Welcome to this week's MIND your business podcast, brought to you by the MINDs at MIND Development and Design and our friends at Fresh Roasted Hosting.  We are here to educate you and empower you and Schoolhouse Rock you with regard to your business website and getting the most out of it.  If you have questions about web development, design, SEO, content marketing, PPC, social media and what it all means to your business, please hit us up on Facebook with your questions, email us at info@minddnd.com or just hit that big beautiful and irresitibly enticing "Ask A Question" button to your right on our website.

Just FYI...we're taking Christmas Day, next Thursday, off and will return on NEW YEARS DAY with some podcast freshness to start off your new year.   Our social media swami is going to be back and discussing some social media strategy with you for 2015.  Engagement...activity...socialization...

Last week I said something that I'm going to repeat...NOT because I like repeating myself.  NOT because I think I'm insuffrably profound.    It's simply the simple truth that we want to have ingrained in your membrane...ingrained your brain.    ENGAGEMENT is the word, ladies and gentlemen...you want to know the biggest evolution in getting your website found by the search engines, particularly Google, in 2015?  The latest and greatest evolution is Engagement!   We have finally come full circle, folks...and well we should have.

Keywords are still important...always will be.  Heck, how ELSE are you going to give the search engines a clue as to what your website and your business are all about?  You must have the proper foundation laid in order to get the most out of your engagement.

It's a foregone conclusion that you should be blogging every Tuesday and Thursday...religiously...to build your following, build trust and, therefore create engagement.  If you're not doing this, then start!  I've been harping on this since the beginning of time....ok, I'm not really that old, but you get the idea.

Now, as promised, we're going to tell you 5 of the most important SEO trends to be aware of and take action on in 2015...


5)  I'm going to say it one more time...Engagement!!!   Engagement is a GOOD thing...I got engaged to the love of my life 2 years ago and we were married a year and a half ago.  See?  Engagement can turn out good!   The loves of your business life are waiting to interact with you on social media and your ONSITE (hint hint)...onsite blog.

Give them information they can use...information that they can REALLY use.  If you're a home builder, don't just focus on immediate home building topics.  Focus on some home improvement topics for the everyman on your blog, as well.  This allows you to reach that part of your audience who aren't on the market for a custom home YET...but they will be in a few years time.  Cultivation through engagement.    Your blog is your opportunity to show your audience your knowledge and that they can count on YOU for answers to their burning questions.

If you're a health care provider, give information on common health issues...like the common cold, for instance, or bronchitis or whatever.   Give information on what people can do to lessen their chances of getting sick.   Yeah, I know...you have to be careful what information you give, depending on your area of business, but use discretion and give visitors to your website some good information they can leave with...good information that builds trust and gives them a reason to come back.

2)   Diversification of signals!   Hey, once upon a time black hat SEOs ruled the roost with their cleverly placed white text on a white background or black text on a black background that masked the worst cases of keyword stuffing known to man.  That, dear friends, is the root of why we have to jump through the hoops we have to jump through today.

It's gone beyond keyword stuffing.  Businesses are paying people (sometimes their own employees) to spam tripadvisor.com, urbanspoon.com...even Google business listings with 5 star reviews.  I'm sorry...this just shows how stupid the human condition can truly be.   I don't know about you...but if I have a need and I find a business that has NOTHING but 5 star reviews, I get suspicious anymore.  We're human beings, people...we're inherently imperfect.  This is the kind of doubt that the search engines have to translate into an algorithm.

Think about it for a moment...Google and all the search engines have learned that they can't entirely trust keyword usage.   They can't entirely trust the validity of links.  They can't entirely trust the validity of online reviews.

You name the method and it's been spammed.   The search engines know that they have to factor all of these things into the equation, but more and more all elements are being weighed the same.  Make sure you're not overemphasizing any one area.   Onsite optimization, engagement through content, social media activity, proper linking...they're all being weighed the same each year...make sure you are giving proper care to all areas.

3)  Negative SEO.   The very mention of this just chaps my hide.  The search engines are constantly fighting to find new ways to deal with negative SEO and it is none too easy of a task.   Negative SEO takes on many shapes and forms...all of them ugly.   It ranges from hacking a website and injecting spam to making multiple duplicate copies of a competitor's website to buying a bunch of spam links to a competitor's website.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen.  You heard me right.  This is stupid, this is juvenile, this is completely unethical, and yet...this is done every day.  Hell, the schoolyard bully has to grow up and do something for a living...so he or she grows up and does their best to ruin it for the rest of us.

