SEO Trends that You Should Catch up with to Stay Tuned with the Best Practices

Strategies and techniques that had worked for SEO even a few months ago might not be good today due to the constant changes that SEO undergoes in the process of its evolution.

Change is a way of life for SEO marketers who have to stay tuned to the current practices to beat the competition. The changes that happen to SEO is not as much due to the innovations in the methods of optimization but more due to the frequent algorithmic changes are done by Google.

Constant changes are happening to the Google algorithm and to match with it, SEO changes are necessary. Since advanced technology is now within reach of marketers, it becomes easy to stay abreast of the changes that happen almost daily. This is the only way to dominate searches. In this article, we will discuss some ongoing SEO trends to consider for creating SEO strategies.

Voice Search

Voice search will continue to dominate because 40% adult searchers use voice search at least once a day. Moreover, 50% of consumers with intent for buying use voice search. Besides being more convenient, 28% of searchers believe that voice searches can represent the queries more accurately.

The growth of voice searches is going to impact the way we create content because the content must have a tone that is more conversational and not just flat and prosaic answers to questions. The focus of content creation has now to shift away from specific keywords and turn to searcher intent.

Content has to be useful and link-worthy

The need for closer engagement is increasing, and the focus has to be on the creation of useful and link-worthy content.

User-driven content that not only answers questions but also provides information to searchers can create higher engagement.

The relevance of content alone will not be enough to create engagement because the usefulness of content to viewers is also essential.

For monitoring SEO campaign to achieve measurable results in the area of organic searches, you must keep a continued focus on the schema.

Searcher intent

When obtaining the best SEO quotes, consider the aspect of adherence to current trends that define the best practices.

SEO has to take into account the fact that Google now pays more attention to matching search results with the search query by understanding what the intent of the searcher is in asking a question. It means that SEO needs some adjustments to align with the ways of Google.

Search engines now look beyond traditional ranking factors and keywords to determine the relevance of content. The content you create has to address the user’s purpose for searching.

Video content

It may be that you are using a mix of images, videos and infographics along with text to create impressive content but looking ahead this might not be enough.

Video content is fast gaining in popularity, and by the year 2021, video content will constitute 80% of internet traffic. According to the forecast, in the next few years, video content will be the major focus on marketers for bringing brands into the limelight and presenting it most impressively to the audience.

Moreover, YouTube is the largest search engine just after Google and ready to play host to marketers who rely on audiovisual content.

Security of links

Everybody knows how important it is to acquire high-quality links for building domain authority. In addition, you must look into another aspect of links before asking for it–the link security.

Sometime back Google had announced that security certificates of websites/SSL would impact search rankings. Chrome has already started flagging sites as unsafe if it does not have SSL security protection denoted by HTTPS.

Therefore, get the SSL certificate for your website and ensure that you accept links from secured sites only. You can get trusted Comodo Positive SSL certificate at just $7 per year price to enable HTTPS on your single website instantly with maximum 2 years validity period.

Long form content

Long form content is performing well in search results, and you must create content not less than 1500 words to attract search engines.

Short and scanty content is out of favor as the audience loves to consume long content running into a few pages packed with useful information. Long form content is attracting more organic traffic, and search engines have started loving it too.

Users spend more time on pages that contain long content, and it even receives higher social sharing and invites more links. Creating long content on evergreen topics can work wonders for your marketing campaign.

Featured Snippets

Just as you must give importance to content creation, you must now also consider the featured snippets with equal importance. If you look at the search engine results page, you will find the snippets appearing above the link.

The snippets are descriptions of the web page and its content that gives a peek into it and encourages viewers to click on it.

It is not just enough to appear on the first page and earn top ranks because if it does not have good snippets, the chances of the link earning clicks could diminish.

Website speed

It is now official that website speed is a ranking factor.

Earlier, the audience would like speedy websites, but now Google too considers it for search rankings. Two seconds is the average page opening time that users are ready to accept, but anything beyond it could become detrimental to SEO.

The longer time it takes for a page to load, more frustration would it cause to viewers who would shun the website. Speedy websites draw higher traffic and have better-ranking prospects.

Exploiting social media

The social signals like tweets, retweets, likes, social clicks, and shares have become more important to search engines that are now giving more importance to the aspect of content engagement across various platforms.

Having a social media strategy to complement SEO is must, and you cannot just think about anything different. Post content on the social media with the same fervor as you would do for your website.

Remember that SEO is now entering into a voice-driven world and you must reshape your strategies to make SEO perform at its best in the changing scenario.