When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, change is the only constant. Obviously, it’s hard to match pace with this ever-changing SEO rules and trends, so fast that it gets difficult for anyone to adopt them in a short period of time.
1. Mobile IS THE Trend
These days, mobile search has become a profound aspect of people’s lives. At the same time, Google aspires to be reflective of the user’s needs no matter what. Well, recently Google has announced that they would start testing the mobile-first indexing strategy. This decision was somewhat implemented after the use of mobile friendliness was considered as a ranking factor. While there has been quite a lot of controversy regarding this, but 2018 just be the year for this to cause a trigger on the search engine results. So, with that comes the importance of the mobile version of your site.
Now, Accelerated Mobile Pages helps the web pages to load faster in a mobile friendly manner. That is why Google has introduced it in order to improve the load time of your page on any device. This one has an influence on the performance of a page on the SERPs along with the interactions and conversions. Case studies reveal that AMP implementation improves the user experience and factors like CTR and bounce rates too. So, even if AMP is not a ranking factor now, it might just become one soon.
2. Link Building is not dead, but stronger
These days, you may find that certain SEOs claim that the link building strategy is feeble or worse dead. But, let me tell you that this strategy is not dead, but requires a proper planning, hard work and patience. It is more about earning your links rather than building them. As good quality backlinks serve as one of the major ranking factors, it also uncovers the direct correlation of website’s rankings with their backlink profiles.
3. Voice Search is New!
Siri and Cortana have already won our hearts through their non-stop and instant help. Similarly, Amazon Echo and Google Home also let us shop hands free. So, now with the passage of time, the accuracy of voice recognition also seems to increase.
With all due respect to the convenience that these voice recognitions feature, it is also less frustrating when you want to search for something on the social media. Initially, there would be at least one single voice search every week by every individual. But with the passage of time, the searches have increased three or four times. So, reporters conclude that the importance of voice search remains intact and it might consume about 50% of all the searches.
4. Structured Data has a profound role to play
In this era of the internet, Structured Data Markup is really underrated. But, at the same time, it is a great method to make your site crawler friendly and it also makes it easier for the search engines to make your content indexed in no time.
There have been quite changes in the way data was being displayed in the SERPs. The features include an immediate, relevant answer, relevant context, useful nuances and a visual display in the search results. All these depend on the data being arranged in a clear and logical manner.
With the importance of user experience increasing every day, the SERPs layout is also evolving. Structured layout is becoming fundamental. So, you got to consider the structured data to a great extent.
5. Maintain your Crawl Budget
Crawl Budget is all about optimizing your website both on the inside and outside as well. It must look appealing to your visitors and the search bots must also find it appealing. This will also affect the number of pages being crawled, indexed and updated by Google or any of the major search engines. With this, comes the responsibility to keep your website healthy and not to waste any of the crawl budget. This will also help Google to crawl your website more frequently, thereby benefitting your ranking factors too.
6. Quality contents over quality of contents
Change is only the constant when it comes to the SEO. But, amidst all the changes, the importance of content remains intact. But this time, you need to focus more on the quality of the contents rather than on the quantity. In fact, the content optimization goes far beyond the keywords and calls for complex approach.
