It’s a new year and that means new trends and strategies to take into consideration as part of your SEO efforts. While SEO hasn’t been completely revolutionised over the holiday period, it’s still worth getting a refresher on what is currently working best for SEO practitioners.
A lot of the trends and strategies from 2018 are still relevant but are now further developed. Google is always getting smarter, and this means that as SEO’s we need to get smarter as well.
Let’s take a look at the most important SEO advice for 2019.
Sincere content remains king
This point constantly comes up, but it remains the most important consideration in all contemporary SEO strategy; content is king.
Because Google is always getting more proficient at finding the best results for a user’s query, the focus has shifted to actually providing the most sincere and authoritative result rather than the most relevant in terms of keyword density. This means that a high-quality article that’s written with pure intent is going to rank higher than one that’s artificially constructed to match a keyword.
This doesn’t mean that optimisation is dead; it simply means that we need to be smarter in how we go about it. Selecting interesting topics and answering user questions in an authoritative way is what we should be focusing on, rather than constructing topics around specific keyword phrases.
Increase your focus on UI/UX
In 2019, you’re going to see fancier websites which try to defy the norms of a typical layout. Practitioners are looking for ways to quickly wow and retain users on the page and a snazzy website that’s easy to use is one of the best ways of accomplishing this.
Google’s indexing algorithm takes into consideration user page dwell times, bounce rates and other metrics which gauge the usability and usefulness of your site. Even if you manage to rank highly with a poor UI/UX, that boost in traffic won’t translate into many more inquiries or sales.
Prepare for an increase in voice search queries
Last year the rise of voice search became a buzz topic in SEO circles and for good reason; the way people are interacting with search engines is beginning to change. While voice search hasn’t overtaken traditional search just yet, the common wisdom is that as virtual assistants become more widespread and effective, it eventually will.
You can prepare for this by making sure you target long-tail keywords based on thorough research into what your target audience is searching for in relation to the products and or services you are trying to market.
Don’t forget about social media
Even in 2019, the relationship between social media and SEO is still misunderstood by many. Some people think it has a major impact while others dismiss it entirely.
Of course, Google uses social media shares as a ranking factor because it implies trust between your content and users. If your pages have a high number of social shares across multiple platforms it has the ability to rise in the rankings rather quickly.
So remember to always include social share options, encourage sharing and most importantly; deliver content that people will actually WANT to share.
As our marketing manager, James takes on the responsibility of overseeing the creation of original, persuasive and high quality content that is an integral part of how we achieve success for our clients. Through his experience working in the SEO field, James has developed a robust understanding of core digital marketing principles and has a particular interest in the growing importance of sincere and engaging content in world where issues like ‘fake news’ have become a major talking point.
Article source: https://www.seoshark.com.au/seo-tips-2019/