Working to stay on top in SEO rankings can feel like playing a game whose rules are constantly changing. And that can be awfully frustrating. Many things affect SEO. There is a chance that what you are investing in today may not have as much importance tomorrow. It is possible to make accurate predictions by observing trends. Here is what you can’t afford to neglect in 2018:
USER EXPERIENCE
Google takes UX very seriously and so should you. Take time to provide a simpler and more pleasant experience for visitors to your site. Understand your users and what they need. Provide both useful and engaging content. Website analytics are a great tool to help you understand users. There is no excuse not to do this. Google Analytics and Search Console are two free, but invaluable tools made available by Google. Constantly think about users and what they want. Observe users’ behaviour to find out what kind of content works and why it works.
Using UX and SEO together will improve the Click Through Rate of any website.
MOBILE
All indications are that mobile will get more and more important. Mobile already generates more searches than desktop. Sites must look good on mobile and load fast as well. In America, mobile search is leading at more than 50%. In the developing world the percentage is even higher.
AMP is Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages Project. AMP is predicted to play a big role in SEO. Some businesses have reported that AMP helped them increase the return visits from mobile users by a significant 23%.
Shortcuts like black hat SEO will not work anymore. Cramming keywords will not work. Fake backlinks will not work. In the long run, it will be more useful to focus on topics rather than keywords. With smarter AI tools being used by search engines, only strong content and a good user experience will be useful.
USE ‘NEAR ME’
Increasingly, Google is making it easier for consumers to find businesses in their own locations. What is driving this demand for hyper local search? Well there are several things. One of those is voice search. There is also personal assistants and interactive smart homes. Google search will face competition from alternatives like Alexa.
MORE IMAGE AND VIDEO SEARCH
Video will be more relevant in 2018 than ever before. Even Google My Business is now allowing users to upload videos. Useful, relevant, and short videos are good for SEO purposes. Creating good video has never been easier or cheaper than it is now. Provide visitors with a virtual tour of your business. Answer questions. Do product demonstrations. Tell your story. Interview people. There is so much you can do with video.
Besides video, other visual media like images and GIF’s will continue to grow. Search engines will become better at detecting information in pictures.
VOICE SEARCH
As mobile search continues to soar, voice search will go up too. Majority of marketers don’t have a plan for it. To do well with audio search, you must first be doing well with mobile. A mobile SEO assessment of your site is a good place to start, as is an XML site map. Featured snippets provide the material for voice search results. Therefore, featured snippets will become more relevant.
MENTIONS WITHOUT LINKS
Search engines are more sophisticated today. They go beyond looking for backlinks to searching out references to your brand on the web. This means that it is even more important to provide useful content. Content that will be referred to by internet users for its practicability. Set up a Google Alert for tracking mentions of your brand. If any of them happen to be negative reviews, take time to respond to them. Talkwalker alerts are even better than Google Alerts.
OPTIMISING OFF-PAGE SEO
SEO does not begin and end on your website. Social media activity as well as online reviews need to be well optimised for SEO.
QUALITY CONTENT
Audiences are more and more concerned about spammy, poor quality content. As the tools used to rank websites become better and better, it will become harder to get away with poor quality content. The keyword of the future is quality.
