A few years ago, “SoLoMo” was bandied about as the direction savvy SEOers should take.
Fast forward to present day and it’s still the case, only in a more refined state.
For those that weren’t paying attention at the beginning of this decade, “SoLoMo” is comprosed of three parts:
- Social
- Mobile
- Local
Each element playing an important role in SERP positioning.
Despite its cringe-worthy phonation, it’s apparent this framework isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it’s more important than ever.
Let’s take a look into what your company needs to be doing to ensure your content has a higher likelihood of being found.
Viewable Content
Another word for viewable content is video. Video rhymes with SEO. Things that rhyme are automatically better.
But really, video SEO is important for a multitude of reasons:
- Video results have a 41% higher click-through rate (CTR).
- Videos get 50 times better organic rankings.
- Videos increase engagement rate.
Given that 62% of all Google searches are for videos, it’s obvious companies should allocate at least a portion of their marketing budget to video production and optimization.
Conversational Queries
Echo. Siri. Cortana.
These are more than the trending names of Millennial index-fund babies.
These are the names of “voice responsive assistants.” And they’ll have an even bigger say (pun intended) in rankings before long.
Why does this matter?
Searches that are typed into a search engine tend to be a little more standardized and formal. Linguistic sequencing drastically changes when intoned as opposed to typed. That’s a fancy way of saying people search for things differently when they talk to their “voice responsive assistant.”
- Typing example: Pizza delivery in St. Louis
- Spoken example: Where can I order some pizza now?
Soon enough, we’ll just be talking everything, and forget how to type. Meaning every day, conversational keywords will become more important.
Social Awkwardness Not Advised
We needn’t expand on the importance of social media.
But if your company needs an extra reason to have a social presence, it’s this: We’ll start seeing more social posts and content indexed by search engines, at least on mobile SERPs.
Tweets already appear in results on news.google.com; it stands to reason status updates and tweets will be included in “standard” searches sooner than later.
Citations Needed
Consistency is key with localization. As more and more searches happen on smartphones, it’s important — nay, imperative — to make sure you have your address consistent across all platforms: Your website. Your Yelp. Your Facebook. Your address should be the same. Everywhere.
If it’s 123 Fake St (a real address in California) one place and 123 Fake Street in another, that’s not good. This is especially noteworthy as not only smartphones, but “wearable tech,” like smartwatches, can pinpoint your location with, uh… pinpoint accuracy.
Additionally, make it a point to have customers write reviews, glowing or glaring, on review sites. The more reviews, the more credibility. The more credibility, the more influence your business seems to have. The more influence, the better, as in real life, as in SERPs.
You can read more at Entrepreneur.
If You Do Nothing Else…
Don’t treat your mobile pages the same as your desktop/tablet pages.
Don’t.
If anything, this is the most important thing to focus on. Mobile optimization will be the norm. We’ll bet our beachfront property on 123 Fake St. on it. So much so, this deserves its own blog entry, which we’ll post soon.
In the meantime, if your company could use some help SoLoMo help, we’d be glad to offer it.
And we promise to never use that word ever again.
Image credited to Stuart Mills
