The year is close to the end and SEO consultants are already debating over the strategies and tactics that needs to be followed in the coming year 2017. Several has already researched and published several things and here are we. We have researched and compared several activities to identify which will work and where we did general silly mistakes.

After a clear indication and detailed research, we have identified few tactics that will definitely work in the coming year. Several had already in the marathon & performing much better and few are new (actually not new, but generally misguided prior).

According to the research, traditional approach of “off-page activities” and “on-page activities” will definitely work with few ideological changes. Lets discuss in detail:

On-site SEO Tactics (On-page activities)

To get ready to face hurdles in 2017, SEO Specialists should work first on On-site SEO Tactics. On-site SEO means the work done on the own website instead of other’s. From site structure to website speed, it incorporates several factors, such as-

• UI and Navigation – Great UI always leads to the conversions, user interaction and better impressions. While clear navigation helps to improve visit duration of an individual user. Included in it, they are an essential elements to get rank and get authorized by several active users and webmasters. Use easy navigational formats, proper context placement, elegant web design, etc. to provide better user experience.
• Site Architecture – A proper architectural design will definitely lead to the ranking and also impact on user experience. While at the different side, it will help to recognize user behavior as well. Site Architecture promises to the proper alignment, proper placement of context and a clearer look. Follow standards of web design, include high level graphics, relevant videos, error-free content, and things to improve user click behavior.
• Site Interlinking – Interlinking plays a vital role in site ranking. As it leads a user to different pages on the same website and shares the link juice to others, it helps to improve page rank as well as the keyword impressions on Google. Use proper linking structure and anchor on relevant keyword to relevant web page to get noticed by Google crawlers.
• Site Speed and Crawl ability – Faster loading enhances user experience and help a website to hold users for more duration. To make your website faster on browsers just minify your CSS and JS file and enable the compression of your resources. Even you should work on caching functionality, which amazingly improves crawl speed.
• Mobile Responsiveness – It is the most essential element to rank well on mobile devices and get higher rate of user interaction. Google has already announced the necessity of responsiveness in its previous update – Mobilegeddon. So, adopt responsive layouts to rank well on search engine’s SERP for both desktop searches and mobile searches.
• Schema Markup – To identify things accurately, we need few markups that define what it is, why it’s used, who own it, etc. Similarly, search engines also needed few markups to identify site’s elements. That’s why Google itself created Schema Markups that defines the author, title, logo, and several other elements in a website. It helps to index accurately and return back for the accurate search queries.
• Local Identity Markup – As per Google’s Pigeon update, it’s essential to include Local NAP (Name, Address, Phone no) to get ranked high for local results. This markup results much better for the geocentric searches. So, include your local identity and get ranked better in 2017.
• Include Authorize trust signals – Authorized websites will get some betterment in the SERP, as they reveal their trust signals. Their trust signals can be their partner’s logo, their SSL certificate, their trademark, etc. So, include trust signals to get user’s trust, this is essential in the near future.

Off-site SEO Tactics (Off-page activities)

On a parallel side, expert digital marketers needed to work on Off-site SEO tactics to create a better presence on search engines. By making authentic, relevant and themed links, we can face the hurdles and overcome from the obstacles in the coming year. Let’s discuss the major off-page activities that will lead in 2017:

