None of us know how to predict the future, but analyzing the latest developments in SEO and trends in the Internet marketing industry as a whole allows the specialist to get an idea of what to expect in the coming years.
Google is constantly improving its search algorithms to provide the best answers to users’ requests.
Not only an SEO specialist, but also the site owner himself must stay abreast of the latest trends in the industry. For a professional, this is the key to successful performance of work, and the customer gives an understanding of why these or other tasks are being solved. Thus, many questions disappear and the quality of cooperation as a whole improves.
So, here are the key trends in SEO that you need to consider when promoting sites in the second half of 2017, as well as in the next 2018.
Attention to content and internal optimization
The quality and uniqueness of the content, its relevance – all this is highly valued by both Google and other search engines. One optimization for keywords is not enough to ensure good visibility of the site in search and increase in attendance. Texts should be structured, images – optimized, and the question to which the article is devoted, – fully disclosed in this material.
The content becomes interactive and increasingly saturated, the number of formats used by market-leading companies is expanding. The probability of meeting a competitive site in a search engine is a site that lacks quality and unique content – less and less. And to be one step ahead of competitors, you need to consider this in your marketing strategy.
Another point is internal optimization of the site as a whole. Even with the ideal work with external factors, such as increasing the number of backlinks, with poor internal optimization, your site still does not get good positions. All elements of the site should be well optimized – meta tags (Title, Description), information articles and other types of content.
And it is a mistake to believe that it is only in the texts. Internal optimization includes descriptions of images in the Alt attribute, linking, nesting navigation, robots.txt files, sitemap.xml and other elements.
Semantic Role
With the increase in the number of sites on the Internet and the growth of competition, even on the information requests for the successful development of the project without a carefully prepared semantic core, one should not count. It is necessary to develop a strategic approach to this task, because the keywords are actively used both at the stage of website development and in the process of its further promotion.
The pre-compiled semantic core allows to develop an effective structure of the website even when it is in the process of designing. Groups of requests are distributed depending on what type of page they are intended for – main, category, articles, product cards, etc. It is necessary to engage in the active creation of unique, and most importantly – quality content. Increasing the number of landing pages, even optimized for low-frequency requests, will certainly increase attendance.
By the way, it’s necessary to pay attention to low-frequency keywords first of all, as the competition is lower. This is the so-called long tail of queries – phrases that consist of 3-4 words or more. What is interesting is that the conversion rate is the highest in many cases.
The influence of behavioral factors
The term “behavioral factors” is understood as metrics that characterize the quality of user interaction with a particular site. In the past few years, they are considered by search engines in the formation of issuance and the ranking of a specific site in relation to competitors in the subject matter. More about this you can read in my article “Behavioral factors of ranking: everything you need to know about them.”
One of the key metrics of the user’s behavior on the site is the bounce rate, which determines how many visitors refused to continue browsing the site pages, leaving it from the login page, or spent less than 30 seconds on it. The percentage of bounce rates is expressed, and the lower it is, the better.
Another weighty factor that affects the level of user experience, and therefore behavioral factors, is the speed of the site’s download. Any visitor prefers that the pages he browses are loaded quickly. It’s easier to close the tab and return to the search results than to wait for something unknown.
It’s no wonder that optimizing the download speed of a site is one of the important trends in SEO 2017-2018. You can switch to faster hosting on SSD-drives, reduce the amount of images, remove unnecessary graphics, modify scripts and rethink many other components of the site that also affect performance.
Links – only quality
The announcement of Penguin 4.0, which will become the basis of the updated ranking algorithm of Google, made a massive purchase of links a useless occupation. Especially when it comes to low quality links purchased by leasing on spam resources, than many unscrupulous optimizers often trade.
Of course, links still remain and, probably, very long time will remain one of the important factors that influence the ranking. However, only one qualitative back link of an authoritative thematic resource is able to exert a greater influence on the position of your site than a hundred links placed in some free catalogs. And this must be taken into account, because the budget for the purchase of links is a significant expense in the process of SEO-promotion.
An even greater reason to ponder is the possible sanctions, under which the site can get in the event that the purchase of links will be handled by a person who does not have relevant experience. Due to such signs as fast increase in the number of backlinks, the same type of “artificial” anchors, unnatural location, and a number of other differences, search robots can refer the site to the category of those engaged in “search spam” and attempt to manipulate the issuance.
Punishment may be followed by imposing penalties in the form of a significant reduction in positions and a traffic crash, and for a commercial site, as a result, sales and profits.
Optimization for mobile
“Mobileaildon” – such an original name gave the webmaster one of the updates to Google’s algorithms, after which the adaptation of the site for mobile devices has become one of the factors of ranking in mobile search. Everything became extremely simple – sites with adaptive design receive a “bonus” in the ranking, and unadapted for viewing on smartphones resources – a penalty in the form of lowering the positions. But all the questions and speculations fell away, it became clear that the optimization of the site for mobile is now a necessity.
The main factor that affected the changes in Google’s algorithms is the long-term trend of growth in the share of mobile search. More and more requests are made on smartphones, which means that the convenience of using the site on a 5-inch screen should be the same as on a widescreen monitor of a stationary computer.
So far, not all companies use adaptive design on their sites and appropriate elaboration of interface elements. However, the need for this is growing, and we can say with confidence that 2018 will be marked by optimization for mobile.
Local Search
At the same time, the world’s largest search engine provides small business owners with an excellent platform – Google My Business – through which you can get customers from your city.
The development of local search and location technologies promises benefits to both entrepreneurs and their potential customers. For example, on the request of “local SEO services in Tampa”, instead of data for the entire city, you can get the marks on the map with the location of those companies that are within the next radius, etc.
Сonclusions
What sites users see in the top of the search engines, and which are not, is determined by complex algorithms, over which many specialists work. And these very algorithms are constantly changing, nothing stands still.
The main task that SEO optimization solves is to bring a particular project into line with the current requirements that these same search engines place on the quality of the sites.
To understand what exactly these requirements are at the moment, it is necessary to track changes in algorithms, monitor both official news, and conduct own observations.
Therefore, we hope that the publications on our blog will help you to keep abreast of the changes in our dynamic industry.
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