Welcome, 2015! Over the last 12 months, we saw what worked and what didn’t, but we can all say that in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), nothing much has changed. We’ve observed that organic search still reigns supreme in most cases.

2015 is now upon us. What SEO trends can we expect?

Organic links will grow in value even more

The search engines will continue to see inbound links as the key indicator for authority, trust, and value. Strive to always focus on creating valuable and high quality content for your funeral home website or blog. Then, create a strategy for linking to these content pieces from relevant industry websites, such as funeral forums, directories, or from a highly authoritative funeral expert’s blog.

It’s also a great idea to constantly create how-to videos on YouTube where you can link your website from.

Mobile will even more play a huge role in SEO

The last year saw a phenomenal growth in mobile marketing. More people accessed the Internet primarily from their mobile devices. This shift in consumer behavior has also affected how the search engines rank websites.

Today, the search engines look at how well a website is optimized for mobile devices. Mobile responsive websites, or websites that conform to the screen size of the user’s device, will have a much more favorable search ranking. With a mobile responsive website, you can provide client families with better browsing experience, and you will gain a competitive advantage.

Social SEO will become even more important

With the rise of social networking giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube, the search engines have started including “social signals” as a factor in determining a website’s ranking. The more quality links you build for your funeral home’s website from your social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the better your ranking will get.

Long-tail search traffic will still be important

It is quite expensive to optimize for one or two keywords, and very often, then don’t convert as well as long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are relevant and much more specific queries.

Conduct more keywords that focus on long-tail intent. They could be keywords from client families that focus on your locality, the specific service that your funeral home provide, or even the specific products that you offer. It may take a while for long-tail keywords to yield meaningful results for your funeral home, but the work you put in will pay-off in the long run.

There are a lot more things to happen in search engine optimization in the near future. We don’t know yet what those things will be, but what we are sure of is that change will be a constant thing for this industry. Mobile will be bigger and the implication it brings to search could be bigger than most experts expect.

By incorporating best practices for SEO now into your funeral home’s online marketing efforts, you can rest assured that your online presence will be better than the competition.

We can help you optimize your funeral home’s website better than the competition. Ask us today about our SEO service.