• Authentic Link Building – Authenticity comes first when we talk about user trust. Even for the search engine crawlers, authentic link building makes a website trustworthy and helps to improve impressions on a search engine. So, try to get better outbound links from.edu or.org websites or from highly ranked (high DA, PA and PR websites).
• Content Marketing – Content appears as one of the most important factor in SEO and used as a lead tactic in off-page optimization. From traditional activities to the modern assignments, content used everywhere. But not ordinary, having creative, unique and effective content is essential for better impressions on search engines and it affects the user behavior as well. So, use relevant, grammar-free, unique, expressive and out of the box content for your SEO campaigns in 2017.
• Authorize Guest Networking – The term networking will impact negatively for the crawlers and because of that, Google somehow didn’t recognize Guest networking for ranking. But if it used in a positive aspect, guest blog networking will impact much better. As they are highly relevant, most authentic and user centric, so, they directly lead more users to a website.
• Keyword Optimization – Every strategy begins with the selection of relevant keywords, who takes the lead and makes a website visible in SERP for different search queries. Proper placement of keywords in a content (i.e. Keyword Density) and the proximity are essential to get benefited through selected keywords. So, use highly relevant keywords, keep focus on density and proximity, use them in headings and title, etc.
• Local Listing for all – As per Google’s Pegion Update, local results will completely influence by local listings, NAP and local keywords. By doing local directory submissions, local citation, classifieds on local portals and promotions using local keywords will improve the rank for local searches. So, try to involve GEO specific keywords and local listings in your strategy for 2017 SEO.
• Active Blogging – Be active to make your promotions worthy. As content marketing is an essential tactic of promotions, blogging is another way of content marketing. On your own blog, company’s blog or on other’s relevant blogs, continual blogging will improve your impressions. So, actively write informative, effective and relevant content for blogging purpose.
• Themed Linking – In 2017, try to focus on thematic linking, as it shows more relevant and attract targeted audience. Themed linking simply means to the conceptual back linking or getting backlinks from similar concept websites. So, try to search relevant and similar theme sites through competitor analysis, backlink check or searching Google for similar content and place your backlink there.
• Link Reclamation – Another technique that will give assurance for the better results. Reclamation simply means to recreate broken links by making them revive. For that you can search broken links on highly authorized websites such as Wikipedia, and target relevant thematic content towards your own website. So rebuild your authenticity by using link reclamation in 2017.
• Client Testimonials/Reviews – Recommendation always improves user trust as well as the Google’s. By asking client testimonials and reviews (obviously positive) on different portals, such as Google business page, Facebook Page, Glassdoor and others, will enhance the ranks and impressions. So, ask positive reviews and testimonials from clients to rank well in 2017.
• Improve Visual Content Engagement – Text only content can’t make you enhance your user stay on the website. As it somehow makes them bore and ruin their experience. Even no-one has time to read huge content. So, try to involve expressive and engaging visual content such as graphics, images, videos, animations, etc. to improve user engagement and to reduce bounce rate.

Social Networking Tactics (Social Signals)

Previously, these are known as a part of “Off-Page Tactics”, but now they have an individual preference and an impact on ranking and impressions on search engines. As a recommended tactic, these signals also consider to make conversions and direct connection. So, that’s require to keep your faith and focus over social signals and work on its elements, such as-

• Social Activeness – Be active on social networks to create a recognized identity. A post on a daily basis can help you to transform your business page into a brand and aware relevant audience about your services, products and features.
• Improve circle/Friend list of relevant fields – Be clear about the audience before selecting one as a friend on your business account. As it is solely for promotions and conversions and somehow work as a showcase, but only for the relevant one. So improve your friend list with most relevant users, which can help you to generate more pennies in less promotion.
• Enhance Network – Along with the enhancement in friends, that’s also essential to be a part of different, but relevant communities and groups. It will help you to enhance your reach in the same industry and improve the chance of conversions.
• Active Blogging on Social Networks – As an emerging platform, social networks are the perfect place to do blogging. As they guarantee about the self promotion and highest reach on a single post, they also assured you about more user interaction. Even the content placed on social platforms such as – Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Stumbleupon, etc. will get high authority and index sooner.
• Ask for Social Reviews – Social networks worth a lot to make your business a brand. So, be active on it to be always identified, authorized and recognized by several. Even, never leave a single day without interacting, sharing your thought and asking your circle for the reviews. As these are much appreciated way to get ranked on search engines.

Analytics and rapid check (crosscheck activities)

Google used to change its search algorithms on a regular basis (several times in a single year), which caused for the failure of several tactics and also amazingly improve few ones. In those changes some are seriously the giants such as previous – Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, Mobilegeddon, Pigeon and RankBrain.

So, it’s an essential thing to cross check the work by keeping eyes on a few things, such as-

• Google Tool Analysis – As an SEO consultant, we are used to with these tools and connected with them regularly. Even these are essential to calculate traffic and to analyze site errors. Moreover, that tools like Google Analytics and webmasters can be utilized to improve the site’s crawl ability, sitemap indexing, user behavior, manual penalties, and much more.
• In-Page Analysis – To identify user’s behavior on a single page, we generally use In-Page Google Analytics tools. This clears out the user flow, means on which direction user reads the content and interacts with which context more. With a clear percentage, we can analyze the context worth and according to that we can modify our context.
• Performance Measurement – To identify the worth of work, we need to do performance measurement on a regular basis. It includes backlink checking, broken link checking, 404 checking, link error checking, authority checking, etc. By the rapid checkup, we can make ourselves assure about the results and it will help us to prepare further strategies.

Few last words

We have stated about SEO in 2016 at the end of last year along with relevant infographic and as now, this year is near to end. As like previous year, we had done a few researches and analysis this year as well to identify what will work better in the coming year 2017. We squeeze our research and come with the details here. We had four major sections that need focus in 2017 and SEO specialists needs to keep their eyes on “on-site tactics”, “off-site tactics”, “social signals” and “analytics”.

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