As you would be aware, Google is constantly evolving their search ranking algorithms every year.
In 2017 – Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) emerged.
In 2018, many new trends are emerging, which would impact SEO Factors.
These are some of the upcoming trends in SEO in 2018 –
1. Search Engine Result Page (SERP) Features – SERP feature is any inorganic result shown on a search engine result page such as AdWords, news block, rich snippets, and site ratings. Such features add a visual layer to an existing result. Site links, videos, tweets, shopping results would also get prominently highlighted in search engine result pages.
2. Rich Snippets – Web developers add a structured data markup to their web page. A rich snippet enhances the search results by adding pictures, ratings, and a website URL. Rich snippets in web pages should include a ‘|’ symbol in it.
Such rich snippets would get more 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 loading speed of 3 sec or less for loading any web page. Google provides a tool – page speed insights, which would help you in optimizing your web page speed, it also provides insights for various optimization techniques to improve the website speed.
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
4. Content Relevance – Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is an indexing and retrieval method. It is a mathematical technique called singular value decomposition to identify a pattern – between terms and concepts.
Search Engines rate your website content using LSI, it scans your website and verifies the content using related terms and keywords. More attention should be paid to write relevant content that matches your topic.
5. Voice Search in Google – On Google people search by spoken words instead of typing in the search box. An SEO strategy must include conversational words.
6. Mobile Friendly Sites – Billions of people are using mobile version of the web sites, as it is quite convenient. Mobile site is a search ranking factor; in fact, google indexes your mobile web site before the desktop version of your web site. Responsive web design feature supported by many web development technologies such as bootstrap, which makes your website mobile or tablet friendly.
Why Mobile-Friendly Sites –
- A desktop version of websites does not appear user-friendly on mobile devices.
- 2.6 billion Active smartphone users
- Google tags mobile-friendly sites as mobile friendly.
7. Link-less Backlinks – A news article mentioning a brand name, a business or a review done for a business or a brand on another web site, blog or in social media are all examples of link-less backlinks which are becoming relevant today. Relevant articles, blogs or social media must include brand or business name.
You must align your online business with the latest search engine updates, by putting in a lot of time and efforts.