As presented by Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz Inc. at Collision conference in New Orleans.
Everyone is curious about what’s new in 2018 for SEO. In this post, we will be discussing the important trends that every SEO should start implementing to stay ahead in the SEO game.
Rumors of my death have been largely exaggerated –SEO
We have good news, SEO is not dead, but if you’re confused, we’re not surprised, as there is a lot of misinformation out there about SEO.
MISINFORMATION: Social drives more traffic than SEO.
MISINFORMATION: Bing is growing with 20% of search.
MISINFORMATION: Facebook sends more traffic than search.
What data should we trust❓
What are the most important trends that we should be focused on in 2018?
#1 Technical SEO still matters.
- Be mobile friendly. Being mobile first, means being ready for Google to crawl you.
- Be fast. Google cares about the speed. Because the user cares about the speed. If your page is slow, the user moves on, Google knows that and it is saying “Hey we’re going to rank you lower if you’re slow.”
- Use schema markups. So Google can tell “oh, this is an event, this is the map, this is the time.”
- Use meta descriptions. Meta description used to be 150 chars, but now it is 300 chars. Don’t waste that. It’s a precious marketing.
- Use title tags. Don’t waste your title tags. Title tags help you get into featured snippets, and improve readability.
#2 Unique relevant content is always in style.
- Answer questions; get those snippets. One of the impacts of having voice search in mobile is asking questions in a natural language. So Google is matching content that has answers in it with this kind of queries. And its position is “0”. It’s above all the other organic results; you can win those.
Featured snippets dominate mobile too.
Getting position “0” on mobile is even more important than desktop. SEO drives featured snippets.
You don’t have to be ranked first in order to win that featured snippet, though it helps.
This chart shows that ranking #1 is most likely to help you get there, but it’s not the only way. You can be #4, #5, #6 and still be in the top featured snippet.
So how do you do that Sarah❓
– Adapt your writing style for readability and featured snippets.
Google loves lists.
Writing in lists helps you win the featured snippets.
- AnswerThePublic.Com
- Build your authority. Links never go out of style.
#3 Google is your first impression; Make it count.
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- Get those reviews.
- Experiment with Q&A, Posts, Reservations, Events.
- Use eye-catching video and images.
- Get your business data right.
Remember, SEO is a competitive sport.
And remember, that Google is all about mobile first, remember that Google is moving from Gateway to Destination.
…And don’t be afraid, it’s going to be fine.
