5 Most easily overlooked SEO Trends of 2019

It’s 2019 and I see way too many website owners overlooking SEO techniques that are more than fly by night SEO Trends. Here’s what you need to focus on.

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We all know that Google keeps tuning their ranking algorithms throughout the year. With this constant change, the need to change your website and approach to Search Engine Optimization comes with it.

Why?

Because Search Engine Optimization is the key to success if you want your website to rank higher on Google’s searches, and webmasters are always on the lookout for new ways to rank their websites higher in search rankings.

There is so much talk about ‘current’ SEO Trends that it’s hard to know what advice to follow.

Many of the SEO strategies that have been used over the past 3-5 years are very much the same, but some things that Google has implemented can dramatically impact how you should address your website.

Since 2019 has already begun, Let’s take a look at the most easily overlooked SEO trends that really do matter:

What SEO Trends Should You Pay Attention to in 2019?

 

1. Consistently High-Quality Content

High-Quality content has consistently remained the gateway to higher Google rankings.

I sometimes wonder if people see too many post talking about content, that it just reads blah, blah, blah… causing them to overlook something that is truly much more than just an SEO trend.

There are stats to back this up:

According to a June 2015 report by Ascend2, 72 percent of marketers worldwide said relevant content creation was the most effective SEO tactic.

Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less.

The average first-page result on Google contains 1,890 words. ( Source)

And Hubspot reports that two years ago, 72% of marketers named publishing relevant content as their most effective SEO strategy.

 

I think most website owners have a general understanding that writing the best quality content is necessary for higher Google rankings, but they don’t truly have an understanding of what exactly the “Best Quality Content” is.

Simply put; You want to write content that satisfies your website visitors 100%.

Your customers want content that answers their questions, solves their problems. If you’re not doing that then you’re probably not going to rank in Google search.

The challenging part of SEO copywriting is mainly due to the volatile nature of the Google algorithms.

Luckily, there is an article that outlines all you need to know about writing high quality content that will satisfy your customers and help you rank in search, click here.

2. Seamless User Experience

Building off what we talked about in point one, you’re going to begin seeing just how important your customers are in terms of SEO, and that brings us to User Experience.

User Experience on any website has a prominent effect on search rankings. Taking steps to Improve your Websites User Experience, is one of the most important factors of on-page SEO.

Entrepreneur recently published an article focused solely on just how important user experience is stating;

• If your content is not optimized, 79 percent of visitors will leave and search again.
• Mobile users are five times more likely to abandon a task if your website is not optimized for their device. (And two-thirds of mobile customers are looking to make a purchase that day, so you do not want them to leave.)
• ESPN.com revenues jumped 35 percent after they listened to their community and incorporated suggestions into their homepage redesign.
• Eighty-eight percent of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.
• According to Adobe, 39 percent of people will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or take too long to load.
• KoMarketing reports that 51 percent of people think “through contact information” is the most critical element missing from many company websites.
• One study showed that a well-designed user interface could raise your website’s conversion rate by up to a 200 percent, while better UX design could boost conversion rates up to 400 percent.

 

Making an Easy to use web design, error-free with faster loading times are all things that greatly improve the user experience of the website. 83% of users want a seamless User Experience of websites on all devices, which makes UX a very important trend in Search Engine Optimization.

 

3. Local SEO

Local SEO shouldn’t be looked at as an SEO trend!

Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a very effective way to rank your website higher in the searches as well as take up more real estate on the first search page. It verily helps business holders to promote their product to their customers at the exact time that their customers are looking for them on the internet. Local Search Engine Optimization requires different techniques than Standard SEO.

Google “near me” searches have increased by two times over the past year. ( Source)

Basically, local SEO is a very strategically planned process that focuses on emphasizing the optimization of your everyday Brick and Mortar business.

The main difference between standard SEO and local SEO is that your optimization is targeted more towards the local customers that live within your area. However, when you’re optimizing for a local search, for example “Doctors near me”, you have to optimize your website in such a way that your website comes in higher rankings on Google when someone search for something that is relevant to your niche.

Check out these examples of searches in a neighborhood called “Wicker Park” in Chicago – If the business had only used Chicago as a geo-locator, they would miss out on these searches!

Local SEO is all about optimizing your website for a local audience. Local SEO is by far the easiest Optimization if you have a proper address in a City/Region such as Connecticut SEO company.

To optimize your website for a local audience, simply write a lot about the area that your business is located in. The content may not be totally linked with the content that you’re writing, but it is often added for SEO reasons.

For additional guidance on the steps to take for setting up your local business listings, click here.

 

4. The Beginning of Voice Search

Searching via Voice is clearly 2019’s most talked about SEO trend. In fact, it’s beginning to be used by so many people that I think pretty soon the phrase “Ok Google” is going to be as common as “Alexa, what’s the…”.

The percentage of voice searches on Google will increase up to 50% over the next year.

Customers no longer need to click a button to make an order online, as they can say a command out loud to their closest smart speaker. It also makes it simple to find information without the need to pull out a smartphone or computer.

The number of people that are using Voice Search on google is increasing at a rapid rate.

More than 35.6 Million Americans started to use Voice Search at least once a month.

This increase in voice searches is one of the biggest changes in the SEO world because it requires a different type of Optimization Strategy as well.

5. Mobile-First Indexing

To sum it all up, Mobile-First Indexing simply means that Google will be using the Mobile Version to rank your website in the search. Since March 2018, Google has started its process of migrating websites to the Mobile-First Index. You may have noticed a notification via the search console about this as well.

Just to make it clear, Mobile-First Indexing Does not mean “Mobile only”. It only means that your websites will now be ranked on Google’s searches according to the mobile version.

Mobile-first indexing means Google will predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. Historically, the index primarily used the desktop version of a page’s content when evaluating the relevance of a page to a user’s query. Since the majority of users now access Google via a mobile device, the index will primarily use the mobile version of a page’s content going forward. ~Google

 

To understand how Search Engine Spiders see your websites, simply use a Mobile Bot to crawl them. You can track your Mobile Pages Loading speed using various software like PageSpeed Insights. Using Website Auditor, regularly check your pages to see if they are delivering the best user experience. In this way, you can optimize your website for better engagement and higher ranking on Google Search Rankings.

 

These may be only a few trends, but these are the SEO trends for 2019 that will bring about bigger changes in the years to come. There are going to be literally thousands of post about new SEO trends, but the 5 mentioned in this post are going to remain the most relevant for you to take action on.