If you want your website to rule the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), you need to create optimized and relevant content. You may have had difficulty keeping up with changing SEO trends. Check out this top ten list of important SEO 2019 trends that you need to know.
1. Importance of Quality Content
When ranking content online, Google looks for relevant, high-quality content. If you want to understand the importance page quality plays in ranking higher in SERPs, review Google’s Search Quality Evaluation Guidelines that Search Quality Evaluators use when rating online content. If you don’t have time to read through that 164-page document, keep reading this article for tips on optimizing your site by starting with quality content.
The purpose of webpage content needs clear definition to get a higher page quality rating. Website ratings are mostly based upon the quality content on the landing page of the URL being reviewed by the algorithm. The reputation of the webpage or of the main content creator is another factor evaluated for page quality rating.
When creating quality content, keep in mind the importance of the following three factors:
– Expertise
– Authority
– Trustworthiness
The content creator needs to exhibit expertise and authority in their field. Content deemed more trustworthy, such as Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) pages with information given by a financial expert or nutritionist, ranks higher.
2. Make Content More Readable
You need to know your target audience and the intent of their online keyword searches so you can provide a great user experience. If you don’t provide relevant content disseminated in an easy-to-navigate manner, users won’t stay long on your page. Make content more readable by using the following:
– Header and subheaders
– Bullet points and numbered lists
– Images, infographics, and video
– Shorter two- to three-sentence paragraphs
3. Optimize Ranking with Higher Speeds
Your webpage loading speed is a critical factor in keeping users happy. The Google algorithm rewards websites that load quickly with a higher page quality rating. Fewer webpages can be crawled by search engines when sites load too slowly. Getting technical with SEO strategies can improve conversions and online ranking. Google suggests web designers use CSSNano and UglifyJS to optimize webpage code.
4. Cater to Search Engine Structure
In 2011, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Yandex created Schema.org as a uniform listing of entities and qualities their search engines would support. As you optimize online content for 2019, cater to search engine structure. This structured data markup is an important factor as artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming even more of an integral part of Google’s algorithm. Be intentional with metadata and tags that are added to the HTML markup.
5. Make Content Mobile-Friendly
At the end of 2016, Google shared on their blog about mobile-first indexing. Their ranking systems had been focusing on analyzing desktop versions of websites. However, more people are using mobile devices like cell phones and laptops to search online. They then shifted their focus to mobile-first indexing. The future SEO trend will be that Google only uses a site’s mobile version for ranking.
Check your webpage platform to see if it is a dynamic serving or responsive site. These ensure that the most relevant content is easily transferred across both desktop and mobile viewing. You can use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to detect errors in the output across platforms.
6. Optimize Content for Voice Search
OC&C Strategy Consultants estimate a $40 billion jump in consumers using voice shopping by 2022. If your content is not optimized for voice search, you may lose site traffic and won’t achieve the Needs Met (NM) rating by the Google algorithm. Users input more words for a typed query than if they use a voice search. They also speak more conversationally than they type. Your content needs to satisfy those types of informal voice searches.
7. Optimize Content for Enhanced UX
The user experience (UX) is an important factor to consider when optimizing content. High bounce rates are a bad sign and mean the UX is boring or bad. That can negatively impact page quality rating. Optimize the site for the following:
– Create a faster and more enjoyable conversion process for leads
– Provide internal site search capabilities with relevant answers
– Integrate chatbots to improve the user experience and augment procedures
– Use easy-to-navigate email forms and purchasing processes
8. Follow the Machine Learning Trend
Each day, 15 percent of search engine queries processed by Google are new. Their RankBrain algorithm can find the best match to queries by using machine learning. This technology was only utilized in that small percentage of queries that the algorithm never “heard” before. However, Google is rebranding themselves as a “Machine Learning First” company. You can be sure that this is a trend for the future of SEO.
9. Optimize for the Google 2019 Search Experience
Intentionally create meta descriptions and page titles that will be displayed in a more visually interesting listing on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Improve the click-through rate (CTR) for your listing by enhancing title content and snippets to be shown. You can use this SERP Snippet Optimization Tool to optimize your content. You want the SERP listing for your site to be more appealing than your competitors, so people click through.
10. Use Brand Identity to Improve Ranking
According to web trend analyst Gary Illyes, publishing high-quality content that gets shared online through social networks can enhance branding and improve search engine ranking. The Google algorithm uses AI to analyze and learn the good versus bad content disseminated online. Connect with brand influencers, watch what your competition is doing, and diligently tend to your brand identity.
Work through this comprehensive list of important 2019 SEO trends to see which ones you can begin implementing. The more SEO trends you begin to follow and prepare for, the more your content will increase in ranking.
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