8 SEO Trends to Look Out for in 2017
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the most valuables marketing tools that any company can use. A good search ranking can make or break your online marketing efforts, so it’s important that you stay on top of the newest SEO trends. As of 2017 Google search has already introduced 4 new updates and is expected to introduce more changes in the future. These updates bring important changes to the way Google’s algorithm works, so make sure you stay up to date to stand out from the competition.
Here are 8 SEO trends that are expected to make an impact in 2017:
1. Cross-Channel Marketing
Cross-Channel Marketing is a rising trend which focuses on building your brand’s presence across multiple platforms and devices. Closely related to multichannel marketing, cross-channel integration allows companies to advertise on different platforms more efficiently and in a more user-friendly manner.
Although this marketing trend is still in its infancy, predictions by our SEO consultants at Netvision say that it will become one of the biggest trend of 2017. Studies suggest that cross-channel integration helps to attract consumers who are more likely to buy and spend more money, making it an excellent resource for conversion marketing.
2. Mobile Marketing
Since the Smartphone’s appearance in the late 2000s, mobile use has grown so much that by 2020 more than 75% of internet traffic will come from mobile devices. With those numbers, can there be any question that mobile optimisation is a must do for your company?
Google itself has stepped forward and announced that it would focus on indexing pages with a mobile first approach. Which basically means that in any search results Google will rank the mobile version web pages before the desktop version. Therefore, making your website mobile-friendly should be at the top of your priority list. Having a page that is adaptable to any device will increase your site’s accessibility by an ever-growing audience of mobile device users.
3. Voice search
Although voice search is still considered to be in its infancy, the amazing advancements it has made in the past years (as showcased by Siri) has meant that it’s here to stay. The use of voice recognition search apps has increased dramatically in just a couple of years. A recent survey conducted by Northstar showed that 55% of teens and 41% of adults used voice search, and the numbers just keep growing. Added to its popularity is the fact that voice searches have a strong local intent, making them a perfect resource to promote your business in your own city.
But optimising for voice search can be tricky. Most people don’t use keywords, but rather talk to their phones like they would to a stranger while asking directions in the Gold Coast. So make sure to listen how people reference your business and you’ll have a better understanding of the words they use in their voice searches.
4. Google Quick Answers
Google Quick Answers is a great resource for people looking for short, valuable information about a specific topic. By highlighting the most relevant result, Google helps the user get the information he needs without having to look through the results himself. This creates an excellent marketing opportunity for businesses creating content that is accurate, easy-to-read, and purposeful.
Providing quick answers to netizens is a great marketing opportunity, especially considering how often people stop searching if they have to read several articles to find an answer. With the average attention span of humans falling behind that of goldfishes, it’s reasonable to expect that this trend will grow in 2017 so make sure to optimise your site accordingly.
5. Featured Snippets in Search Engine Results Page
Featured snippets are a great way of showcasing a preview of your website’s content to the user. Snippets are a summary generated with either a schema markup or structured data and have become very common in search results. Snippets are great at drawing traffic to your website, since each block contains a link to the page with an attractive summary of the article referenced.
With the number of snippet results rising every year, optimising your website to include snippet answers can help you attract a healthy amount traffic.
6. User Intention
Everybody who performs a Google search is looking for something in specific. However, most people don’t know much about SEO so they may not get the results they want. Optimising for User Intent fixes this issue by going beyond keywords and focusing on giving the user what he’s searching for.
Focusing on user intention is a sure way to rank high on the results page without going through the trouble of having to adapt to Google’s algorithm constant updates. While this trend will never replace SEO entirely, addressing your customers’ intent will do wonders for your conversion rate.
7. Structured Data
Using structured data can help your website be more “crawler friendly” and therefore more likely to rank higher than those who don’t. Structured data markup is a type of data that allows Google’s crawler to organise and categorise pages more efficiently, while also ensuring that they’re displayed with an attractive format.
The easier it is for the search engine to understand your website, the more likely it is that you’ll get a favourable ranking. While many webmasters have used structured data for a while, its popularity has grown now that Google is using it more frequently. So you can expect this trend to increase in popularity this year and beyond.
8. Rise of Video Content
The popularity of video content has been rising steadily over the years, with the YouTube giant comfortably dominating the digital video market by a big margin. Similarly, the appearance of new sites and technologies like Snapchat and Periscope have also increased the popularity of video. Even social media websites like Instagram and Facebook are being taken over by video, with Facebook projecting to overcome YouTube as the leading online video sharing website in the future.
Including video content as part of your marketing strategy will help your company to stay relevant in the increasingly multimedia-reliant internet of the future. Using video content in your website is the way of the future. Even Google is experimenting with video ads on its search results. So if it’s good for Google, why wouldn’t it be good for you?
