Orange County businesses have a lot to think about. Product design, website design and optimization, social media management, distribution…the list goes on and on. Therefore, it’s not uncommon for someone who doesn’t know much about marketing to want quick and easy SEO answers. But there’s nothing either quick or easy about SEO, and gaining organic search traffic. It can often be a meticulous process, which is the reason that an SEO company like Drive Traffic Media exist in the first place. We can’t give you answers in the form of short, declarative sentences that will immediately bring you the sales numbers you crave. However, we can tell you what have emerged as some of the most crucial optimization factors in the first half of 2018.

Brand Authority and SEO Are Linked

It is a given at this point that your website should be mobile-optimized, fast, and secure. It should have an easy-to-use interface, and it should clearly state what the company is all about. What’s equally important, though, is that you build your brand. Visibility and notoriety matter more now than they ever have before for Orange County businesses. A strong brand is one that is trusted in your niche and encourages customer engagement. That means that your company’s PR efforts via social media platforms are more valuable than ever, and you should be willing to contribute both time and money to them. It will be worth it, we promise you. SEO success and brand authority have become intrinsically linked. That means that while on-page and technical SEO will get you to rank, the key to your success could well be PR and customer outreach.

Schema and Microdata

The other emerging factor worth mentioning is schema and microdata. In 2018, these matter for Google indexing. The search giant uses them for rich snippets for both desktop and mobile sites. However, that being said, in the near future it seems likely that Google will not concentrate so much on featured snippets. Instead, they will go to the format of using rich internal data and AI-built responses that are a combination of all the relevant answers to a search query. If that indeed ends up happening, then technical mistakes and insufficient content on your site will be more of an impediment to your ranking than ever before. What this should teach you is to pay attention to details. Going over every page of your site and using the many analytics tools that are out there should be high on your list for SEO.

As Google never reveals too much about their algorithm, it seems that we all must extrapolate what the best methodology is by observing our competitors and what appears to be working for them. We can also pay attention to any announcement Google makes about best practices. SEO never stops evolving, and if you want your Orange County business to succeed, you must be prepared to do so as well.