In any industry changes are inevitable after a certain period of time, so does in search engine optimization. Over the past decade, SEO has become one of the most prominent strategies of digital marketing. While the core fundamentals of SEO remain relatively unchanged, Google and other search engines continue to refine their search algorithms to deliver users the most relevant results against their queries.
The internet is now cluttered with millions of websites trying to establish an online presence for themselves. In this situation as an SEO professional, you need to stay aware of emerging SEO trends and techniques. So, that you can incorporate them into your upcoming projects and keep your peers informed of these industry trends as well.
So, let’s have a look at the latest SEO trends to watch out in 2019 and onward that will surely boost your SEO to new heights. Further, if you want to understand these technologies in depth, I am sure, you will find this SEO course to be really good.
- Mobile-First Indexing is Key
Mobile-first indexing has become one of the most important factors in SEO after Google announced the rollout of mobile-first indexing in March 2016 on their Webmaster Central Blog.
To put it simply, if you have both desktop and mobile versions of your website, Google crawlers will check out the mobile version first while deciding how to rank your site on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). This means Google will give more priority to the mobile version of your pages than the desktop version for indexing and ranking.
Though in this announcement Google recommends mobile-first indexing, it does not mean that it will not index your site if you only have a desktop version of your website. However, with the lack of mobile-friendliness, there is a high probability that you will get a lower rank on SERP and your pages will not be displayed properly to users using mobile devices.
Today, a large percentage of online traffic are using mobile devices to browse information on the internet. Statista reports show that 52.2 percent of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile devices in 2018.
So, with the increasing number of mobile users worldwide and switch to mobile-first indexing, you need to keep an eye on the mobile responsiveness of your pages for better indexing, ranking and providing an awesome mobile experience to the users.
- Featured Snippets Rankings
A featured snippet is a format that provides a summary of the answer to searchers’ queries that is usually displayed on top of Google search results. Recently, featured snippets are taking the top spots in Google rankings for lots of keywords.
When you search with any keyword you may see a result with a concise and direct answer to your query at the top of the SERP. These featured snippets are popularly known as ‘position zero’ among marketers.
Research shows that featured snippets are usually derived from a high ranked content. And it largely depends on the content’s quality, and the intelligent use of keywords.
To rank your content on ‘position zero’ you need to:
- Create high-quality content that ranks on the first page of Google.
- Include individual paragraphs featuring the question-based keywords.
- Use structured data and make sure your content is properly formatted with subheadings and lists.
- Continuous Growth of Voice Search
In the world of SEO, voice search is becoming a prominent trend. As an SEO expert, you need to focus your eyes on several voice-based search optimization techniques. As voice search technologies evolve and become more accessible to people, this trend will become even more dominant.
Stone Temple’s recent voice-search-trend survey shows that more people than ever are comfortable using voice commands and voice searches on their mobile devices. A study conducted by Google also found that 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search multiple times every day.
So it is pretty safe to assume that, these numbers will continue to rise as time goes on. Consumers will pursue to acquire and use more voice-controlled technologies with the help of products like Google Home, Apple Siri, Cortana, Amazon Alexa, and others.
To stay ahead in the game of voice search optimization you need to:
- Optimize your content for local search
- Create high-quality FAQ and Q&A pages
- Focus more on conversational terms and long-tail keywords
- Make sure your pages are fast and mobile friendly
- User Experience (UX) and Rankbrain
One of the major SEO trends of 2019 is the emphasis on UX and RankBrain. Google has rapidly evolved in the last few years with an aim to constantly improve its users’ experience. To provide high quality, trustworthy, and relevant results to its users, Google has introduced numerous changes to the SERPs. A perfect example of this is the introduction of RankBrain algorithm which according to Google is their third most important ranking signal.
Today, to show up in front of the right users and get ranked high in the SERPs, you need to understand their buying intents and how they conduct search queries. By analyzing behavior metrics such as bounce rate, organic CTR, pages per session, and dwell time, RankBrain informs Google whether the visitors enjoy browsing through your website or not. Additionally, using Rankbrain Google knows what you mean when you enter search queries that could have more than one meaning by understanding your intent behind the search.
Best practices for SEO and UX Design:
- Optimize your page title and meta description to make it more likely to be clicked
- Improve the page load time
- Make your site’s architecture simple and intuitive
- Invest in website responsiveness
- Long Form High-Quality Content
Last but definitely not the least, you need to produce long-form high-quality content to get higher search rankings. If there’s any trend that keeps coming back year after year, it is content quality. And over the years the content quality has been the core factor for organic ranking. Google recommends writing long-form content where a user can find everything at one place he is looking for.
While crafting long-form content is imperative, at the same time you have to make sure that your content adds values which your audience would love to consume. When you consider and understand users’ search intent, you can produce a piece of content that does exactly the same. You have to get into your consumers’ mindset to establish your domination.
Final Thoughts
In 2019, SEO cannot rely merely on your content marketing strategy that drives traffic to your site. Instead, you must focus on enhancing customers’ engagement rate with your contents and guiding them through the next course of action.
The aforesaid five SEO trends will catch up in 2019 and grow further. Hence, SEO professionals should be on their toes to make the most of these developments.