The field of search engine optimization is one of the most exclusive areas considered vitally important for effective search engine rankings and strong online presence. According to a recently conducted survey, most of the startups and small scale online businesses have reported that search engine optimization of their website proved to be one of the most influential elements in gaining considerable website traffic while spending less or in fact nothing.
According to most of the experienced and renowned SEO experts from all over the world, it is quite much challenging and difficult for them to deal with the various dynamic demands of websites regarding their search engine rankings. Experts believe that the rising competition and availability of multiple platforms and frameworks for accessing online content has made the pitch much tougher for them. Let us now get to know the top 10 SEO trends that are expected to dominate the industry in 2018.
1. The Evolution of SERP Features:
According to the majority of search engine optimization professionals, SERP features have gained considerable momentum across the entire industry. Experts have concluded that several SERP features have been observed stealing considerable website traffic from their websites in terms of their respective targeted search terms.
Professionals now agree that it is an era where reaching onto the top most rank within any given niche is not at all sufficient to ensure enriched organic web traffic generation. According to most of the industry analysts, several SERP features such as local packs, featured snippets, knowledge panel and many others have been prominently found trigging website traffic. Although Google still doesn’t endorse it but, it is indeed a fact which has now gained utmost importance. Experts have advised making the most out of the SERP Analysis tab in this regard.
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2. Making Full Use of Structured Data:
Generally, structured data is defined as a unique approach of formatting the HTML that focuses on a specific set of vocabulary for telling Google about how to interpret the focused content and the way it should be presented in the search engine results.
According to most of the industry professionals, focusing upon structured data exclusively enables them to enrich their search listings in a number of ways. Several SEO experts have reported that exercising this approach reflected an average of 25% to 30% increase in the websites click-through rate and even increase in the number of clicks.
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3. Page Speed Now Matters More:
In the beginning it was just about transforming the website into a fully mobile friendly version while making sure that the page load time is considerably acceptable but, notions have been swiftly changed. According to the most recent industry insights, page load speed now matters the most to the majority of search engine optimization professionals.
Nowadays, mobile platform is proving to be the most influential and marketing dominating medium in terms of end users’ internet accessibility. Following this fact, SEO experts have continued to not only focus but considered it of utmost importance for gaining strong search engine rankings in 2018.
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4. Quality Content Comes Above All:
Experts have continued to consider content as the king of their industry. Either it is about the various content syndication activities or it is about developing a concrete and logical metadata for your website pages, content literally owns paramount importance. Most of the SEO experts have now further increased their focus onto the quality of their content and its extended impact on the overall SEO standing of the website.
Industry analysts have concluded that Google is becoming more and more intelligent in terms of critically measuring the quality of website and its related content. It is an undeniable fact that your content can considerably make or break your entire set of search engine rankings within no time at all.
5. Voice Search is the Next Level of Competition:
According to most of the SEO professionals, voice search is undoubtedly becoming the next level of competition when it comes to attaining higher search engine rankings in 2018. In the beginning, it was simply about catering the dynamic needs of top ranking search engines in terms of attaining better ranks on specific search terms but, now voice search seems taking over all of that.
Now mobile users do not only search or Google from their mobile devices but, the prefer making the most out of the voice search feature. The majority of search engine optimization experts have concluded that they need to critically reconsider their link building as well as overall search engine tweaking of their websites right according to the latest notion of voice search. The biggest challenge is that voice search eliminates the factor of machine learning based or suggested search terms. Voice search exclusively enables the user to search one’s own unique words or sentences. This has given a significant rise to focus working upon variation based search terms.
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6. Mobility is Now Everything for Everyone:
Mobile platforms have completely dominated the way people use to perceive about accessing the internet and interacting with the websites of their interest. Both, the android and the iOS platforms have not only proved to be the most exciting experience of interacting with today’s digital world but in addition to that, they have become the most dominating factors that now define every aspect for today’s world of digital marketing and promotions.
Addressing the various prerequisites that sets the website a part from others in terms of pin pointedly gaining strong search engine rankings. Now SEO experts have started focusing on mobile-first index in regard of critically measuring and achieving the best search engine rankings for their websites.
7. Linking is Now Transforming its Dynamics:
Over the years, SEO experts have implemented an extensive range of link building strategies and plans that have indeed given them the desired results. According to several industry professionals, notions within the link building domain have been constantly changing according to the search engine algorithm updates. It is unquestionably true that now we cannot afford to differentiate between a follow and no follow link in terms of their respective importance.
If we look closely to the domain of link building then most of the experts have now discredited that old school of thought and have reached a point where they give equal importance to both of these. For example, Bing officials have confirmed that they are already using no follow links as well in terms of weighing websites’ search engine ranking.
8. Personalized SERP is Gaining More Momentum:
Either it is Google or Bing and Yahoo, search engines have gradually become more intelligent backed by today’s high end technological advancements. It cannot be denied that machine learning has evolved as one of the most dynamic element in today’s technologically advanced world. Now search engines are way smart in automatically learning and interpreting user’s interest, demographics, preferences and much more. Based on this, search engines are highly capable of showing relevant and preferred search results that are considered to be personalized SERPs.
9. Accelerated Mobile Pages:
One of the best tweaks that you can do now in anticipation to standing by the latest future coming trend in the world of SEO is optimizing your website with accelerated mobile pages. The concept has been released by Google where it prioritizes AMP optimized content pages above other non-optimized web pages in mobile searches.
Although the concept has not been adaptedthroughout the industry but, experts have concluded that accelerated mobile pages will gain its importance in the year 2018. Many industry experts have focused upon this concept and considered it to be one of the market driving elements for this year.
10. Video and Image Searches are Gaining Momentum:
It has been widely observed that other than text searches, video and image searches have started gaining noticeable momentum within a very short slice of time. According to most of the industry experts and analysts, experts must focus on optimizing their websites images and other visual content up to the mark for search engines. According to a recent survey, video and image mediums such as YouTube, Getty Images and much more have given a new way for a specific set of internet searchers to easily reach out results of their interest.
On the other hand, it is also widely accepted that there is a huge population of internet users who primarily search for videos and images right according to their dynamic needs and interest which is why it is highly important not to ignore this space in terms of gaining and increasing your website traffic through these searches.
Conclusion:
It can be easily concluded that search engine optimization is an ongoing process that follows a never ending continues improvement approach. According to most of the industry’s experienced professionals, adopting the above listed top 10 SEO trends is limited to 2018 where some of these might be further improved and some of these might be discredit. What matters is standing by the latest industry trends.
Jason is a highly experienced, renowned and expert SEO analyst who has been working in the industry since more than 10 years. Over his professional career and working at a SEO agency California, he has served a number of today’s top trending online brands with his SEO knowledge and expertise. Moreover, he contributes his unique and intelligent interpretations to a number of top trending SEO blogs with the global community.
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