If you want to outrank your competitors, there are certain SEO practices that you should be following, no matter what. It doesn’t mean, though, that with time, some of the things haven’t become much more important. In a second, you’ll learn what the top SEO trends for modern marketers are. Let’s go!
Voice Search Optimization
The popularity of voice search is on the rise. Why? The technology has gotten better, and the voice search is now more accurate. As compared to manually typing your question, it is much faster, and if there is one thing that people value now most, it is undoubtedly the speed at which they can access the internet. That’s why more and more people opt to use their voice instead of typing manually. It means that if you want to improve your rankings, then you should optimize your website for voice search. It also means that you should start using long-tail keywords. With voice search, the questions tend to be longer and more specific.
Use Keywords Smartly!
If you want to increase your ranking, then you should conduct keyword research, and then implement those keywords in your texts. You can do it with the help of SEO tools, like proranktracker.com. Well, that’s nothing new, but right now, you should be more careful about stuffing your texts with keywords. If you overdo it, Google will be more likely to punish you for writing articles that are unreadable for the visitors.
Featured Snippets
More and more search queries have featured snippets. It is estimated that currently, around 12% of all search queries have featured snippets, though this number will continue to rise. The first few results are more likely to become featured snippets, though it is not often the case - around 0.42% of the featured snippets are not taken from the first 10 top websites!
Okay, but how valuable is it to have your website chosen to be used in a featured snippet? The answer is: not that much. A study has found out that about 8.6% of the visitors will click on a featured snippet, whereas the top position will receive approximately 19.6% clicks, whereas, in the absence of a featured snippet, it would receive 26% of the clicks. It means that if you have one of the top rankings, then a featured snippet won’t help you much, but if you rank, let’s say outside of the top three, then it could help you a lot.
Speed Is Crucial
If your website takes too long to open, your visitors might leave before it loads. It means that even if you’ve spent a considerable amount of time creating excellent content, it might not matter one tiny bit. We are used to having access to the information at an instant, which means that even a slight delay might have tragic consequences.
Even if users don’t experience any issues when opening your website on a computer, you need to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile users as well. Already, mobile users generate more than half of all internet traffic, and this trend won’t be slowing down any time soon. If you want to improve your ranking, then optimizing your website, so it is quick to load, is one of the crucial steps that you should take.
Video Is Increasingly Important
You have probably noticed that recently, more and more videos tend to rank high. Right now, around 80% of the top ten results include a Youtube video. Of course, it might not be possible for every topic, but if it is possible, adding even a short video could boost your rankings considerably.
Quantity…
If you want your articles to rank high, then you need to write long articles. Well, everyone could have a different definition of what a “long article” means, but the studies have shown that if you want to rank anywhere in the top 10, your article should have around 2000 words. This way, the visitors will stay for an extended amount of time on your website, which will be recognized by Google as a sign that your content is captivating.
...But Also Quality
The length isn’t all that matters; the quality of your content is just as important. Your article should answer the questions of the visitors. It means that writing long articles isn’t enough; you should also be writing great content. It’s not a surprise, but recently the importance of quality content has grown even bigger. If you don’t consider yourself to be a skilled writer, then perhaps you should hire someone else.
Be Diligent And SEO Like A Pro!
Improving your rankings in the modern age of search is a much more difficult task than in the past. Why? That’s because more and more companies have heard of SEO, which means that they are putting effort into optimizing their websites as well. That’s why, if you want to outrank your competitors, it is crucial to keep up with the trends.
