4 Hot SEO Trends You Can Expect to Dominate 2018

The key to staying ahead of the herd when it comes to search engine optimization is keeping up with the trends. It is not easy to keep up with all the rules that are being made by search engines. This is more so if you consider the fact that these rules keep changing. To stay ahead of the herd, you should consider looking at what other SEO experts are doing. Doing so will help you know what needs to be done and what you should avoid. This is a good strategy that should be embraced come 2018.

There are so many SEO trends. It is up to you to identify the ones that promise the best results and the ones that are most relevant to your business. This post looks at the 5 hot SEO trends you should pay attention to come 2018.

1. Google’s AMP

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. This is an initiative by Google designed to build better, user-friendly mobile web by introducing new standards for creating content for mobile devices. AMP is simply a set of rules which form a simple and lighter version of HTML. Pages that are built in compliance with the AMP usually load faster and on all mobile devices regardless of their screen size.

AMP was launched in February 2016 and since then, it has been in almost all news related to SEO. However, not all SEO consultants have treated it with the seriousness it deserves. If you are one of those SEO consultants, it is high time you started taking AMP seriously. This is something that has the power to boost your ranking. According to Adam Greenberg of Google, AMP is a very big deal for Google. He further stated that Google links to AMP pages in all search results. This shows how big the project is and how central it is to the plans of Google.

The main reasons why you should consider AMP include:

• Ultimate user experience – Load time for AMP pages is 0.7 seconds and that of non-AMP pages is 22 seconds.
• Positive impact on CTR and ranking.

2. 301 Redirects can keep your pages from passing topical relevance

If you have been keeping up with the SEO trends, then you understand that you should never overdo redirects. This is because the redirects are a PageRank leak. However, Google recently announced that redirects will no longer affect your PageRank negatively. This means you have the freedom to use any type of the 3xx redirection that you want without fearing that your website’s ranking will be negatively affected.

Although the above point is from Google, some experts have different things to say about the use of redirects. Christoph C. Cemper, the CEO of LinkResearchTools, said that the 301 redirects could harm your SEO by intervening in how pages pass the topical relevance through anchor text. He further added that website migration through 301 will gradually die out.

3. HTTPS may be eating your referral data

HTTPS is all about web security. Websites that use HTTPS are more secure. Today, Google gives some priority to websites that use HTTPS. This is so as to enhance web security. It is for this reason that more and more people have switched to HTTPS in an effort to boost their rankings. If you need help with the switch, you can work with an experienced SEO Vancouver company.

All in all, it is important to note that not everyone thinks that HTTPS could boost your ranking. According to Google, the switch can give you a boost of less than 1%. This might not seem like much but it is a lot. However, according to most experts, moving to HTTPS will not do anything to your Google rankings. This is more so when considering the many ways in which the switch can go wrong.

One thing you should note is that if you are a referral website that sends people to another website, switching to HTTPS will keep your site from sending the referral data to the HTTP website. This is according to a Tweet by Patrick Stox, an SEO specialist.

To avoiding losing referral data, there are a number of things you will have to do:

• Restore referral data to the HTTP website from the HTTPS site
• Ensure your HTTPS passes referral data to the HTTP sites

4. Optimize for voice search

As aforementioned, search engines are getting smarter by the day. For instance, most search engines now have voice search. Optimizing your website for voice search will increase your chancesof getting featured answers. This will increase your chances of getting a featured snippet on search engine results. It is also referred to as ‘direct answer’ or ‘rich answer’. This is the summary answer showed by Google in a special block at the top of the SERP. Being featured here will increase your visibility and subsequently lead more traffic to your site.

Featured snippet listings usually have a greater potential for voice searches. Google will read answers to the voice searches. This will start with ‘According to (your website name)’. This means each time your website ranks for a voice search, you will get a branding opportunity.

Optimizing for voice searches is a great thing, especially if you consider how fast voice search is gaining popularity. In the United States alone, almost half of the teens and 41% of adults use voice search daily. Tapping into this branding opportunity might be just what you need to excel in 2018.

To optimize for voice search or featured answers, you need to consider doing the following:

• Start doing long-tail keyword research
• Create content that answers a question directly
• Create an article that is helpful and offers additional information on a subject
• Make the content easy to find for both people and search engines

There are many more things you should consider doing when getting ready for next year. The above points are just the key trends you cannot afford to ignore. Always keep learning and implementing the most promising SEO strategies.

Guest article written by: Katherine Norris is the head of marketing at a leading SEO Vancouver company. When she is not busy at work, she loves sharing information on SEO best practices. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.