SEO trends are a moving train, and if you want to succeed, you have to do your best to jump on, as soon as possible.
With so many frequent changes to technology, tools and best practices, it’s hard to keep up-to-date and create that one amazing content asset to skyrocket SEO results. That, along with the algorithm changes from search engines make it difficult to find the right keywords – those with a balance of low competition, decent relevance and enough search volume. The elements listed above present the biggest challenges for businesses to deal with when trying to generate more organic traffic.
While it might be a hassle overcoming these challenges, staying on top of them and the current trends are a recipe for success.
“How am I supposed to succeed if Google keeps changing stuff?!” Use the same approach as you should with any other seemingly complex goal: One step at a time.
You should always stay on top of news from Google and other search engines. That way you can prepare for upcoming major algorithm changes and discover what SEO experts have to say about it.
An additional note on algorithm updates: It’s sometimes wiser to sit and wait for a week or two after the update for the dust to settle. We’ve seen overreactions cause more damage to rankings than the initial shift from the update.
Patience is a virtue when it comes to ranking as well. It takes time for a page to start showing some results, or even to get indexed. Learn to trust and rely on your content strategies. Keyword mentions are still important within a page, but keyword stuffing is totally out, and has been for over a decade – instead, focus on telling a story and make it make sense.
OK, so we covered some of the biggest challenges marketers face when it comes to SEO. After you handle that, get a hold of these useful trends:
Did you know that almost 50% of internet users use voice search? Voice search is slowly becoming a big part of our life – driving and typing could be ancient history soon!
‘How to optimize your content for voice search – you might ask?
‘First, by optimizing for mobile’ I answer. Most voice searches happen on mobile and smart devices. Use common questions your audience might ask and put them in your pages along with the right Schema mark-up.
By using Passages, Google can rank sections of a page (a passage) separately from the page itself. As a result, instead of ranking an entire page on relevance, Google can assess the relevance of specific sections of the page. If your content is not really organized, try tightening your page headers and provide more context for different sections, so Google can understand what you’re trying to say.
We’re not discussing Mariah’s hit from ’91 here, we’re talking about better understanding your customer or client. According to this study, emotional headlines, both positive and negative, had a bigger click-through rate than neutral titles. But remember, it’s a thin line between this and clickbait – find a balance. The same study also found that power words like unbelievable and crazy shouldn’t be used often – they can actually hurt your clickthrough rate.
Yes, video is the key to ranking in some cases. Using original videos and hosting them on YouTube comes with a bunch of benefits, one of them being the fact that Google often includes videos at the top of search results. If you have a tutorial to share – share it in this form! Hubspot predicts more and more videos in search results in the future, and the way to optimize them for search is to:
By making some minor tweaks in your content, your chances of appearing in the ‘people also ask’ section of SERP increase. Identify long-tail question keywords and incorporate questions and answers in your content!