Now, I'm not giving you these examples to scare you.  I just want to make you aware of the reality of it.  I hope it doesn't happen to you, but...it happens.  Make sure you're staying on top of your traffic and rankings in Analytics and Webmaster Tools and that you're periodically checking on your inbound site links.  Anything fishy...research it or have your SEO research it.

When we come back, the last two pieces of the 2015 SEO puzzle are Mo-BILE!

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And we're BACK on the MIND Your Business podcast, talking about the 2015 SEO trends you should be aware of and planning for so you and your business can be seen by more people than ever.

We've discussed engagement, we've discussed diversification of various SEO signals and we've talked about...ugh...negative SEO.   What about apps?

Yep, 

2) App SEO.   If you don't have an app for your business, now is the time to be planning for one.  How simple or involved it is...that's entirely up to you, but APP SEO is a growing market.   Do you have an app for your business?   If you don't, think for a minute what kind of business you have.

If you're a restaurant, that's easy...you need an app people can download where they can easily scan your menu and make an order.  If you're, say, a concrete plant dealer...that wouldn't be quite as easy of a proposition on the surface.  However...think about it.  What kinds of concrete plants are there?  What needs does each of these plants serve?  What questions do you need to ask to determine the client's needs and, therefore, make a recommendation?   I don't mean to oversimplify, but this is the path you should be going down with your business to determine what kind of app would make sense.

Hey, mobile search is becoming more and more prominent and you need to make your products and services easily accessible to those people who are on the go.  It's not going to change...it's only going to intensify.   Get your IT, marketing, SEO and social teams together and brainstorm to determine what kind of app would be best for your business and make it happen in 2015.

Which brings us to #1!

Mobile search is becoming more and more prominent and more and more important to the success of your business.

Think about what happened in 2014.  Google removed the ego gratifying Google Authorship photos from the SERPs.  Many people were really mad about this...and in a way I can't blame them.  So many good writers have toiled in obscurity for years....THEN they were able to get published online, create a portfolio and...WOW...their picture magically appears next to their articles in the SERPs...just like the newspaper and online column writers have had for years.

Then Google took it away.   That wasn't random, believe me.   Google authorship photos were removed because they slowed down mobile search, plain and simple.  Mobile traffic is higher than ever, so the search engines are doing what they have to do to create the best mobile search experience.

Removing these pictures was inevitable.   Now is the time to take stock of your whole site and make sure it shows up properly on mobile devices...and that it loads with acceptable speed.  Remember...Google will have a mobile phone icon with a slash through it next to your listing in mobile search if your website isn't properly set up for mobile.

And let's not forget Pigeon...that update that went unnoticed by many of you this past summer.  Google did an update that was dubbed "Pigeon" by SEO's this past summer that was one of the largest algorithm updates in their history.  But you wouldn't know it because there was little, if any, hype around it since it didn't target spammers.

What it did, however, is make mobile search more granular and intuitive.  There's a REASON our phones have GPS's in them, folks.  There's a reason that different apps want to use our location.  If you're tooling around in your Yugo in Lancaster, PA, for example and you're looking for a smorgasboard in the area....hey, it's Pennsylvania Dutch country...we KNOW our smorgasboards......anyway, you can just do a search for "smorgasboards" in your smartphone and you'll get a plethora of local listings.  You don't have to type in "smorgasboards lancaster pa"......just type in "smorgasboards" and Big Brother will locate you through your phone and give you your choices within that area.

Make sure your website is up to snuff with loading speed and that it's responsive so it shows up properly on mobile devices.  Make sure you have your business name, type of business, location and specific address annotated with schema so you can show up in these searches.

Engagement is the word for 2015, and engagement takes on all types of shapes and forms....many of them are momentary for people on the go.

Thank you for tuning into this week's MIND Your Business podcast, presented by the minds at MIND Development and Design...and our good friends over at Fresh Roasted Hosting...another good PA company that we LOVE!   We're taking next week off and we'll see you again on New Year's Day!  I'll be here with our social media swami Kris Bradley...it's gonna be fun!  Send us your questions on Facebook, on our Ask A Question page on the website or email us...info@minddnd.com.  Thank you for a GREAT 2014...we'll see you on New Year's Day!