Isn’t it bemusing that with the arrival of a brand new year, how a month just passed by! New Year means new hopes, new resolutions, and new quests. So, in case, you didn’t taste success in pulling off the SEO trends last year, you’ve a whole year to bring your dreams to fruition. But before you take the plunge, it’s important to assess the causes of your failure, and then working on those areas so that you don’t commit the same mistake twice. In addition to refining the non-fulfillment areas, you also need to comprehend the new SEO services that are emerging in 2018. With the cropping up of businesses and rivalry getting tougher, the SEO domain is no longer confined to keyword density, backlinks, and keyword placement. It’s more than that. It’s a word of honor of offering the audience with a user-friendly experience while dispatching the correct news at the correct time. Today, the search results have become far more customized, well-timed, and precise.
Without much ado, let’s take you through some of the popular SEO fads that you should be questing after in 2018.
- A Surge in Voice Search
If Google sources are to be believed, 1 out of 5 searches today are undertaken through voice-activated search. And you know what? That’s not even a bit startling. Amazon Echo and Google Home, the two voice-activated speakers, are becoming numerous with each passing day. Moreover, since the voice search will predominantly take place on Smartphones, therefore, in a first, Google launched its Google Assistant for the Android gadgets. Today, optimizing the SEO techniques for voice search is of utmost relevance as, with the upgrading of voice assistants, a large number of individuals as well as organizations are availing of voice search for prompt searching of questions. Visit Oake Marketing for SEO services.
- An Enormous Switching to Mobile Phones
Until a few months back, Google used to appraise the websites’ significance to the target audience going by the desktop pages. However, with a hike in mobile searches that amounts to 60 percent of the total searches, this grading strategy is no longer in use. For this reason, the Search Engine Optimization embraces accelerated mobile pages, and make the best use of user experience to an increasing extent.
- Featured Snippets
In the recent years, there has been a stupendous upsurge in featured snippets exhibited in search results throughout all Smartphones. Today, you’d find a ballpark figure of 40% of the search results on Google put forth instantaneous responses in the form of featured snippets. Innovative content varieties like the Q & A pattern is on the rise that is optimized to offer pithy responses for long-tail search questions. In order to simplify the process for Google to extract pertinent data for featured snippets, the Search Engine Optimization also put emphasis on the arranging and layout of content.
- User Experience
Requests and expectancy of the audience is spreading like wild fire. In today’s time and age, regardless of the gadgets being employed by the users, they yearn for prompt solutions to their challenges. You’d be literally dumbfounded to learn that as per Google’s records, websites that take more than 3 seconds to load suffer a loss of 50% audience. To be precise, the fate of an individual’s or of an organization’s business relies solely on seconds. Take for instance, a blogger’s website loads faster than usual. But will it be of any help if the viewers are unable to fathom out the means to access your site in a jiffy? We guess no. Or say, at first glance, they are unable to make out the relevance of your content in just 3 seconds!
Now this is where the overall experience of the readers from an SEO point of view comes into relevance. It’s actually the layout of your site, the navigation, and the clarity of the content that renders the audience with a satisfactory experience.
- Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have started transforming the procedure through which the search results are graded. RankBrain, the artificial intelligence system of Google, is put into use to manage search results extensively, thereby drawing out the most pertinent facts and figures for certain queries. However, some key facts that one ought to etch in mind are:
- Embracing the ‘Predictive Analytic Tool’ for estimating the keywords.
- For particular landing pages, putting emphasis on separate keywords.
- Foster reviews of the consumers.
- Averting keyword stuffing.
- Google Quick Answer Box
Many a times, while looking for a particular piece of information on Google, you surely might have come across an informational box on the top of the “search result” page in addition to other significant suggestions. This particular segment is referred to as the Google Quick Answer Box. Now you might be wondering what connection does this have with SEO. It definitely has. Google, in order to ameliorate answers for informal search, brought forth a shift in the search algorithm. The search engine, with the launch of RankBrain, now instead of responding to only particular keywords, provides solutions to user-targeted queries.
Points to be remembered:
- Try finding Google related searches that co-relate to your particular keywords.
- Obliterate queries that get displayed in the Google Quick Answer Box.
- Try fabricating content with interrogatives such as ‘where’, ‘why’, and ‘how’.
- Long-tail Keywords
A phrase comprising of at most three words, and that needs to be less fierce and more particular compared to the general keywords is termed as long-tail keywords. On a Search Engine Ranking Page, better known as SERP, Google displays approximately 60 characters. However, this in no way implies that you must limit the length of the keywords to that figure only. The target audiences who want to avail voice search are mostly the ones looking for long-tail keywords.
Points to be remembered:
- By making use of the auto-complete feature of Google, augment the keyword search. For instance, ideal SEO advertising.
- Get familiar with your USP.
- By employing significant phrases, look for unique keywords.
- An Increase in Visual Search
With the merging of user experience and technological inventiveness, visual search has gone on to become a fascinating domain. With a rise in competition, legions of organizations are admitting the capability of a victorious visual search. To look after the SEO objectives, brands ought to pay more attention to make the most effective use of visual search.
The SEO fads keep growing with time and, hence the individuals and business organizations too should get their act together to have an effect on the Google algorithm. If you think of following the customary techniques only and aren’t too keen on enhancing your SEO techniques, then it might get quite challenging for you to see your website in top 10.
However, in 2018, with the latest updates of Google and the evolution of technology, refining the rankings is surely possible by embracing voice search, mobile optimization, featured snippets, user experience, machine learning and artificial intelligence, Google Quick Answer Box, long-tail keywords, and visual search in your SEO techniques. Of course there are other significant SEO services that one can look up to this year, but, the ones mentioned in this write-up aren’t worth a miss.
