Progressive SEO Strategies

From getting a firm grasp of the big-picture search trends to ensuring that your SEO strategies are aligned with your CEO, there is plenty to reflect on when setting plans for the rest of 2017. This year has brought huge changes to the industry. Together with your team of SEO specialists, you need to devise a strategy that is nothing short of remarkable.

This article takes a look at some big-picture trends in SEO in a bid to answer questions such as: What is Google doing? How is my strategy affected by Google’s plans? How do I tweak my tactics to fit current trends?

Big-Picture Search Trends in 2017

Rich answers

The recent months have seen a significant rise in rich answers. While they available on desktop, rich answers are more prominent on mobile. Google is looking to improve the quality of answers it provides for your users’ queries and with the right content and design, that could translate into increased traffic to your site if your pages get featured in the answers.

Intent versus keywords

RankBrain is continuing with the trend that started with Hummingbird in which the intent of users is more significant than keywords when ranking content. That is not to say that keywords can be left out of the ranking equation.

Before you can serve users content based on their intent, you have to first understand their search queries. As well, very minute changes in the structure of a keyword can indicate considerable changes in the intent of a searcher. Your online marketing agency needs to take this into account when crafting content.

UX and speed on every device

Google has demanded this of website owners for years. Note that speed is not the only factor that affects user experience (UX). Google also looks at other factors, such as pop-ups and overlays, which Google has taken action against. These actions suggest that some metrics on engagement are factored into ranking, whereby better UX and user engagement improve rankings.

Lack of reliability of Google data

Some trends related to this include search volume data with respect to the keywords in AdWords. They also include Google Search Console inaccuracies with regard to rankings. In other words, when reviewing data from Google about the number of impressions and clicks that you have obtained, you can’t rely on that data 100%, according to some SEO experts.

Voice search

The rise of voice search is well-documented. Even though it is yet to become a huge trend in such a way that search marketers can fully leverage, there are still a number of ways in which voice searches will affect your ranking in the future. You should therefore start thinking about how to craft your content in a way that is optimized for voice searches.