With the year 2015 comes a good opportunity for businesses to re-evaluate their search engine optimization efforts. Much has changed when it comes to best practices across the SEO landscape and, if your business doesn’t update accordingly, organic traffic will drop and, at worst, you may find your business removed from search results altogether due to a Google manual penalty for not abiding by its guidelines.

For online businesses that rely heavily on organic traffic to drive leads, this should be a terrifying proposition – but fear not, as long as you address these new rules for SEO in 2015 your business can continue to drive online sales from search engines this year.

1. Your Website Should be Mobile-Friendly

With a sizable percentage of users now using mobile devices to access the Internet, most businesses should be taking steps to optimize their websites for mobile devices by developing responsive sites. However, if that isn’t enough to convince you, it has been noted that having a responsive website can also help SEO rankings slightly. Although it can be a steep initial investment, responsive design has an enormous ROI when you consider that your online business will provide a better user experience that helps convert traffic and a more prominent rank in search results.

2. Your Website Needs A Balanced Backlink Profile

There were a number of algorithm updates last year, and while it isn’t necessarily a new rule, a balanced backlink profile is absolutely pivotal for businesses that want to continue ranking well in Google’s search results. While building the perfect combinations of links can be a difficult undertaking, remember, relevant, fresh, authoritative links go a long way toward moving your business up in the search engines. There are a number of other backlink elements to keep in mind, but staying away from things like directories and blatant guest posting for SEO value while actively attracting natural links should bring most businesses positive results.

3. Your Site Should be Fast

As mobile becomes increasingly important, site speed is also starting to play a larger role in SEO. Google has expressly stated that site speed plays a role in mobile and desktop rankings, and even if it is a small one, it should be a focus for any website that is looking for a quick way to boost rankings. Doing things like image optimization, and minifying code when possible will help sites load faster, and provide a better overall user experience. A great way to start this process is to use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to get an idea of where to start to make your site faster.

4. Your Content Needs to Be Shared

While the value of a social share on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is still being hotly debated, making content sharable in 2015 should be a new rule to abide by in order to get the most out of your brand’s SEO efforts. While a share itself might not directly help your content rank better, the odds of getting natural links due to more exposure is definitely greater – and with relevant, natural links come great rankings. Make your SEO a bit easier by winning links without having to do outreach and content creation to get each one.

5. Your Content is Extensive

Most SEO professionals have known for some time that blogs and other written content needs to be more than 250 words and actually provide value to users. What many still don’t realize is that the length of a post really does matter when it comes to how well it ranks. In an ideal world this makes sense – posts that are around 2,000 words should provide better insight into their subject matter than a 500-word post that is only really able to skim the surface. While posts that hit the 2,000-word mark just to hit the 2,000-word mark probably won’t rank well, it is worth noting that if you have more to say, you should say it. People, and search engines, will thank you for putting out helpful, educational, or entertaining content by sharing it and ranking it higher on search engines.

Build Your Online Brand in 2015 for Great SEO

Deciding which tactics will get better SEO results for your brand in 2015 is certainly a difficult task. The best way to simplify this decision is to ask yourself which tactic will help make your brand stronger overall. The wide majority of SEO best practices in 2015 do more than just help you rank for keywords – they help strengthen your brand. Choose the tactic that will pay the most dividends for business as well as provide SEO value, and you’ll be well on your way to getting the most out of SEO while staying within 2015 best practices.