7 Top SEO Opportunities For 2018
When it comes to SEO, change is the only constant. No wonder it's tough to stand firm on its ever-changing ground, when the rules and trends are shifting if not at the speed of sound, then at least way faster than you get a chance to adopt them. In the blink of an eye, tactics that were working just fine may not only become obsolete, but even harm you. Meanwhile, some new trends may leave you too far behind to catch up, if you don't foresee it or neglect it for some reason.
Last year, we've discussed the SEO trends for 2017: waving goodbye to keyword density, confident steps into the age of semantic search, and moves towards safer and mobile-friendly web. This year, let's catch up with the shifts in older tendencies, and uncover some new opportunities along the way.
1. Link-building Is Very Much Alive (But Challenging)
A never-ending story - there will always be SEOs that claim link-building dead, and SEOs that desperately brainstorm on new ways to gain links, and turn 'building' into 'earning'. You'd better be on the second team, as there's also a never-ending flow of studies and surveys, proving backlinks to invariably remain one of the major rankings factors, and uncovering the direct correlation of sites' rankings with their backlink profiles.
Google isn't getting less strict about unnatural backlink profiles and manipulative link-building methods, so stick a fork in it. While the low-quality and spammy links are more likely to just get discounted and devalued by Google, there's still a chance of getting a manual penalty if you go for illegitimate methods.
The Opportunity
To be on a safe side with Penguin (which is real-time since 2016), make the regular backlink profile cleanup a part of your routine. 'Could it get more boring?' - you may wonder, but that's not much of a burden, while a good chance to be one step ahead by not being one step behind (as those who don't bother).
The recent link-building survey conducted by SEO PowerSuite shows that most of SEOs are now struggling the same way with the lack of opportunities, ideas or experience, but there are still some old and new tactics worth trying, with an emphasis on common sense. The advice for 2018 would be like:
- Not wasting time for grey-hat and spammy tactics,
- Growing your link profile at a natural pace,
- Creating useful and cornerstone content worth linking to,
- Establishing relationships within the niche instead of just rushing to get as many links as hands can hold,
- Turning to legitimate paid methods, but reasonably.
2. All-things-Mobile
Nowadays, mobile search has become ever more integral to people's lives, and Google is known for its aspiration to be reflective of users' needs. In the end of 2016, the so-called Mobilegeddon (expanding the use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal) was followed by the announcement that Google starts testing the mobile-first indexing. While 2017 has been a year full of controversy around the topic and delay notes from Google, 2018 seems to be the year when it may finally take effect, and the rankings may be determined based on the mobile version of a site.
Load time remains the factor that drastically affects user experience, and has at least some effect on the performance of a page in the SERPs and further interactions and conversions. To prevent a huge shift from mobile browsing towards apps, Google has introduced Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which may load 4x faster than the regular pages and improve the user experience with little hints (like displaying ads in a mobile-friendly way). Case studies show that AMP implementation improves user-behavior factors like CTR and bounce rates as well. So, AMP is not a ranking factor now, but it well may become one.
The Opportunity
With mobile-first indexing, Google incessantly calls not to panic. However, in case your site is not fully responsive, and
primary content and markup vary across mobile and desktop, it's high time to consider some changes, and make sure your mobile pages are not clumsy, void or less informative in comparison to desktop ones.
If you haven't considered implementing AMP yet, it's also a great time to get on board. According to Google, more than 900,000 domains have adopted the AMP framework by now, but that's a really small fraction of the 1.2 billion websites on the internet. So that's a one more benefit you can get with basically no risk, while your competitors may regret missing out on it one year from now.
3. Voice Search Is On The Rise
The number of tools based on voice recognition continues to grow - we have Siri and Cortana to give us a hint on 'where to go for best pizza near me' and to tell us a joke, Google Home and Amazon Echo to let us shop almost hands free.
The accuracy of the voice recognition continues to improve as well - Microsoft reported reaching a 5.1% word error rate, Apple SVP Phil Schiller in his interview with John Gruber made a joke that he's not afraid of saying 'Hey Siri' on stage anymore.
As it becomes more convenient and less frustrating, we observe the amount of voice searches growing real fast. Over 70 percent of respondents to recent HigherVisibility survey admitted using voice search at least once per month, and nearly half is using it weekly or daily. According to Google, 20% of mobile queries are made via voice now, and ComScore even predicts that it will make up 50 percent of all searches by 2020.
The Opportunity
Unlike text-based queries, the voice search queries tend to be longer and more specific in intent, and the searchers await clear immediate solutions. To adapt to the shift and optimize for voice search, there are several changes you may consider applying to your content:
- Incorporate long-tail keywords to address the more precise queries
- Use more natural language and conversational tone, answer the What, Where, When and How questions,
- Add a FAQ page, phrase the questions the way real people would ask them, and provide comprehensive clear answers,
- The four most common intents behind the voice searches are 'I want to know', 'to go', 'to do' and 'to buy'. Understand (research) your users' needs and offer solutions,
- Take good care of your local SEO, as most voice searches are local in intent.
