Top SEO Trends for 2018/2019
SEO has become a crucial part of any effective marketing strategy. It increases your website’s traffic, generates a higher ROI than any other marketing method, improves user experience, helps you understand your clients better, and, finally, creates your brand’s reputation and credibility.
SEO analysts utilize many strategies, some of them being against Google policy. With updated algorithms and Google’s stricter approach to penalties, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to stay competitive while delivering white hat SEO. However, it’s not impossible. Let’s analyze some of the SEO trends that will dominate in the nearest future.
Google’s featured snippets
As Tech SEO experts notice, voice search is an emerging feature that might revolutionise the way we utilize search engines. With PCs being substituted by mobile devices, and with the growing popularity of voice search feature (conducted with a voice assistant, such as Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri, or Cortana) utilized by mobile users, SEO analysts will be forced to focus their attention on so called featured snippets. They are shown at the top of search results – so called “position zero”, and are supposed to give answers to specific questions asked by the users.
Google is working on providing the most relevant answers, in a clear and informative manner. The most useful, concise content will come on top of search results. According to https://backlinko.com/voice-search-seo-study, the average voice search answer is only 29 words. The style will need to be conversational to match the style of users and their natural speech. Also, for the content to rank as a featured snippet, its format will play a big role, as snippets are usually shown as paragraphs, lists or tables.
Mobiles over PCs
When it comes to technical issues, only mobile-friendly websites will be able to compete in SEO marketing. Mobile searches had already surpassed desktop searches and it shouldn’t be surprising that the trend continues. With mobile-first indexing on the rise, it is the mobile version of your website that will determine its rankings.
Developers will need to remember about delivering a fully responsive website with dynamic imaging and other elements that improve user experience.
The website’s loading speed will also play a major role, as time will be even more precious for mobile users who are more likely to be on the go, or in a hurry, as opposed to desktop users.
Local SEO
As many voice search users utilize this feature to find local services of their interest, local SEO will be of even greater importance than it was in recent years. Updated Google My Business Page is a must, as well as visibility in online reviews. Reviews are written by users who tend to use less formal, more conversational style that will match the styles of voice search queries. Hence, Google will use reviews as a valuable source of information to provide the most relevant answers.
As times change, new technologies appear and users’ habits evolve, it is always important to stay up to date in a market with such an overwhelming competition. To stay relevant, website owners and SEO strategists will need to stay on top of their game to maintain online visibility.
