Keywords: SEO

 

The clairvoyants here at Fringe DMA have made some predictions for the upcoming year, starting with the insight that “HOT or NOT” lists are still HOT and will remain awesome for at least 12 more months.  Some SEO-related practices are not so lucky, however, and instead are cold enough to give you frostbite from their mere use.

So get out your sunscreen and pack some mittens, here we go:

 

Responsive Design w/Bootstrap 3

Suppose the new iPhone 84.2 comes out (espresso-maker and foot massage apps sold separately), but your site is not compatible.  With an increasing number of mobile devices, the only answer is for an SEO to customize a separate website for every screen size and each device every time they come on the market –or– create one site with responsive web design that will automatically customize itself for every device, every size, and every new product.  It is no surprise that both Google and Bing list responsive design as their preference of building a site due to its mobile-friendly nature. In addition, responsive design automatically caters to the behaviors of individual users and adjusts content delivery to make changing from device-to-device consistent and smooth.

 

 

And don’t forget Bootstrap. The new Bootstrap 3 has HTML, CSS, and Javascript for many user interface and web components, making the creation of a responsive layout easier than ever.

Bootstrap Advantages:

• With predefined design templates, you may actually have time for lunch.
• Have a working knowledge of HTML and CSS? You’re golden.
• Responsive design. Creating the layout is easier than ever with Bootstrap’s responsive features.
• All the big ones: Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and I.E.
• Open source.  You can’t do better than free.

Bootstrap responsive layout isn’t just for Fortune 500 companies; it is for anyone who wishes to streamline the layout process and for their site to be found and accessible to the widest audience possible.

Only one code source for all devices?  Yes, please.

(Heat rating: Jalapeno smoothie)

Parallax Design

If there’s one thing we know about computer users, it is that they love not being in control of a website’s dizzying scrolling mechanics while trying to make sense of the variable speeds that don’t sync up.  Just like Comic Sans font and horrible music that loads on a site automatically, we just can’t get enough.  Parallax design is a staple in video game graphics, so some yahoo decided that what the world needed was slower website load times and the inability of most mobile devices to view them at all.  The intent of parallax design in a website was to give it a 3-dimensional feel, but no one knows if it actually works because every frustrated visitor leaves before it has fully loaded.  Even assuming it does present some sort of a 3-D feel, it is still about as cutting edge and entertaining as an old, animated flip-book.

 

 

Most importantly, SEO does not work on sites with parallax design, bringing the number of ways these sites are avoiding potential visitors/customers to four:

1. 1. No SEO means no exposure or search presence.
2. 2. People do. not. like. to. wait. for. load. times.
3. 3. It is not compatible with mobile devices – but hey, those are just a fad anyway, right?
4. 4. It is not compatible with responsive design either, the very purpose of which is to automatically adjust a site’s content to work with new devices that enter the market.

Essentially, by using parallax design, the message one is sending is clear: we don’t want to be found.  P.S. Don’t tell your friends and unlike us on Facebook!

(Cold rating: Tongue stuck on a frozen pole)

Schema Markup

Schema is a brilliant tool for managing internet content and is simplifying SEO strategies.

It is probably self-described best on Schema’s website: “Schema.org is a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.  Schema.org vocabulary can be used with many different encodings, including RDFa, Microdata and JSON-LD. These vocabularies cover entities, relationships between entities and actions, and can easily be extended through a well-documented extension model. Over 10 million sites use Schema.org to markup their web pages and email messages. Many applications from Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, Yandex and others already use these vocabularies to power rich, extensible experiences.”

Essentially, Schema integrates differing content into one manageable language, bringing any structured content together and creating a universal language that is accessible by all.  As an example, say different verbal languages represent different code languages: Tony speaks Spanish, Bobby speaks Klingon, and Freddie speaks neither.

 

(“Bobby”)

 

While Freddie, with some effort, might be able to access Tony’s Spanish “code,” he will never be able to understand Bobby’s code.  Why?  Because Freddie doesn’t live in the basement of his mom’s house, an absolute requirement for Klingon speakers.  But Freddie has another option: using a Schema markup, a universal language code can be created, allowing Freddie to understand both without ever having to come in contact with Bobby, who is currently petitioning his school to count Klingon as a foreign language requirement.  See you in the Supreme Court, Worf.

Ideal Requirements for Schema Integration

Overlap preservation

Each of the overlapping elements specified in the input mapping is also in a database schema relation.

Extended overlap preservation

Source-specific elements that are associated with a source’s overlapping elements are passed through to the database schema.

Normalization

Independent entities and relationships in the source data should not be grouped together in the same relation in the database schema. In particular, source specific schema elements should not be grouped with overlapping schema elements, if the grouping co-locates independent entities or relationships.

Minimality

If any elements of the database schema are dropped then the database schema is not ideal.

 

            Just like responsive design, it comes down to code integration and universal control. But hey, if you still want to learn a separate language, I hear you can get school credit for Klingon now – but the classes take place in Bobby’s Mom’s basement.

(Heat rating: Magma juggling)

 

Meta Tag Keywords

There are some things just destined to go out of fashion, and just like that Justin Bieber tattoo, choosing meta tag keywords may cause some regrets down the road. Yes, Google has spoken and you can stack those meta tag keywords next to your confederate money. They’re no good here.

Have you ever been punished in a group because one kid refused to play nicely?  Essentially, that is what happened with meta tag keywords. In the interest of search engine optimization, programmers would pile in keywords, many of them completely unrelated to their content, into the sites’ invisible header and hope that when someone searched for “Jennifer Lawrence,” their site, “Dave’s Discount Dentistry,” would pop up. This is called “keyword stuffing,” and it is not as delicious as it sounds.

