We had the privilege of attending the SMX West conference last week, and from hanging out at the Google headquarters, talking to other talented SEOs, and listening to Google engineers talk about what's new in their world, one thing became clear: we need to be forward-thinking with any SEO strategy we employ. We need to think about what SEO is going to look like months from now, not just today. We need to future-proof our SEO. Speaking of SEO, let's take a quick second and talk about what SEO is and why we care about it. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, or in other words, the stuff you do on and off a website that helps it show up in search results. When we talk about optimizing a site for SEO, what we're really doing is optimizing a site to attract and convert more customers. While we do talk a lot about ranking position and keywords when we talk about SEO, attracting customers is really what it's all about. When you're doing well with SEO, your opportunity to bring in customers and sell homes to them increases. Win win. So how do we anticipate what's ahead in the ever-changing world of SEO? How can we make sure our SEO is future-proof? While we don't know a lot of what actually goes into how Google ranks websites, we do know what drives every decision Google makes: the user. Google's goal is to provide the best search experience for the user, and one way it accomplishes this is by delivering the best websites that fully answer the user's search query. So if we build websites that are easy to navigate and fast to load, and if we include awesome content that's useful and interesting to homebuyers, and if we use the right keywords that make it easy to find this content, we're probably pretty safe in regards to our SEO strategy benefitting us well into the future. For those of you planning to build or thinking about building a new website in the near future, here's a quick list of things you'll want to include in order to future-proof your SEO.

1. Create new and exciting content. Your SEO strategist can help you research what homebuyers in your area are searching for and asking about so that you can create content that fully answers their questions (and brings them to your site!)
2. Have your site built mobile-first. By loading only the most streamlined version of your site on mobile, your pages will load super-fast. Plus, your users will find it easier to navigate.
3. Hire a professional photographer to photograph your model homes at the time of day when the home receives the most optimal sunlight through the windows. Homebuyer perception of your product will improve, and it's more likely your customers will share your website with friends and family.
4. Have your SEO strategist advise on your website project from start to finish to ensure you're receiving all the current technical benefits of SEO.
5. Invest in some advanced SEO and have your redirect chains eliminated if you've redesigned your website more than once in the past.
6.  Have your site built in HTTPS. This promotes data integrity, and Google has already admitted to automatically indexing and giving a ranking boost to sites that are built in HTTPS.