SEO REVIEW FOR THE YEAR 2016

2016 was the year that took search engine optimization to a step further. Marketers used different strategies and technique to fought the scorching competition in the market and stand on the top of the competition. The year also witnessed a series of Google update that felt as shocking wave for the webmasters.Google introduced a new element called User experience in its existing norms. On the whole 2016 SEO remained as an year of fixations and adaptations.

Stronger base for future can be created by very strong present. Let us discuss some of the changes that SEO in 2016 witnessed and based on them what are changes that we can expect for 2017 SEO.

Penguin 4.0

Penguin is the name that is given to the algorithm update of Google in 2012 to reduce the ranking of the site that are spamming ways to reach at the top of the search results. Websites that used link buying, link farming, keyword stuffing and other such methods were penalized for months. Earlier penguin was runned periodically which means that newer sites took more time to reach the top while the spammy sites enjoyed top rankings.

In 2016 an update was made into this defence system. It became real time. After the update, the pages were continuously monitored and reviewed and penalized or freed on time. Penguin also started to penalize individual pages and not a website as a whole hence SEO for 2016 became more convenient and impartial.

Possum

Possum that was launched in the second half of 2016 targeted to customize the local SEO searches like never before and made SEO 2016 a more comprehensive approach. The goal of the algorithm is to diversify the local search result and reduce local spam. This update facilitated the businessmen that give services outside their physical address boundary. It helps to rank them on search engine results with their keywords for the surrounding areas as well. Possum update also helps to filter out multiple sites that are running on the same affiliation

More mobile friendly

With the changing year, the mobile usage is increasing even more hence the need of website design and readability according to mobile usage remains to be paramountly important.

Keywords joined association

Usage of long tailed keywords in the first paragraph of the content and in the headline are more prominent in this year. The importance of keyword readability is more than keyword density. Using complementing words or phrases adds value and authority in the article and are recognized important in the eyes of Google. With the update in Google, it can now respond to user intent and produce result accordingly.

There are at times when google show results that are not similar to the typed phrase but it seriously shows the needed information. This happens because Google is smart enough to identify the user's intent.

Quantity and quality

In the year 2016, google favoured not only long keywords  but also content that are relatively longer. The trend of shorter content of 200-500 words are replaced with longer content of 700-1000 words that carry indepth information about the topic dealing with.

Conclusion

With the all the updates that are carried by the google, the main motive is to provide best search result to the users. It is expected to have dozens of such updates in 2017, that focuses on providing better experience to the users. To survive in the midst of these updates, marketers should focus on delivering quality information to the targeted audience and stop relying on tricks to increase the ranking of the site. 

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