I’ll mention again one important takeaway from that discussion for brands that are trying to define how technical and creative teams can work together: Uncover all the roles and skill sets on the digital marketing team, and discover where overlap and cross-training opportunities exist for creative folks to learn SEO, and SEO folks to learn creative.
For more insights on creating value through your content in 2015, I would recommend reading this recent article over on Marketing Land.
3. Make Mobile SEO A Priority
We’ve been hearing about it for years: Websites and brands should have a mobile marketing strategy. In 2015, it’s safe to say that the year of mobile is well upon us.
In fact, mobile has surpassed desktop in digital media time spent by device, according to comScore:
May [2014] turned out to be a banner month for mobile as it delivered on some huge milestones which underscored just how impressive the medium’s ascendance has been in the past few years. Mobile platforms – smartphones and tablets – combined to account for 60% of total digital media time spent, up from 50% a year ago.
When it comes to search engine optimization, creating a mobile site should be at the core of any solid SEO plan in 2015. But be careful in your configuration — research from BrightEdge last year found that mobile configuration errors resulted in a 68 percent loss in smartphone traffic on average.
And even though Google recommends a responsive design, you may find that a hybrid approach suits you best for your marketing needs.
And remember that whichever route you choose, Google wants sites to render above-the-fold content in under one second. Slow sites could negatively impact mobile rankings.
4. Find Measurement & Reporting That Works
While the research studies we read on the impact of organic search are important for gauging how we’re doing as an industry, we still struggle as brands and marketers to measure results, quantify our efforts, and continue to prove our position for SEO budgets.
Even back in 2013, we were talking about the need for marketers with analytics skills. And in fact, according to the CMOSurvey.org, 44 percent of survey respondents said they lacked the metrics to demonstrate the impact of marketing in 2014.
This sentiment was echoed in an Adobe survey in 2014 that showed 49 percent of marketers used intuition, not data, when thinking about where to invest marketing spend.
Reporting does not have to become increasingly complex. In 2015, SEOs should focus on simplifying their data sources and work to uncover the right information via structured data sources.
That means identifying the KPIs that truly matter to prove marketing efforts (those that impact the business), and obtaining the technology that can pull multiple data sources into one platform to provide real insights in performance.
5. Integrate SEO Data Across Teams
Don’t forget that the SEO practitioner or team is working towards some of the same goals as other teams are. When these various marketing teams share their learnings and work in tandem for cross-channel marketing, the concerted effort can be much stronger than when performed alone.
Take SEO and PPC as one example of two channels that have a symbiotic relationship. SEO data can inform PPC, and vice versa. Reports from Google, Kenshoo and others show just how much organic and paid search can impact one another’s success.
In 2015, are there ways you can share your SEO data with other teams to create a concerted effort in your marketing campaigns?
Making Small Steps Toward Mastery
The old saying that “life is a journey, not a destination” can also be applied to SEO.
Search engine optimization should be a part of a website for its lifetime, continuously improving its a
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