A website without proper SEO is like a gun without bullets. Until and unless you do a proper SEO of your site, you will never generate the traffic that is required to make your website profitable. As such, it is important that you always remain updated about the latest SEO developments so that you can adapt your website to these changes. Below, we list out the five top SEO trends that you need to watch out for in 2018.
Personalized Search
As technologies become more and more customized, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Google too will rely on customizing its search functions as per a user’s needs and expectations. Over the last few years, the search engine has been increasing its reliance on analyzing cookies, browsing history, and many other factors to determine how to deliver the most accurate result to the user. And in 2018, this personalization factor will become even more prominent as Google tries to individualize the search results. What this will effectively create a short period of confusion wherein website owners will no longer be able to rely on existing tactics alone to boost their SEO.
Linkless Mentions
One of the foundations of SEO has been the need to constantly develop high-quality backlinks for a webpage. And while this will remain important, something new is fast becoming an important player in SEO – linkless mentions. The more times your website and brand are mentioned by people, the more trustworthy it will be seen by Google, and the higher you will be able to rank. So, if you are yet to start focusing on linkless mentions, now is definitely a good time.
Voice Search
A huge change you should see in 2018 and the years ahead is the rapid rise in voice search. Already, about 55% of teens and 40% of adults are estimated to use voice search on a daily basis. And this trend is only projected to rise as the voice interaction assistant in the smartphones becomes more intelligent. So, if your website has only been structured with traditional SEO in mind, then it is recommended that you get in touch with a good Gilbert SEO specialist and adapt your website to take advantage of voice search also.
Knowledge Graph
Google has been increasingly relying on featured snippets to provide accurate results to the queries of the users. And this dependence on featured snippets is projected to be replaced with the search engine’s Knowledge Graph, which seeks to understand how certain facts about people, places, and other things are interconnected. This will allow Google to provide users with a more comprehensive answer to their queries.
Video/Image Search
Expect to see a vast improvement in Google’s image and video search results. And in anticipation of this change, it would be logical for you to give an extra care while selecting images and videos for your website. The more relevant they are to the content, the better chance your website will have to appear right on the first page of Google search results.