Another year, and another chance to improve the SEO that drives your website to the top of Google. But just how different will SEO be in the year 2018? Are there any major changes on the horizon that we should be looking out for? Should you just keep on doing what you're doing? Should you start doing what you've been putting off for multiple years?
All of these are reasonable questions, however the answer these questions will depend on what you're doing now, and what your overall goals are. What I can offer is a list of SEO trends for the coming year that should serve as a guide. You can use this list to check your current strategies and make sure that your efforts are being used wisely.
There are roughly 261 business days in a year, and last year Google put out over 256 updates to their algorithm. That's essentially an update every single business day. Every little change to that algorithm, whether it's a big one that earns itself an animal name like a penguin, a panda, a hummingbird, or a possum, or a miniature change that goes almost unnoticed, these Trends show us the overall direction that Google is heading. Dozens of SEO experts have dedicated all of last year to studying these and using them to predict where Google will be heading by the end of 2018.
It shouldn't be a big surprise that Google has put a lot of info on the mobile experience. Two-thirds of all searches come from a mobile device now, and beyond that voice search is becoming more and more prevalent. Google is taking a big leap into the future, tailoring further and further every individual searcher experiences as closely as possible to that individual searcher.
it should go without saying that standard link building practices are essentially dead. That's not to say that links don't work, but Google Sees patterns where we think no pattern exists. They can suss out a private blog Network and see interrelated connections between websites that put up a facade of being legitimate but when you scratch just a little bit below the surface show their true nature as being essentially a link Farm.
If you are serious about search engine optimization, you have to have a mindset moving forward that the things that worked in the past, generally speaking, are no longer going to work.
Of course, the irony of all this is that some of the things that work in the past, as in decades ago, are starting to work very very well once again. Organic Outreach, cooperation, working with influencers in a digital space, these are how traffic gets driven in 2018 and Beyond, and these are the trends that Google will be watching to understand what is most relevant in search.
You have to look at and you have to understand that the search engines have one goal in mind: to give the best experience to the user that is possible. Now Google makes north of 200 million dollars every single day by showing ads to people but those advertisers are there, secondary customers. Google's primary customer each and every one of us whenever we do a search. Because the only reason they can monetize their platform in the first place is that our eyeballs are there, searching.
At this point, think about search. Really think about the last time you did an in-depth search and what you looked for, what you clicked on, what you read, what you watched, and everything else. Google is seeking to optimize the experience that you have, particularly again if you are on a mobile device as most Searchers are these days thanks to the pocket computers we carry around with us everywhere. Google is trying to deliver as quick and seamless and perfect of an experience as possible, and where applicable of course they would like to keep you on their own properties, like YouTube, where you might get sucked down a rabbit hole of watching cat videos and in the process earned them their $0.35 in ad Revenue. But mostly Google wants to deliver an awesome experience. An awesome search experience.
So here are the trends that are going to be moving and changing and driving search engine optimization for the next 365 days. And Beyond.
I know I said earlier that link building was changing, but link building will always be here to stay. Obviously, Google has changed the algorithm and made it smarter so that people can't hide jacket in order to make searches for “miserable failure” return the official White House biography of George W Bush. Link building for search engine optimization used to be essentially an arms race, whoever built the most links would win. It was kind of funny when I would be doing research on various clients and their competitors, and I would look at- say a couple of dentists. one of them would have maybe three or four hundred backlinks, another one would have 400 or 500 backlinks another one might even have a thousand, but then one of them would have over 42 million. one of these things is not like the other, and Google can see that.
Today what Google wants is high-quality backlinks. Backlinks that don't come from spammy link farms but that come from sites that have natural Authority. this is the year to prioritize fewer high-quality links over many more lower-quality and lower power links.
Google does not mind that your site has only a handful of links, as long as those links are coming from high-quality sources. Those links are votes of confidence in your website that help build and establish your Authority, and every single link that you add should add actual value to your site. That's what Google looks at to determine whether or not your site can even be trusted.
Of course, even if you follow the rules, people can find ways to screw up what you're doing, so you need to be watching your webmasters make sure that people don't try to negative SEO your site. If you're in a particularly competitive area or Niche, negative SEO attacks are actually very common, and if you ever notice something like that you need to immediately respond and disavow any bad links to your site.
Google has now made mobile performance and speed actual key indicators in the algorithm. Years ago this may have seemed less important, but in an era of hyper-fast internet and limited data, people don't want to have to download a website that's over 25 mags on their phone just so they can check 1 small article.
Mobile performance has become one of the most important factors for Google. And there's no sign of this slowing. At this point somewhere between 80 and 90% of adults carry a smartphone with them at all times. They are ubiquitous, and they are how most of us search most of the time.
