SEO Roundup: August 29, 2014

Updated: October 27, 2015

Wouldn’t it be great if we could see into the future? In a constantly evolving industry like SEO, this ability would be a nifty little trick indeed. Instead, it seems we’re stuck with predictions that are about as accurate as weather forecasts. That’s why I generally tend to be skeptical of articles entitled something like “6 Revelations that Will Change the Future of ___” and “How ___ Will Look in 20 Years.”

However, our friends over at Search Engine Land put together a great 3-part series where they asked 16 industry experts to discuss their thoughts on the future of SEO. The question: How do you see SEO being different in 2015? Their answers are quite insightful and offer some interesting predictions. Here are some of the highlights:

• “I suspect SEOs will get creative and employ more paid and non-paid amplification to help their content reach wider audiences, while simultaneously seeking non-content-focused methods of earning links.”
• “The rapid expansion of mobile and voice search will lead to more nontraditional SEO.”
•  “Negative SEO will become more and more of an issue for webmasters, SEO and Google in 2015.”
• “We’re going to see more ‘opinionated’ ranking factors like site speed and SSL where Google uses its dominance to shape the web towards its interests.”

One prediction I’ll make is that you will have a relaxing Labor Day weekend and come back next week feeling refreshed and well-rested. I hope I’m right. Before you head out though, here are this week’s top stories from the SEO world:

Google

• RIP – Google Authorship. An announcement from Google this past week confirmed that the three-year experiment with Google Authorship has finally come to an end…for now anyways.
• While ranking tools such as Webmaster Tools and Adwords allows SEO companies to somewhat make up for the hated “not provided” measurement of keyword data in Google Analytics, this article discusses how the unpopular change can be used as a catalyst for rethinking measurement in way that aligns closer with the Google vision – i.e. less keyword-matched results, more searcher-intent based search.

Link Building

• Gain deep insights about your client faster and easier by reading through this guide to conducting an effective competitive analysis.

PPC Advertising

• Find out what business models and industries are more likely to succeed or fail in Adwords with a particular device according to recent research.

General SEO and Online Marketing

• As Michelle predicted last week, several fellow members of the SEO community have answered the call and given us some great ideas on how to guard against negative SEO, and if attacked, what you should do. First up, KISSmetric’s Matt Cutts gets right to the heart of what negative SEO is and preventing these attacks is this video.
• You will also want to be sure to take a look at this fascinating article which makes the point that just because something looks like negative SEO doesn’t mean it is negative SEO.
• Lastly, be sure to check out this much-needed piece on how to turn mountains of data into concise and actionable SEO.

Hope you have a great holiday weekend! Michelle will be back next week with a new roundup for a new month. Feel free to leave tips or links for either of us in the comments below or via SEO Advantage’s Twitter, Facebook or Google+.