As you may already know, Google is constantly evolving its search ranking algorithms every year.
In 2017, Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) emerged.
In 2018, many new trends are emerging that would affect SEO factors.
Here are some of the upcoming SEO trends in 2018:
1. Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Features – The SERP feature is any inorganic result that is displayed on a search engine’s results page, such as AdWords, news block, rich snippets, and site ratings. These features add a visual layer to an existing result. Site links, videos, tweets, and shopping results would also feature prominently on search engine results pages.
2. Rich Snippets – Web developers add structured data markup to their web page. A rich snippet improves search results by adding images, ratings, and a website URL. Rich snippets on web pages must include a ‘|’ symbol on it.
These rich snippets would get higher click-through rates.
3. Page speed – In today’s fast-moving environment, where speed is the most crucial factor, this is a more dominant SEO factor, Google recommends a page load speed of 3 seconds or less to load any web page. Google provides a tool: page speed information, which would help you optimize the speed of your web page; it also provides information on various optimization techniques to improve website speed.
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
4. Relevance of the content: Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a method of indexing and retrieval. It is a mathematical technique called singular value decomposition to identify a pattern, between terms and concepts.
Search engines rank your website content using LSI, scan your website, and verify content using related terms and keywords. More attention should be paid to writing relevant content that matches your topic.
5. Google voice search – On Google, people search by spoken words instead of typing in the search box. An SEO strategy must include conversational words.
6. Sites optimized for mobile devices: Billions of people use the mobile version of websites as it is quite convenient. The mobile site is a search ranking factor; in fact, Google indexes your mobile website before the desktop version of your website. Responsive web design feature compatible with many web development technologies, such as bootstrap, which makes your website mobile or tablet compatible.
Why Mobile Optimized Sites
- A desktop version of the websites does not seem easy to use on mobile devices.
- 2.6 billion active smartphone users
- Google labels mobile-friendly sites as mobile-friendly.
7. Backlinks without links – A news article mentioning a brand, company, or a review made for a company or brand on another website, blog, or on social media are examples of backlinks without links that are becoming relevant today. Relevant articles, blogs, or social media should include the brand or trade name.
You need to align your online business with the latest search engine updates, spending a lot of time and effort.