 

 

As a result, no one can use these keywords and Dave will have to find another way to drive traffic.

Not all meta tags are useless to an SEO, however; title tags and meta description attributes can still be convenient. Title tags can allow different titles so that a simpler title content can be used for increased accessibility, and description attributes explain your site’s content or purpose and may increase traffic.  But when it comes to meta tag keywords, you will have better luck yelling them out your window to interest potential visitors.

 (Cold rating: Han Solo in Carbonite)

 

Aggregated Content

By now, you may have noticed a theme: information integration.  Placing multiple device designs and algorithms each under a single umbrella is the best news an SEO operator can receive, and for the convenience of users, it continues with breaking news and related content.

 

 

As Jayson DeMers of Forbes writes, “Aggregated content will diminish the power of news and event coverage. Twitter is experimenting with a new feature called Moments, which will aggregate posts, images, and videos from live events and unfolding news stories into a single channel for people to see. In a sense, users become the content creators, and other users can see events unfolding firsthand. Of course, Twitter isn’t the only platform to be experimenting with such a live feed, and advanced algorithms are already able to compile news stories from various pieces of pre-existing information. As a result, in 2016, the power of a news article that isn’t automatically sourced will begin to diminish, narrowing the field of content marketing for everyone. Evergreen, opinion-editorial, and tutorial content, as a result, will rise in importance for search visibility.”

SEOs may take note of this one-stop-shopping approach that users are asking for. More integration that consolidates important information?  I’ll take seconds.

 (Heat rating: Cayenne pepper eye-drops)

 

Home Computer & Mobile Separation

Treating a wireless device differently from a home computer is an increasingly big mistake. Even with similar or identical capabilities, there are differences in how each is used by the owner.  One large difference is the search query, wherein home computer users will use individual keywords and the mobile device user will tend to phrase search queries in a more conversational tone.

DeMers continues: “Digital assistants will change the way we think about search queries. Modern search engines are receiving more and more queries from digital assistants, which are adding a new layer to the complexity of search (think of Siri, Cortana, and Google Now). Spoken language queries tend to be much different than typed queries, meaning a whole new type of long-tail keyword queries – particularly those that mimic spoken dialogue – will emerge. This trend could reward pages that contain colloquial, conversational content.”

 

Usage on any device is informing the search algorithms on every device, so to stick with antiquated keywords instead of long-tail and more conversational queries?  Ill-advised.

 (Cold rating: Bering Sea skinny dip)

 Interactive Content

This subject is nothing new; interactive content has been a focus for many years, but strangely, few have made the most of the possibilities.  2016 may see (drumroll) “The New Rise of Interactive Content” as sites seek to engage users.  As an example, infographics are a popular addition to explain complex information and, in a way, operate as interactive content in that users often view them as small puzzles to decipher.  In this way, the viewer has been engaged, breaking free of being a mere observer (99% of an online experience) and they now operate as a participant, turning on the conscious mind to solve a small puzzle and make sense of the information it contains.

The possibilities in application of interactive content have barely been explored, aside from a simple interactive game that features embarrassing product integration (see: “10 Worst Flash Games in History”).  In filmmaking, a screenwriter is told to “bury the exposition,” the background information needed to get the viewer up to speed in the story, and it is no different than the goal companies and SEOs face in relaying information to the user.  Instead of explaining what a company does or how it works (exposition), imagine an interactive feature which requires the user to create a product or solve a problem based on that company’s product or service. Through interactive content, important information has now been willingly absorbed by the user in order to satisfy the innate human need not to be bested by an online puzzle.

Think about it this way: if Candy Crush simultaneously taught the player HTML and CSS, every grandma in the world could write code.

(Heat rating: Ghost pepper rubdown in Death Valley)

 

Text Blocks

There is a reason that Guttenberg was voted the most influential person of the last 1,000 years, so no fear bibliophiles, the written word isn’t going anywhere (said the nervous SEO writer with fingers crossed).  With that said, the growing power of images, video, and infographics cannot be underestimated in the SEO world.  We are a culture that is increasingly impatient online, absorbing a news story in a headline and a glance at the photo.  Only with information in which we are keenly interested will we dig deeper to get a more complete understanding.

If this sounds like a criticism of our contemporary culture, it actually isn’t. It is a natural response to the inundation of information being thrown at us, constantly. We are swimming in a sea of news stories, social media updates, 300-page iTunes contracts, videos, advertisements, trivia, memes, celebrity gossip, blogs, and that one funny cat picture – do you know the one?  Of course not, because there are 4 trillion. The fast-paced, cherry-picking of information is the now the norm.

 

 

Certainly there is a solid foundation in the written word and that will not change overnight, but according to DeMers, using video, infographics, and images as “peripheral additions” will soon no longer be enough. Video apps such as snapchat, Vine, and Periscope are “…setting users’ expectations toward more visual content.” In fact, Google is now testing video ads in search results.

When it comes to the growing influence of visual content, if you dismiss this massive trend you might as well hang up your SEO hat and go yell at kids for stepping on your lawn.

(Cold rating: Soulmate rejection in Antarctica)

 

The ever-changing SEO world is full of surprises and all you can do is ensure that you have the best possible tools and an open mind to shifting dynamics.  As you can see from the list, the biggest SEO trend of all is integration.  Why customize when Responsive Design, Schema, and Aggregated Content can do it for you?

Now please excuse me: I have to go watch a slow, scrolling block of text that completely defies the wisdom of burying exposition: how did Star Wars get away with it?

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