Game Changing SEO Trends for 2018

Who knew that the year would fly by so fast that before you knew it, 2018 is here already! The coming year will be busier and more competitive than ever. If you are still struggling to improve the rankings of your web pages in search engines, take this opportunity to learn how you can use your good old knowledge of search engine optimization and infuse these with new techniques to have a grander year.
You are probably wondering how or why, despite your keyword usage, inbound linking, domain strength, user-data analysis, and content quality you still remain at the bottom of the search engine game. Have you ever thought of all the latest SEO strategies that you have missed out on?

Embracing the latest SEO Strategies Pays

In the coming year, make sure that you will place great importance to your customers. Search engines play a great role in the buying patterns of consumers. Google algorithm shows more emphasis on the end user and the customer’s overall browsing experience which also assures users that their browsing experience will be great.

If you are looking to improve your search engine rankings, adapt these SEO trends in 2018 that will make your website more competitive:

Rise of SERP (Search Engine Results Page) Features If you have been thinking that the only way to get as much traffic as you can is through organic ranking then think again. SERP features that include local packs, featured snippets, knowledge panels and more, steal
searcher’s attention and clicks out of the organic listings. SERP features are critical for tracking rankings within features, monitoring
the features that show up for keywords and are potentially stealing traffic from your site. With the SEO Powersuite’s Rank Tracker you can start a project for your site. This will help you track 15 Google SERP features and organic results. Find all features triggered by your keywords, the ones you rank, measurement of the volatility of SERP features and many others.

Voice Search

Although the voice search commands were released as early as 2002, the voice search feature was only unrolled in 2014. Having personal
assistance, general use, fun and entertainment voice search capacities save users the time and effort needed to search. With such convenience, it is likely that they will bank on the same for their shopping experiences, too.

Structured Data

Structured data is a way of formatting HTML using a specific vocabulary for search engines to interpret content and display SERPs.
While Google has not confirmed that structured data can rank signal, it is likely that it enhances search listings through knowledge graph panels, and rich snippets among others. Do not miss out on the opportunity to stand out and get ahead of the competition.

Competition for Speed

Speed is a very vital factor in search as it ranks signal, and is a big factor in user experience. And you ask, how fast is fast? For Google, fast is defined as loading pages in under three seconds.

Take Google’s page speed test which is integrated into Website Auditor. You can do a Content Analysis and specify the page that you would like to test. You will then see a selection of on-page factors calculated for your site.

Produce More Relevant Content

Google has been too hard to convince that a website has great content and they would penalize those sites that pose to be relevant. Google assesses content quality through different ways. Google looks at billions of pages and the terms used in them to learn which terms are related. It builds expectations as to the terms that would likely appear using the context.
This is how Google decides if the piece of content is comprehensive or not. By researching the top-ranking pages of the niche you belong in, you can look at the features you share using tools like Website Auditor. Generate the terms and phrases that are sorted by the number of competitors that use them.

Mobile Remains King

More and more people are going mobile. The rise of voice search, and with more than half of Google searches coming from mobile devices, there is no reason why having a mobile-friendly site should not be a priority. With Google’s impending mobile-first index, there is no reason why you should ignore mobile SEO.
How do you make sure that you will be on top of the mobile game? First off, make sure that your site is mobile-friendly. Test its content and make the necessary adjustments.

Backlinks will be Link-less

Links have been the go-to trust signal of search engines but times have changed as it is seen that Google will be looking at link-less mentions for off-page signal. Search engines will be mentioning with brands and use them to determine the authority of a site.

Personalized SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)

Google is pushing for more personalized search results that are not just based on the traditional ranking factors but also based on the user’s information – location, search history, interests, and others.

You have nothing to fear about personalization as you only have to make sure that you will appear as the best in the top results of unbiased SERP in the first time that the user searches for your keyword. If the searcher clicks on the listing, you will become a preferred entity, subsequent searches and more.

The coming year will be exciting for SEO. Make sure that you keep up with the latest in SEO in 2018 and see how it can propel your business to great success.