Watch Out for These 5 SEO Trends in 2018

SEO Trends for 2018

A few years ago, the sentiment was “SEO is dead.” Since then, search engine optimization has continued to become more prevalent — so you can rest assured it’s here to stay and will continue to evolve. And as it does, make sure to watch out for the following five SEO trends in 2018.

Keyword Research Remains Central

One of the benchmarks of any viable SEO campaign is keyword research. It always has been and will remain prevalent for you to find the right phrases and words your target customer uses to find solutions to their problems. These problems should be answers your company, product, and content looks to solve.

The best strategy is to have a primary keyword followed by a secondary set of keywords focused on your target customers intent. By infusing these keywords — both short tail and long tail — into your content and marketing strategy, you can attract the users who are looking for the solutions you provide.

Take Your Content to the Next Level with Schema Markup

Schema markup is a code placed within your content to help search engines “understand” the content on the page and provide more informative results for users. Simply put, schema tells search engines what your data actually means — not just what it says.

Let’s say you provide a recipe for your famous “chocolate chip cookies.” Search engines may notice this and produce a SERP entry with “chocolate chip cookies.” However, with the right schema markup around “chocolate chip cookies,” you can tell the search engine it’s a recipe, and not just a collection of words.

Schema markup allows you to increase the visibility of your content as well as target users who are looking for “chocolate chip cookie” recipes. There are literally hundreds of different markup types. Take your content to the next level by using the right schema markup at the right time.

It’s Not What You Say — It’s Who Says It

If you are looking to renovate your 1969 El Camino, would you rather get advice from a Chevrolet mechanic or a computer programmer? It’s the same premise with content creation for SEO. It’s vital to have content created by someone who is credible and knowledgeable about the subject.

When you do, you exponentially increase the chances of someone linking to your content (back link building). You also increase the chances of your content being shared socially and being seen by more people — both of which are strong SEO signals.

On the other hand, providing content that is inaccurate can result in negative SEO because it can increase your bounce rate.

Speed Kills

No one — and we mean no one — likes to wait. We live in the digital age of information where everything is accessed by the click of a button or the swipe of a thumb, so it’s critical your page is up to speed. Let’s explore why it’s imperative to optimize your page for speed.

Did you know it takes the average visitor a mere three seconds to determine if they’re willing to hang out while your page loads. Unfortunately, if your pages takes the full three seconds to load, users are already bouncing from your site. The more users bouncing from your site will send a negative signal to Google, which can adversely affect your SEO. How important is speed?

  • If your page load time slows from 1 second to 3 seconds, the likelihood of a user bouncing increases by 32%.
  • If your page load time slows from 1 second to 5 seconds, the likelihood of a user bouncing increases by 90%.
  • If your page takes up to 10 seconds to load, the likelihood of a user bouncing increases to 123%.

Even more so, pagespeed has long been projected to be a ranking factor. It’s been proven time and time again, that the faster your site, the better your SEO. It’s vital you use the right tools and take the right steps to increase your site speed.

Meta Titles & Descriptions Have Mega SEO Implications

Contrary to popular belief, Google still uses the actual meta description from your page. Even more so, Google uses the title from your page. The way search engines display your meta title and meta descriptions have gargantuan implications to whether a user will choose your listing or continue scrolling. Because of this, you should always optimize your meta titles and descriptions from a search engine perspective as well as a user perspective.

Are you looking to improve your brand’s digital presence and SEO? We can help. Let’s talk.

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