Amidst the ever-changing internet landscape, the increasing sophistication of search engines – not to mention the increasingly baffling algorithm changes that happen on almost a weekly basis, there are several issues to take note of and to take into the new year. The importance of staying on top of SEO trends cannot be emphasized enough.
Quality content
Firstly, there is almost a fanatical demand for quality content – not, in itself, a bad thing. NT more the advertising puffery twisted around weird keyword combinations to oft-repeated to sound legitimate. Now, content has to contribute – to the reader, if not society as a whole.
Adopt a policy of using LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords. These are synonym words and phrases one might use to replace primary keywords in order to avoid ‘keyword stuffing’.
The mobile-first index
In March 2018 Google began rolling out this index which acknowledged that usually more than 60% of internet usage takes place on handheld devices. Thus, if you have both a desktop and mobile version of your site, Google’s bots will assess the mobile one first when deciding how to rank your site. Whilst not limiting search indexing to mobile units, if you only have a desktop website, it can still be indexed; however, lack of a mobile version or responsive website might just mean a lower position on the SERPs.
Further to mobile’s advantage, Google also launched the mobile speed update – loading speed on mobiles becoming is a factor in how the ranking of mobile sites is arrived at.
In summary, a quick mobile site gives you your best shot at the SEO rankings.
A lively top half of your home page
There is a generally-held contemporary belief that the top half of the landing page – what most organic visitors will experience of your site first, should contain either a multimedia element or an enticing call to action.
That said, video carousels – photo galleries with blend effects as they change – are becoming an attractive trend. Explainer videos are also a good bet and can be done online at smallish expense.
Tighten your site security
With the increasing sophistication of phishers, hackers, spammers and data thieves, you owe it to your website users to provide as safe a visit as possible.
Have patience with the GDPR cookie and privacy regulations as they are, ultimately, a good thing. Also, https sites (SSL-certified) are becoming standard now, with browsers sounding an alarm when sites aren’t certified.
Life beyond Google
Have a look at other search engines, also sites such as Amazon – a surprising amount of shoppers bypass Google and just head on to Amazon, or Alibaba.
Then there’s Youtube, which has 80+% of the video market – try for a mobile-friendly video presence, using meaningful content, of course.
Lay the groundwork for voice search
About 30% of web browsing is expected to go screenless by 2020 (Gartner: 2016) and this means our content has to move toward FAQ-style deliveries.
This will influence how content is written and keywords selected, since spoken content differs from written content, mainly by virtue of the speed at which it arises.
Gain an understanding of
RankBrain
RankBrain is the intuitive machine-learning AI (artificial intelligence) technology that Google uses to process, analyse and organize search results. Effective cooperation with it will take you some steps closer to being on the favorable side of the search giant’s mystical algorithms.
The main factors RankBrain prioritizes are dwell time and CTRs (click-through-rates), so it would be good to pay some attention to improving the ‘stickiness’ of your website, and enticing calls to action to get users there in the first place.
Develop ‘featured snippet’ content
Featured snippets are those search entries selected by Google to directly answer queries usually posed as questions. This is part of Google’s constant striving to deliver search results in the most accurate and convenient way possible.
Best to get in on the action and make sure that your content and its excerpts are high-quality.
Lastly, cultivate a reassuring brand appearance
Since, the internet environment has – to a greater or lesser degree – caused traders to recede behind a wall of anonymity, purposely or not, be sure to make your brand and your enterprise perception reassuring and stable.
Users, especially buyers, want to feel risk free as they go about their business.
We trust that you will find this guide of use, and 2019 a little less daunting from a digital point-of-view.
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