily not just on desktop, but on mobile too, as about half of all organic

searches this year will be on mobile devices. In 2015, expect to see a shift in how search

engines rank content with a heavy focus on readability, and if you are willing to put the

extra effort into your website’s copy, your business and users will both benefit.

SCHEMA WILL BECOME VITAL FOR SEO 31

Schema is code that you can tag your existing HTML code with to improve how your web

pages will appear in major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. By tagging your

HTML with schema markup, your webpage will appear in SERPs with rich snippets, which

consist of additional text or images that appear below or next to your search result. While

Google does not factor schema markup for search rankings, websites that have rich

snippets in SERPs tend to have a higher click-through rate than those that don’t have any

additional text. Schema is still a relatively new and underutilized SEO practice, but in 2015

schema markup will play a vital role in organic search.

SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE RANKINGS

SCHEMA

OTHER RESULTS

NO SCHEMA

SCHEMA WILL BECOME VITAL FOR SEO 32

You probably have already seen the most common types of rich snippets when doing your

own searches in the form of publication dates, reviews, and ratings that appear below

the page title. Schema can also enhance data markup for authors, products, businesses,

events, images, videos, and hundreds of other categories and make them more prominent

in SERPs with rich snippets. Search engine crawl bots index your pages, but when you mark

up your HTML with schema, it tells search engines exactly what your content is, which can

be particularly helpful for things that bots have trouble understanding like images, news

stories, and ratings. This leads to a more prominent display of information and more real-

estate for your brand in SERPs. By intelligently displaying your content to users who are

searching for related topics, search engines are giving your site an enhanced page result

with rich snippets that look more official and professional.

A 2014 study found that only 1% of the sites researched had tagged their HTML with schema,

but nearly 41% of search engine results had rich snippets that were from schema markup.

In 2015 webmasters should begin to take notice of the advantage they can gain over their

competition by implementing schema markup in their HTML, and even though there are

no studies out (yet) that prove that schema markup boosts your site’s rankings, there is

a correlation with sites that have schema in their HTML and having higher placements

in SERPs. This year will be the official arrival of schema as essential in maintaining and

elevating a website’s overall SEO, and and might join Google’s list of ranking factors in its

search algorithm.

LINKS WILL COME FROM CONTENT MARKETING 33

Last year, Google rolled out its Penguin 3.0 update in October that targeted and punished

sites that were incorporating black-hat link tactics like buying links, link building through

guest blogging, and linking to numerous sites with low domain authority that are not

relevant to your industry. Link relevancy is an important ranking factor in Google’s search

engine algorithm, and 2015 will be the beginning of a transition from traditional link

building tactics to a more widespread adoption of earning authentic, relevant, and natural

links through effective and share-worthy content marketing.

LINKS WILL COME FROM CONTENT MARKETING 34

The natural process of linking is to find content that one deems as valuable, and to share

it on their own site. This was Google’s initial intention when it made the number of a

site’s inbound links a key ranking factor in its search algorithm. Website owners began to

manipulate the algorithm’s ability to judge link equity however, by purchasing hundreds

of links, link-swapping with other random sites, or link building through guest blogging.

Fast forward to 2014 when Google’s Penguin 3.0 update rolled out, and there have been

efforts by Google since then to enforce new link-building tactics, commonly known as “link-

earning”.

Comprising and earning links for your website is now becoming more about the quality of

your links, rather than the number of links you actually have. The best way to earn links from

other highly authoritative websites in 2015 will be through engaging and influential content

marketing. Producing and creating “great content” will not only generate online sales over

time, it will also cause users and webmasters from other reputable sites in your industry

to link to your website more frequently. With consistent content marketing that earns

your site well-deserved links, you will be ranked high for various and important relevant

keywords in your business. Google has always encouraged content that is beneficial to

users and urged them to link to useful websites, and 2015 will be the year that webmasters

understand this and have an increased focus on enhancing their content marketing to

earn more natural and authentic links.

CONCLUSION 35

2015 will be an exciting time for marketers to learn and build off of their digital marketing

experience from the past year. We here at Blue Fountain Media have taken what we have

learned in 2014 to present you with what we believe will be the most groundbreaking and

resourceful digital trends that will come to fruition in 2015. While some trends like enhanced

content marketing and mobile responsive design as a standard are relatively predictable,

other trends that we think will be big this year such as Facebook video advertising and link

earning through content marketing are educated guesses we have come up with based on

our research, knowledge, and expertise. It is not likely that we will get all of the 15 digital

trends of 2015 right, but we sincerely hope that you find this whitepaper helpful in creating

and maintaining a digital presence for your website that will take your brand or business to

the next level. Good luck, check out our other whitepapers, and look out for the 16 Digital

Trends of 2016 next year!

Get in touch with our Marketing experts to see How we can help your marketing efforts.

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