In order to stay ahead in the SEO game, you need to know all the new trends that will rule 2019. Being always first and implementing new solutions fast is what counts in the SEO world. It’s hard to predict what will change and how it will affect Google ranks, however, we all know one thing for sure, the community of SEO professionals knows how to adjust to the changes fast.
SEO is hard work and without persistence, continuity, you won’t achieve anything even if you implement some of the new trends. It doesn’t matter if your website is built from scratch or you used a web builder, your online presence needs to deliver and SEO needs to be on point all the time.
Now that we know that being up to date with the SEO news is crucial, let’s explore the latest trends in 2019 and what you need to do to embrace them.
1. Mobile indexing
Smartphones changed everything, the digital marketing industry, and even the SEO world. Nowadays, Google uses the mobile version of your page for indexing and ranking. It’s a logical step. As the usage of mobile devices increases each day, it’s understandable that the indexing will also be on mobile versions. The mobile indexing process started in March 2018. The official migration from the web to mobile first indexing doesn’t mean you will get indexed on mobile only. There is still a single index for both. The Google search console did deliver push notifications about this in the past.
If you want to see how your mobile version is presented to crawlers, you can use a mobile bot. There are multiple versions on the internet.
2. Page speed
It’s a well-known fact that speed is very important and that Google values UX a lot. Desktop page loading time has been a ranking factor since the beginning but nowadays you need to be careful about your mobile page speed.
It’s both optimization and speed that counts, however, there is a change of how the speed score is generated. The metrics are now taken from the Chrome User Experience report measuring the performaconnce database. You need to also work on optimization if you want to improve your score and position in SERP.
3. Google is rating the whole experience
Google is looking at the whole experience. You need to take care of everything, such as getting more mentions on the internet. The search engine in time is learning more and more about your brand. It analyzes all of the properties mentioning your brand and it reviews reputation, trust, advertising, and complaint solving. Google learns the good from the bad by analyzing context.
4. GDPR compliance
You need to take care of GDPR. All of the data and marketing activities you do online has to be GDPR compliant. If you don’t do this, you might face fines. Because of this, Google now deletes all of the personal data after 26 months since it was collected. This data includes demographics and affinity data and now it’s also possible to delete data upon users request.
5. Local search and geotargeting
Local searches are important and it will dominate 2019. Highly targeted search campaigns whether SEO or paid ads will be very important from now on.
Proximity matters to all of us and If an equal, or lesser quality service, is 15 miles closer to us, we might take it over the competition.
Prepare for this, especially if your business depends on physical store sales and your target audience is very close to you geographically.
We mentioned some of the trends that will take over 2019. However, SEO is an industry that depends on the politics of search engines, meaning more changes will happen throughout the year. There is no other choice but to go by the rule book defined by Google and other search engines. Most of the SEO experts are flexible and know how to adjust to changes and immediately implement new processes. In fact, all of the SEO experts are the most up to date people in the marketing industry. Take your online presence seriously and invest time and effort in always improving and staying ahead of your competitors.