You don’t need more than two years in the industry to know how fast SEO trends can change. All of us remember the days when we could trick Google with smart usage of keywords.
Why to Stay Updated with the Latest SEO Trends?
Today, Google is smarter and more vigilant than ever. It can see through your intentions, thanks to the semantic search algorithm. It is why results are more relevant than ever even if the search query has grammar and spelling errors.
Many SEO strategies that were once successful are now labeled as black hat and can negatively impact your ranking.
If you are not up to date, you will not just stay behind in the race, you will face penalties and disqualification. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more reasons to stay up to date with the latest SEO trends.
Search Engines Are Evolving at a Faster Rate
Back to the keyword stuffing dates, life was simple, and search engines were even simpler. All they did was match keywords to the text, quite like the search feature of a typical word processor works.
Fast forward to 2019, we have seen more than two hundred updates of Google alone. Many of these updates are phantom updates. They are officially announced, but they are silently released to catch SEO black sheep.
In a nutshell, search engines are now focusing on two things mainly: quality and relevance. No matter how fragmented the query, they can show results that are almost unbelievably relevant.
Technologies such as AI and machine learning are being employed to make search engines equally smart, if not smarter, than an average human. And at this pace, it won’t be surprised if the search engines will get smarter than the smartest human.
In that case, it would be impossible to outsmart them, but at least one can try to outpace a machine in terms of advancement.
If you are wondering how Google got so smart and why search results are so refined and relevant by the day, the answer is 200.
Google uses more or less 200 ranking factors to see if your page is worth a better rank, and this is something that was revealed back in 2009. We don’t know if Google has added a thousand more; they are never clear about it.
Anyhow, SEO trends and techniques depend on these factors, so you need to be aware of what the crawlers are really looking for now.
Consumer Search Behavior is Changing
It isn’t just the search engines. Consumer behavior has also changed drastically, and it keeps changing as new technologies and trends come into the mix.
One of the major forces behind the change in consumer behavior and how people utilize search engines is mobile technology. The availability of high-speed internet on a mobile device has made search engine the best on-the-go buddy for the consumers.
Whether they want to the closest restaurant that serves organic food or they need to compare two products while standing in the mart, they need quick answers. This means brands need to be able to present users with instant answers that can help them make decisions.
It is why SEO is no longer limited to old school blogs and articles. Reviews, ratings and user-generated content is a huge part of SEO strategy. Customers rely on what other customers are saying more than what you say about your own brand.
Moreover, mobile technologies have sparked an industry-wide change that calls for a more responsive approach. Google now favors websites that are built with mobile users in mind.
So, new SEO trends mean you will have to keep making changes to everything from content to design and even the code. That is why SEO is no longer a one-person job, and you might need your local SEO agency by your side.
Search Is Not Longer Limited to Text
Speaking of changing consumer behavior and SEO trends, it is worth noting that users aren’t searching through text anymore. Thanks to Siri, Alexa, and numerous other voice assistants, a huge majority of users now rely on voice search.
Search engines are using a completely different algorithm to process voice queries, and a lot has changed in the way content needs to be optimized.
Not to mention, there is a lot of videos and image-based content that has more weight in the search. Search engines are now capable of processing images to understand the meaning or intent.
They no longer rely solely on tags and labels. Their ability to analyze an image or video will only improve with time. That means SEO will soon impact the way videos are created and produced for digital platforms.
New Regulations Have an Impact
For the sake of understanding, let’s limit this discussion to the GDPR, as it is the most talked about regulation in a while. While it is a regulation passed by the EU, it affects any business that has at least one customer in Europe.
This automatically includes any seller on a global platform such as Amazon. That requires a little SEO update on your Amazon content since GPDR compliance will now affect your ranking.
GDPR, however, is just one of the examples. There are numerous other regulations, and there will be more to come.
While search engines may not directly force you to comply, failure to comply can impact your business in a way that ultimately affects your online reputation and, in turn, your search engine ranking.
Staying up to date with new SEO trends may also help you stay aware of the regulations that can affect your business.
Conclusion
SEO is an ongoing process. It never stops. With new technology changing the digital environment and consumer behavior, it is important for a business to align their SEO strategies with those changes.
The only way to ensure a dynamic SEO strategy that never fails, you need to stay updated with the latest SEO trends.
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