The Internet has a very significant impact on how marketing is performed in this modern and integrated world. Now marketing is moving away from traditional push marketing and is being replaced by more cost-effective inbound marketing tactics, including SEO, blogging and social media. This can drive highly targeted audiences to your websites – most of which can be potential customers.

1. Content Continues to Rule them All

This term is now truer than ever, and in 2015 content will continue to rule them all.

Penguin was initially released on April 24, 2012, named as Penguin 1.0. Since then, Google has released its several versions latest one is Penguin 3.0. When Penguin 1.0 was released several websites were thrown out by the algorithm.

Penguin was released as another weapon Google is using to combat spam, poor quality and black-hat techniques like spammy guest blogging, optimized anchors, quantity of links over quality, keyword heavy content, relying on link-backs instead of content and more that violates the search engine’s link guidelines.

Creating quality content is well with changes in search engine algorithms, including Google’s latest Penguin 3.0 update.

2. Social Signals Will Become Even More Important for SEO

Changes to search algorithms not only placed greater importance to content, but they also elevated social signals up the ladder in search ranking importance. Local search, and Google my Business listings will begin to rank a lot more often and you’ll be able to verify GMB without a postcard in the near future, making it easier to get your business on Google Maps, collecting the traffic.

Ranking factors and correlations study from third parties like Searchmetrics SEO Ranking Factors of 2014 reports, which placed social signals as second only to content as a top ranking-factor – and this will continue to be the case in 2015.

3. The Rise of Security as a Ranking Signal

Google has already confirmed that they are considering https as a ranking signal. If you have a budget and technical capability to implement full https to your site, if yes, you can do this.

4. Mobile Friendly SEO

Away from content and security, mobile user experience is rumored to be another important ranking factor in Google’s search engine algorithm. This is not an inconceivable fruit as it seems to be now that mobile Internet has already surpassed desktop Internet in 2014. It will almost create a big impact for SEO in 2015.

5. Increased Focus on Conversational Keyword Phrases

Google rolled out its Hummingbird algorithm on August 20, 2013, and announced the change on September 26, 2013. After Hummingbird release that officially opened the door to semantic search.

It acts as a level up to search algorithms trying to interpret the meaning and intent of the words used in a search query instead of slightly matching keywords.

6. Brand Mentions Takes Center Stage in Link Building

Link building is still a very important factor for SEO in 2015. Nowadays, search engines focus more on the content of pages from where the backlinks were generated, taking into debate the relevance and social reputation of the source content.

And also take into a consideration brand mentions, which is basically relevant information the source website is discussing about your brand or website and does not necessarily require a hyperlink.

7. Visual Based SEO

Quality original content that contains visual media elements such as video, images and graphics is high-performing assets. These are top ranking SEO factors for 2014 and will continue to do so in 2015 and in the coming years.

8. Bye Keyword Rankings…. Hello ROI…

SEO in 2015 will switch its primary focus from mere keyword rankings and focus on more important elements that would impact your ROI greatly. Ranking #1 won’t matter if it does not translate to conversions and eventually sales.

The infographic below from CJG Digital Marketing, which illustrates the top 8 SEO trends to watch out for in 2015.