The Check List of SEO Trends to Embrace in 2019

As the world is becoming more digitalized and companies are adopting internet platforms to perform most of their functions, keeping an eye out for internet trends has become very important in order to survive in the online world.

At par with the on-going technological advancements, Google keeps on incorporating changes into its search algorithms to refine it and make it more efficient. For companies whose businesses are completely based online, these algorithm changes can either make or break their market. In order to ensure that they stay at the top of the food chain, companies need to watch out for SEO trends.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process or practice of structuring your online content in a way that increases the visibility of your website or page. A good SEO compatible website appears at a higher rank in Search Engine Result Pages(SERPs) and gets organic and unpaid traffic.

SEO affects three main things:

• Quality or traffic to a website: People who are actually interested in your web content
• Quantity or traffic: Higher your SEO rank, the more traffic you get
• Organic results: Traffic that you do not need to pay Google for.

SEO is governed by certain search engine algorithms made by Google itself. These algorithms change frequently and with these changes, SEO trends change too.

The year 2018 saw many such changes which made the digital platform more optimized and reliable. However, there is still scope for improvement and you can expect SEO trends to change in the coming year as well.

Here is a checklist of SEO trends that you need to prepare for in the year 2019:

• Become Mobile FriendlyThe Mobile-First indexing is a new addition to the SEO ranking system introduced by Google in March 2018. Mobile-First simply means that if you have a mobile version of your desktop website then Google will first check the mobile version to rank it for the SERP.Mobile-first policy is not strictly restricted to indexing mobile websites alone. If you only have a desktop website, it too will be ranked by Google; however, the absence of a mobile version will lead to a much lower rank in SERP.

  Thus, there is no reason to not become mobile-friendly. In order to get a better SERP rank, having a mobile version of your website can act as a great advantage. Make sure your mobile website also follows all the SEO trends and you too can get ranked at a higher position.

• Speed is importantIn a world where we want to live life at the speed of light, do everything we want as soon as possible and lose patience very easily, Google makes sure information is delivered to you as quickly as possible. For this reason, SEO rank is highly affected by the speed at which your website works or loads.Desktop website speed was considered for ranking since a long time; however, Google recently added mobile website speed to the list too. Your mobile websites need to work at the same speed as your desktop website, if not faster.

  The two main things Google focuses on are optimization and speed and both of these are in your control. Hence, getting a higher SEO rank is also in your hands alone. If your website is search engine optimized and has the speed, nothing can stop your website from entering the first organic SERP listing.

• Think higher than first SERP listingEntering in the first organic SERP ranking was the dream of every blogger and website owner, however, with the introduction of ‘Featured Snippets’, the goal is to hit get featured father than appear in the first result page.For those who don’t know what a featured snippet is, it is the paragraph or summary that is listed at the top of a search page that usually includes part of the answer to the question you search for. The spot at which they appear is called ‘position zero’.
• How does featured snippet work?When Google recognizes that the user is asking a question, it detects all the pages and websites which hold the answer to that question. The top and most relevant page is displayed at the top in the form of featured snippet.Thus, in order to get featured, all you need to do is create your website content in such a way that it targets and answers a particular question or query.
• Your brand define youYou need to make your brand well known across the internet. Why? Google analyses how much people know about your brand and ranks you accordingly.How to establish your brand across the internet?

  You do not need to be a top-level company to have a well-established brand name in the digital platform. All you need to do is make people aware of your brand name and what you offer by staying active in the social media scenario.

  You can use backlinking, that is, having other websites include a link to your website, to increase your brand mentions.

  Google uses brand mentions to decide how well known your brand is and if people would be interested in you or not.

• Quality over quantity
  Every user is looking for quality content, which helps them achieve a goal in some way or the other. Your website may have a few short paragraphs solving a simple problem, but if your solution is relevant and accurate, you will have a higher chance of getting a better rank than a website having a lengthy but unrelated content.

  Google uses the EAT standard to check the quality of your content. EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. The meaning of EAT is pretty self-explanatory. If your content has an expert solution, is authoritative and reliable, it will be considered to have great quality by Google.

• Security is very importantGoogle Chrome users may already be aware of the changes made to the browser which now indicates if a website is secure or not. This update was introduced in July 2018 and proves to be very useful for users to know which websites are safe to use.On the other hand, if your website is not secure, this update can ruin your Google rating. You need to provide security in terms of privacy to the users to ensure that Google doesn’t deem you as a ‘not secure’ website.
• Voice search is the new trendYou may have noticed that voice search is gaining more popularity with time. We might see new inventions and developments in this trend in the coming year as it is new to the market.Thus, you need to optimize your website for Voice Search in order to gain higher rating from Google.

We are yet to experience the new SEO trends that the year 2019 holds for us. However, we are sure to see developments in the above mentioned trends and can create content for our websites keeping them in mind.

Surviving in the online market is all about correctly following SEO trends and providing better content than anyone else in the market.

Are you ready to rule digital market in 2019 by following these trends?