2012 has been an eye opening year for many SEO’s. Google and Bing have taken giant leaps into ensuring better quality results for their users. Almost every day I have read some post where some low grade link builder has been moaning about the Google algorithms making there life harder. Well don’t blame the game, blame the players. The fact is, those who have been providing there clients with a quality product and thought provoking, insightful content have seen there efforts rewarded.
Just about everybody involved in SEO will have a slightly different take on where SEO is heading in 2013 and how they will be dealing with it. The truth is, we don’t know for sure which way Google will be turning next, but, we can make educated guesses. The fact is we do know what they want from us right now and this will not change dramatically in 2013. In fact, there quest for quality will probably just get stronger.
Think About Google And Bing In A Whole New Light
If you were to ask many SEO’s what there purpose is then you would still get a large amount of them who would declare it is all about the rankings and serp positions. Well, we would disagree. Now don’t get me wrong, rankings have a lot to do with our job, but the fact is what is really important is increasing our clients bottom line and doing this by whatever means possible. As an SEO agency we are about marketing a business as a whole and not just focusing on a few keyword rankings within the Search Engines.
We try to send representatives to all major SEO conferences around the world. We learn a great deal from some great minds in this industry. One which we believe emphasises what we should all be doing is Wil Reynolds from Seer Interactive who gave an excellent talk at MozCon 2012 on how SEO Agencies should be doing RCS (Real Company er, Stuff 
). It might sound crude, but everything that was said is so very true. We should not just be focusing on the rankings but more about actually ‘listening’ to the target audience and giving them the answer to the real problems that they are looking for.
Of course, we want to try and get our clients to the top of the search engines, but we want to do this through creating content that has a real worth and will transform our clients into the must visit resource for there target audience. This way you build up a reputation in your industry and trust us, trade follows. Why, because today’s largest companies lead by reputation. Below is a video by Wil Reynolds explaining exactly what RCS is and why we at Ministry Of Search have fully adopted this methodology.
Without going too much further into the details of what RCS really entails we should all understand that it is all about us changing the way we think about the search engines. We should stop thinking about ways to manipulate them but rather give them what they want and they will reward us for this.
Think Bigger And Better
In order to progress your website and in turn your business you need to be thinking bigger and better all of the time. When you think of a quality SEO campaign you think of websites that are crammed full of useful content. I don’t mean a blog that is updated every so often but a website that is filled to the brim with content that is providing real useful information to the target audience.
Even if your website currently only has a few pages you need to start thinking bigger and better for 2013. Content is what Google wants, it’s what you need and its what you need to start producing. No quality content doesn’t come cheap, there is always a cost, whether it be monetary or time. But, investment is essential for any business to succeed and have any form of longevity.
The content needs to be well written and fully optimised. If an SEO agency is not writing the content for you then you need to make sure that your copywriters are able to optimise there writing styles for your target keywords and audience. Start focusing on bring brand new content to your website and as you publish more and share more then your company ‘fan base’ will continue to grow.
Make 2013 Your Online Brand Building Year
Promoting your business online is all about the brand building. You will always find that large bluechip companies ranking for competitive search terms but how do these smaller companies compete with this? Well, they dominate there niches through fantastic communication and content. In short they have made a distinct effort to build there online brand. As time progresses and with the coming of age of Social Media it is becoming more and more important to converse with your target market. Many companies now take this so seriously that they employ people to specifically to do this as it is a time consuming task.
The main aims for the content should be that it is fresh and regularly updated, keyword optimised, link worthy (other people would like it so much they would link to it) and Social Media Worthy (people think its great and they want to share it). Of course, everything that you produce does not nessasarily need to be a link worthy masterpiece but the information produced should always be of value to someone, not matter how small the group. This is far more important that just pushing out page after page of below average content.
Ensure Your Pages Are Targeting A Keyword
From an SEO perspective, if you have not optimised your pages for the search terms that people are actually looking, even for search terms that are highly specific (the long tail) then you are missing a chance to drive highly relevant traffic to your website.
Of course you may sometimes find that you have some great content that you cannot really match to a relevant keyword. However, this does not mean that you should not publish it. In fact they can be just as valuable as it helps to build your brand and site authority in your market.
Content That Is Worthy Of A Social Media Share
Social media has proved its worth in 2012 and is sure to prove even more valuable in 2013. It takes as a while to perfect the art of summarising your article in 100 characters whilst adding in a traceable shortened link while still enticing people to want to click through to the article.
Social Media for SEO needs to be incorporated with a strategy for audience development. This includes identifying, conversing and encouraging follows, shares, retweets etc etc.
You need to be careful not to confuse Social Media for SEO with Social Media for Sales. They often overlap but many times they do not. When you are brand building you do not want your social media to be all sales pitches and no sharing of quality content.
When you do not have enough followers to create a mass of activity around your posts you should not be using social media for conversions. The reason being is that people who are looking for quality information will soon un-follow you when all your shares and tweets are sales pitches.
Mobile Internet
Mobile internet is coming of age. With the vast majority of people these days having smartphones and many people using tablets and phones as there way of regularly accessing the internet you should ensure that your site still offers them the best possible experience even when viewed through mobile devices. Keeping an eye on your analytics this year and I would bet that you will see an increase in mobile traffic viewing your site as to this time last year. This figure is likely to keep rising for years to come.