In fact, Google has even introduced their own open source project called amp which stands for Accelerated mobile Pages. This allows mobile sites and mobile Load three to four times faster than a regular site and takes up a much smaller amount of data. That's how serious Google takes this.
One of the most interesting developments again is an increase in the number of people using voice commands to ask questions on their phone. Thanks, digital assistance we now have an entirely new way of interacting with our devices. Welcome Star Trek future.
The ramifications of this on search engine optimization is huge and should be readily apparent, he words should normally be phrased in such a way that they sound natural, literally. Keywords are still important, and various permutations that people might type randomly are important, but if you're looking to rank for a term like best pizza in Kansas City, you may want to start trying to Rank for “ where is the best pizza in Kansas City?.”
This is a weird one, but you may have noticed that sometimes when you perform a search on Google they give you the answer at the very top directly pulled from a website. This is what Google calls quick answers. They're useful for users who are trying to quickly find the information that they're looking for and don't necessarily need all of the information.
This feature potentially means you never need to click on any links to get your answer, because Google provides the answers right there for you. Obviously, if the user needs more information it's almost certain that they're going to click through and find the article that Google is pulling the data from. Google update the answers that it provides as time goes on if it finds a better source that people interact with better.
You actually have a chance to be a part of quick answers, and the simplest way to figure out where those opportunities are is to do some research and find out how answers are commonly presented. Think of the next time that you are trying to create content, look for answers to questions that people are giving quite often, and then make a compilation article on your website.
Social media never really went anywhere. In 2018, your search engine optimization strategy must rely on social media because social media Drive traffic and traffic is a major signal when it comes to relevancy and ranking in the search engine results pages.
Get your account verified wherever that's possible, like on Facebook and Twitter. Interact with a community and build a community around yourself. Post your blog, post to your various social profile Pages, update your statuses, and start a conversation.
YouTube videos regularly appear in search engine results Pages these days, and this should not be a surprise. 99 out of 100 of those videos are from YouTube, which is owned by parent company Google. A big chunk of that 200 million dollars a day that Google earns showing ads 2 people comes from revenue on YouTube videos.
But more than that people want to watch videos. Wherever possible they want to see a video that walks them through their question, and engages with them and some level. Video content can't be crap. It needs to be solid, just like your article. It needs to add actual value to their day.
Is creating videos not your thing? That's okay. There are other options, which could include collaborating with influencers on YouTube, as well as influencers on other Pages like Instagram and Snapchat. Working at a good deal on a good partnership conserve both parties well, and if the audience loves your stuff they will most likely head over to your side and become loyal visitors or patrons or clients or customers.
You need to create more content and there should not be a surprise. That's the core of search engine optimization and it's not going to change anytime soon. Browse through your older content and see if any of your previously written articles or videos could be updated or if they should be completely removed from your site because they're no longer relevant.
You can see Which pieces of content on your side are getting the most traffic using again Google webmaster tools. Sometimes generating content can seem like a daunting task but it really doesn't need to be that hard. Honestly, my favorite way to generate content is to open up a couple of leading Publications or journals and simply summarize some of their latest articles and then discuss them and talk about them. You can actually do this in a video format first, and then have it transcribed, or you can open up Google Docs and use the voice to text option to Simply dictate out an entire article. (PROTIP: That's how I'm writing this entire article!)
obviously things like case studies and product reviews are the types of things that people look for and generally enjoy reading, engaging with, and sharing. Make sure that content is easy to find, and if you don't have any then consider hiring an in-house content team or Outsourcing that work to somebody who can provide content delivery of a very high caliber.
How users experience your site is ridiculously important to Google these days. Do they find it hard to use, clunky the navigate, obtuse when trying to find the information of their searching for? If that's the case, it may be time to update your website, talk to your web designer and see what kind of fix can be had.
User experience is Paramount, because again what Google cares the most about is that you have a great experience every time you Google something. Because that's how they can guarantee that eyes will be on their search engine results pages, and not looking at competitors like BING! or Yahoo!
Make sure the taxonomy of your pages make sense, your categories in your tags are clear and useful, and of course make sure your site loads quickly even on a desktop.
In summary, 2018 is really not going to be much different from 2017, it will really Simply Be variations on a theme and a further progression towards better content and better user experience.
As of this article being written February is already about halfway done, but there is still a lot of time to implement a powerful search engine optimization strategy that can bring you massive results and have you moving into 2019 in a much stronger position.
Obviously, this list is not a completely exhaustive list of everything that happens or needs to happen in the state of SEO. You may find some strategies work better for you than for others, and that should be expected. Google looks at the way we search for different things and understands in ways that we even can't fully understand, just what it is we're actually looking for when we search.
The smartest thing you can do is keep Googling, and keeping your eyes peeled when you do, to see if you noticed the trends of what Google is showing you and what you are most likely to click on in the first place.
