Another year has flown by and we have reached the stage of the calendar where we either review the year, preview the forthcoming year, or both.
Like many previous years in the SEO, PPC and digital marketing industry 2017 has given us many changes – some of these you will perceive to be for the better, whilst others maybe not so!? 2018 will almost certainly be another year of change and development, but what should we be looking out for? Read on to find out our top predictions for 2018 with some tips to help.
1) The need for speed.
We predict that the increase and prevalence of a speedy site will become more important in 2018 as competition gets greater to produce quicker websites in what will be an even faster world.
Tip: Google suggests that a speedy site should load in less than 3 seconds. Find speed test sites that will give you an indication on how fast your website is performing. Some will also give you advice on how to make things quicker.
2) Get used to voice search.
We have already seen an explosion in the popularity and existence of voice related search during 2017 and this will definitely continue and expand into 2018. A recent Google study has found that over half of teenagers use Google search every day and this is as high as 40% in adults generally.
Tip: Your keyword research pool and targeting methods may need to change to be able to accommodate voice search, by finding out some of the common things people ask and how any of this relates to your business or industry.
3) The rise of features within search.
Gone are the days when getting your terms at position 1 on page 1 was the ultimate goal. Search page results are now full of other ‘features’ such as featured snippets, knowledge panels etc. These regularly stick out and get searchers’ attention – diverting them away from even your page 1 position 1. Invest some time into finding out more on this and give yourself a fighting chance of appearing too.
Tip: Use tools which allow you to see which keywords correlate with search features. Analyse the results and see if you can ‘intercept’ anywhere by getting your own featured snippet or knowledge panel.
4) Don’t ignore mobile.
Mobile search is something we have posted about many times before. 2017 proved to be a popular year for the increase of mobile search and related operational changes made by Google to support, facilitate and encourage this. 2018 will be no exception.
Tip: Use basic tools to see whether your website is mobile friendly and operational. If not following the tips and steps needs to be your first priority.
5) Watch your content.
Fake news has been a common word to hear during 2017. So have the attempts to clamp down on this and spammy / unauthoritative content generally.
Google is continuing to assess content in a more strict way by using an algorithm which looks at common terms to see which most appears and therefore which is most relevant.
Tip: To find this out, look at the highest ranking pages for keywords involved in your business or industry and see what is common between them. This is clearly a ‘sensibly’ impossible thing to do as it is so vast, but various tools can help you at least build a picture on this.
From all the team at In Front Digital, we thank you for reading our blog posts this year and would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for 2018.
To speak with us any time, including with a project query which you may want to start for the New Year, visit out contact section now.