With the first quarter of 2015 on the record, plenty of brands and marketers alike are slowing down and enjoying the relative peace and quiet that comes with successfully navigating the turn of the New Year. However, for those of you looking to take hold of your search engine optimization (SEO) fortunes over the coming months, there’s no time like the present to let the trends of 2015 help shape and mold your operations. With this in mind, let’s take a minute to look over everything you need to know about what’s next for the world of writing SEO content.

Mobile Unfriendly Offerings Will Continue to Fall Flat

If you had to pick one word to describe today’s modern Internet user, what would it be? According to Chris Sheehy of the Rhode Island Small Business Journal, any answer outside of the word “mobile” just doesn’t cut it. As Sheehy explains in his look at what’s hot with writing SEO content so far this year, mobile optimization continues to grow both in prominence and acceptance. From developing strong SEO content with your on-the-go audience members in mind, to a page layout or template that enacts a responsive presentation based on the device in question, failing to account for the continued transition into a primarily mobile world is a quick way to end up as an SEO anachronism.

Building Content Around Keywords Matters

In terms of article development, Sheehy also notes that the overlap between writing SEO content and content marketing tactics continues to grow – especially in terms of keyword importance. However, this doesn’t mean that paying someone to stuff a bunch of relevant keywords into a nonsensical article is good enough to get you ranked with Google and the rest of the search engine gang. If you’re really looking to extend the reach of your content, going deep with your keyword research and pinpointing uncharted or underutilized territory (like long-tail keywords), while also avoiding oversaturated  and generic categories, is the best way to maximize the impact of these offerings.

2015 Is the Year of the Alternative Search Engine

Speaking of Google, 2015 thus far has also shown that the other major players in the search engine industry are gaining ground in terms of traffic, so shifting your strategy toward maximizing the reach of your content on these platforms isn’t only viable, it’s a smart way to garner an advantage over the competition. As hard as it may be to think of Google as anything but the golden standard of SEO best practices and consumer traffic, Tech Cocktail’s Boris Dzhingarov notes that this leading name currently lays claim to the lowest usage numbers on record since 2008.

The reason for this shift is two-fold. First, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and other competitors have all found ways to successfully differentiate themselves and garner strong followings among the digital masses. Additionally, Dzhingarov points out that the already strained contractual relationship with Apple is on the brink of falling apart, which could eventually leave Google with a significant downturn in default search opportunities.

Naturally, this isn’t to say that Google is no longer the biggest name on the SEO block, just that savvy businesses – and the marketers that develop SEO content for these organizations – have a chance to forge new bonds with online viewers by generating content that makes the most out of these emerging alternative options. When paired up with the rest of your newfound knowledge of 2015’s SEO trends, there’s no reason why your upcoming blog and site content can’t take the rest of the year, and far beyond, by storm.