Which SEO trends will come into greater prominence in 2018. What is useful to understand while we proceed towards is 2018 is that SEO is already changing, and the ranking in the first organic spot is not the ultimate goal anymore. As search engines evolve, there are multiple opportunities to increase your search traffic without necessarily focusing on organic SERPs
Here are five trends you should be keeping an eye. Stay ahead of the SEO curve in 2018:
Mobile-first index
With the rise of voice search being used on mobile devices, the impending mobile-first index being a major ranking factor, you simply can’t afford to ignore mobile SEO anymore.
2018 is more than likely to be the year putting mobile first for your brand, rather than catering to mobile as an afterthought like it used to be. This is particularly true if Google decides to make 2018 the year it finally deploys its mobile-first index, we can only wait and see but you better be prepared for it when it happens.
Voice search and digital assistants
Are you still a little skeptical about voice search? Consider this stat: Google reports that 55 percent of teens and 40 percent of adults use voice search daily; and, according to Google’s Behshad Behzadi, the ratio of voice search is growing faster than type search. Also, according to Google, 1 out of 5 searches already come from voice queries. That stat alone should make you want to get your website mobile friendly.
User experience
I have always preached when creating a website about creating a GREAT user experience. In 2018 the user experience for SEO will become even more important. Google has already made it clear that the focus is on the user (which when designing a website should be priority number 1). This should make more sites deliver a smooth UX for their visitors and the experience more enjoyable for the consumer as well.
One major factor in user experience is page speed. Page speed is big big part of SEO. Not only is it a SEO ranking signal. How fast should a page load? Google expects pages to load in under 3 seconds.
Featured snippets, Structured Data and Quick Answers
Google’s never officially confirmed structured data is a ranking signal, then why should you bother with it?
Structured data is a way that you can enhance your search listings. The ways you can enhance your listings are as follows: Think Knowledge Graph panels and rich snippets. The latter may increase your listings’ click-through rate) by almost 30 percent. Some experiments that were done show an increase in clicks may boost your rankings rankings.
With search results getting more and more diverse, you can’t ignore any opportunity to stand out among the pack. You better get at it right now, before one of your competitors sneaks ahead of you.
With the popularity of featured snippets increasing, the competition with websites trying to appear in that “position 0” in the SERPs is getting tougher. Trying to gain a featured snippet in search requires catering to a specific combination of factors, which has opened up SEO beyond the traditional race to the top of Google.
Linkless Backlinks
I have been practicing this for about 2 years now and now it is being brought into the fore front about link building. For years, links have been the trust signal for search engines. Many SEOs spend the most time on optimizing and often manipulating links, hours upon hours they spend doing so. Times are now changing, and linkless mentions may be becoming an off-page signal of equal weight. I have tested this out myself and google algorithm is smart enough to know what they article or blog is about with a mention of your business and no links.
Google and Bing are both smart enough and can easily associate mentions with brands and use them to determine a site’s authority with no problem.
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