Google “improves” its algorithms more often than you realize, and more often than you probably want to know. Google is very quiet about these changes, and in the majority of instances, you will never notice a thing.
However, if you were to look at the internet as a whole, you would find that simple updates can cause trillions of web pages to shuffle on a dime. For this reason, it’s imperative that you keep on top of the latest trends in search engine optimization so that you can move through these updates unscathed.
We are now halfway through 2019, and new SEO trends have certainly made a mark. Let’s take a look at three SEO rules that you don’t want to break this year – or probably ever.
Rule #1: All content should be authoritative.
When there wasn’t any competition on the internet, any type of content sufficed. When the competition crept up, webmasters started churning out lots of content, even if it wasn’t good. That’s when the standards for great content were developed and fine tuned. That’s when content became king.
Content remains a very valuable tool, but it must be authoritative. In other words, your content needs to be well-constructed, include relevant facts and figures and be backed up with examples and links to other authoritative sites.
Google can tell the difference between lackluster content and well-written content, so take your time and put out pieces that are stellar. Persistence, patience and hard work pay off in this instance.
Rule #2: Think like a search engine, but write to your audience.
In the early days of content and search engines, people found out pretty quickly that they could add a few hundred keywords and rank well. That was great for them, but what about all the people that were actually writing good, informative pieces? Well, they were getting passed up. That’s why Google developed the algorithms to help separate the good from the bad.
Today, you’ll hear a lot of advice saying that you should write to your audience and never to the search engines. That’s good advice. However, you don’t want to omit the search engines from your thinking completely. You still need to be mindful of how the search engines evaluate your content based on factors like relevancy and usefulness.
Write for your audience. But still consider the search engines. Include good keywords, break up your content into small paragraphs with headings and link to authoritative sites.
Rule #3: Continue to enhance your mobile friendliness.
More and more people are going to be interacting with your brand from their mobile devices. By now, you should have a mobile friendly website that caters to your mobile audience. Continue to optimize your interactions to meet the needs of your mobile customers.
Are your landing pages mobile friendly? Are the forms easy to fill out? Does your content include keywords that your mobile audience is searching for? If you are a local business, does your website contain all the essentials, such as a phone number, physical address, list of products and pricing?
People are not going to revert back to computers to interact with your brand. They will continue to be connected to you through mobile and wearable devices, so be prepared to accommodate this audience.
SEO is always changing, so it’s imperative that you keep on top of the trends. Not all of them will pan out to be big game-changers, but some will.
If you would like to be on the cutting-edge of SEO trends, give WSI Net Advantage a call at 510-687-9737 or fill out our contact form.
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