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With the new year approaching, it’s time to begin anticipating upcoming marketing trends. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the many opportunities that marketing and SaaS companies continue to capitalize on. Recent updates have included algorithm changes from Google and the ongoing growth of voice search optimization.
To help prepare your company for the new year, here are some of the SEO trends that you can expect to see in 2019.
Mobile optimization will be be a necessity for engaging users on your website
Marketers understand the struggle of scaling their emails to fit and render properly on smaller devices; but imagine having to optimize your whole website for a mobile screen. Well, this is exactly what your company will need to do for its 2019 SEO strategy.
It would be pretty frustrating for a new user to visit your website on their phone, only to receive a pop-up that fills their screen, or an image that doesn’t display correctly. They are more likely to abandon your website, thus leading to shorter session durations, high bounce rates, and poor results from search engines.
Here are a few mobile optimization strategies you’ll want to implement in 2019:
- If you are using pop-up CTAs, make sure they are not blocking too much of the screen. You need to factor in the overall length of the CTA and if it will be covering the content a user is currently reading. Additionally, make the close-out button large enough for a user to easily tap it and cancel the pop-up without needing to zoom in or tap multiple times.
- Keep your meta descriptions under 300 characters. It may be tempting to include as much information as possible in your meta description; but lengthier descriptions won't lead to more website traffic. More words also means a greater chance of your description getting cut short in a search.
- Your mobile website doesn't have to be a complete replica of your desktop site. If there are a multitude of images or text that isn't necessary for the user experience on mobile, you don't need to include them. A smaller screen naturally means less room to display content, so consider which information is most vital to include.
Search engines won’t rank content that lacks credibility
If your content is written unprofessionally and disorganized, search engines won’t want any part of it. In fact, Google is now using a stricter algorithm that follows new guidelines known as EAT: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. This means that the highest-valued content will be from authoritative content from existing experts in a specific subject. In other words, your content may struggle to gain attention if your subjects are too broad and common.
In the age of machine learning, search engines are able to understand searches based on user intent and rank the most ideal, relevant results accordingly. In order to enhance your SEO strategy, you’ll need to take a more niche approach to your content development and focus on building thought-leadership in areas of expertise. Instead of casting a wider net with your content, try to narrow down your topics to a specific industry that your company is most familiar with.
The performance of your website will determine how search engines qualify it
This is a big opportunity that some websites unknowingly neglect. The truth is, if you were to measure your website’s performance with an online tool—such as HubSpot’s website grader—you may be surprised to notice some negative results. Optimizing your website’s speed is key because it plays a significant role in search ranking. A website that fails to load properly or has issues rendering images and files will be viewed negatively by SEO standards.
For 2019, it will be critical to address any ongoing issues with your website’s speed, performance, and HTTP requests. You’ll want to look in to the following areas:
- Compress or combine files to help prevent an overload of requests on a page.
- Javascript and CSS should load at the same time, so either process doesn’t delay the other.
- Use smaller image sizes to help speed up the rendering process. As previously mentioned, this is especially important for mobile optimization.
- Reduce the amount of plugins that a single webpage is using.
By following these SEO trends, your website will be on its way to fully comply with search engine standards. If you’re still looking for more tips and strategies to develop and optimize your website, thinkdm2 has you covered. Our experience in web design, SEO, digital marketing and branding will ensure that we can help grow your business efforts in 2019.
Contact us today to discuss your current SEO strategy and other marketing strategies in your company.
