SEO trends for 2015 and how they'll affect your small business

SEO, much like a raging river, is constantly reshaping the online marketing landscape. And while it may be an exhausting endeavour to try and stay on top of things like evolving search algorithms, as a business owner, it pays to know how changes in SEO will affect your company's bottom line.

According to Robert Cairns, Lead Account Manager for Caseo Digital Marketing Services, three of the most important trends that can help keep your business in the limelight are as follows:

1. Be sure your site is mobile friendly

This particular trend may not take many by surprise given the pervasiveness of smartphones in our society, but ensuring your site is compatible with all manner of devices goes beyond acknowledging the fact that consumers access the internet - and thus your site - in different ways. "Mobile-friendliness" will soon become a ranking factor in Google search results; if your site is not currently mobile friendly, you might want to consider ear-marking some funds to do so, or risk being left in the dust.

2. Be sure your site is fast

We've all experienced the frustration that has resulted from a site's slow loading speed. Making a potential client wait longer than they have to is never a good business practice. All else being equal, when a customer is forced to choose between a fast site and a slow one, the former will prevail. User preferences aside, Google is currently testing a system that will determine a website's response speed - those found to be below a certain speed threshold will be labelled as "slow" and will be penalized accordingly at the algorithmic level - resulting in a drop in traffic.

3. Contractual negotiations

The word on the street is that Google will likely be parting ways with giant partners like Apple, leaving the world's most powerful search engine to "stand on it's own two feet". It's expected that the loss of search partners will result in a significant traffic loss for Google. According to Cairns, the smart money will be on getting to know "second tier" search engines like Bing and Yahoo, and firms who invest the time to familiarize themselves with alternate search engines just might reap the reward of monumental traffic gains in the near future.