Online exposure is a pivotal aspect to any businesses strategy, however the digital environment is in a continuous state of change so it's necessary to stay up to date with these changes to make sure your online exposure is optimised. Google releases between 500 and 600 updates each year, with many of them merely adjusting their secretive search ranking algorithm. With Google being such a formidable force in today's digital world, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has become progressively important for businesses to increase their website traffic, customer engagement, and essentially their earnings.
User behaviour is shifting rapidly with new technology, so Google must track these changes and upgrade their search algorithm respectively to ensure the user experience is as smooth as possible. If a website is going to prosper online, they too must remain on top of the changing trends in SEO. As a matter of fact, using old SEO strategies can result in penalties that lower a website's search engine results page (SERP) listings, so here we'll look at the top SEO trends to consider for your website in 2018.
Lots of users are now opting to utilise voice searches rather than standard keyboard searches, so this will surely be a top SEO trend in 2018. Voice searches are much faster and more convenient, which is why it isn't surprising that 1 in 5 online searches come from voice queries. If the current surge in voice searches continues at the same velocity, pretty much half of all online searches will be carried out via speech by the year 2020!
Link building has always been a valued tool for SEO, and this will still be a focal element in determining SERP listings in 2018. Creating valuable links to trustworthy websites is still the easiest way for Google to identify if a website is trusted, so adding value through quality links that helps you create an authority in your target niche is a reliable strategy.
Despite this, the trend towards link building is now more long-term, so having links from sites applicable to your industry and referral traffic will be very beneficial in the future.
Since 2015, online searches using mobile devices has exceeded that from desktops, so Google has made it clear that websites that are optimised for mobile devices will be ranked higher in SERP listings.
The reason that mobile optimisation is a top SEO trend for 2018 is because Google has announced that they are experimenting with mobile-first indexing, which clearly denotes that mobile optimisation will be prioritised in the upcoming year. If your website hasn't already been optimised for mobile devices, now is definitely the time to start!
Website loading speeds play an integral role in SERP listings, and Google's search results algorithm will certainly favour those with quicker speeds. In fact, Google has built an open source project that helps websites to load pages faster on mobile devices. The project named 'Accelerated Mobile Pages' (AMP) allows individual web pages to load 4 times quicker than standard pages, and uses only 10% of the data in doing so!
Whilst traditional SEO techniques such as link building will still be useful in 2018, there are other surfacing trends that Google is addressing in the future which may extensively change the practice of SEO. It's clear that SEO is already transforming to keep up with changes in user behaviour and to maximise the overall user experience. By understanding the latest SEO trends and implementing strategies now, your website will be optimised and ready to obtain targeted consumers from higher SERP listings.
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