Regardless of who we talk to, whether they’re based right here in Melbourne or elsewhere - working for an agency or flying solo - it seems as though everyone has this question on their lips: what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) trends do I need to be on top of in 2017?

Consider this: according to research conducted by BrightEdge, 51 per cent of traffic to websites is generated by organic search. Another 10 per cent comes from paid search. In other words, just over 60 per cent of the traffic flowing through to your site, is coming from search engine results pages (SERPs) alone. Clearly, these stats are significant and everyone in the SEO world, from a small agency to a solopreneur researching what they can achieve on a budget, needs to be aware of this.

With this in mind, we’ve put together the below information as a bit of a guide for you to follow as you search.

User experience

We keep on pointing this out because it’s really important - people are more time poor than ever. It’s a statement that applies to everyone, everywhere: whether people are living in Melbourne or sunny California. So when it comes to your website, speed matters. If your site is too slow to load, you’re likely to register a really high bounce rate. When your customers bounce quickly, you can’t win because they’ve basically left your site without doing anything (for instance, making a purchase or signing up to receive your regular e-newsletter).

If you’re concerned about your site’s speed, we highly recommend performing a static content spring clean. This involves you reviewing any images on your site that are too large to load quickly and replacing them with smaller pictures. You might also need to consider a CDN (Content Distribution Network) as this facilitates the quick delivery of static content to your site. The end result: page loading times are dramatically decreased. Another recommendation would be to consider using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). These are pages specifically for mobile static content, allowing for quicker loading times for static pages. Blogs and news articles are just a couple of examples of what we call static pages.

Targeting a fragmented customer journey

The online space allows users to land on your web page via different funnels including Pay Through Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation. When we look at Google, we can see that four paid advertisements appear above and before any organic search results. Have a good think about using both channels to maximise user reach so that you’re catering for each customer journey.

Think about powerful micro-moments

Most of us jump onto our mobile phone, tablet or computer to act on a thought. We could find ourselves on a search for almost anything. We might be looking to learn the answer to a specific question, check out what the weather is going to be that day or for the next week, watch videos in an attempt to learn something new or just enjoy some downtime listening to music online. Each of these micro-moments, involves us making decisions. They’re powerful opportunities for you to connect with your target market so have a good think about how your business can capitalise on these precious seconds when decisions are made. If you’re keen to learn more about micro-moments, here’s a complete guide that covers strategies, insights as well as customer examples.

At Woven, we pride ourselves on the fact that we’re not your average digital agency. We’re invested in your needs and your overall business goals. Most importantly, we’re always evolving so that we’re increasingly benefitting our clients. For those who may be interested, we now offer CDN services on all Avenue websites (please get in touch with us if you don’t know what that means).

If you want to learn more and be more pro-active in 2017, contact us so that we can discuss your digital roadmap for this year and beyond. Secure your place in a Woven digital marketing workshop today! We look forward to seeing you there and connecting.