Before we know it, 2016 will be gone and 2017 will be waiting at our doorsteps.
Many businesses in fact, have already begun the countdown to the New Year, which also happens to be one of the highest spending seasons for multiple markets. Talking about digital marketing, having first-hand knowledge about predictive curve of Google’s ever evolving algorithm also provide an edge in following the latest SEO(Search engine optimization) trends.
In recent years, the future of SEO has soared up pretty high, but at the same time, some big players of the market are still shooting blanks without any concrete foundation.
As the decrees and algorithms of SEO keep changing over time, there is no specific pattern that can guide you to the keywords that can optimize your business.
Google’s ever evolving algorithm
Maybe what worked 2 years ago, might be outdated today. Each year, Google changes its search algorithm 500-600 times, most of which are minor tweaks. Apart from these minor updates, Google rolls out two major algorithmic updates, such as Google Panda and Google Penguin recently. These kind of algorithmic updates forces business to revamp their SEO strategy every time and bring it in sync with Google’s latest algorithm.
For digital marketers, knowing the dates of these Google updates can help explain change in rankings and organic website traffic and ultimately improve search engine optimization.
Google Penguin is now real time. Penguin's data is refreshed in real time, so changes will be visible much faster, typically taking effect shortly after we recrawl and reindex a page. Other feature that Penguin has introduced is granularity. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.
How the SEO trends have changed…
1. Long tail keywords are the real deal
A few years ago, SEO used to be about single keywords and was much more page oriented. Knowing the top keywords for each page was paramount and boosting your ranking in top search engines was the primary objective. Now SEO has shifted to being more about engagement and long tail keywords.
These keywords are more specific and usually longer than commonly searched keywords. These keywords won’t attract a mass audience, but the audience these long tail keywords will attract will be definitely what you want. And due to this, higher conversion value is guaranteed. But in order to really profit from a keyword strategy focusing on long tail keyword, you should have a clear vision of your company, your product and your website.
Taking an example from an e-commerce website, the average number of searches for the keyword “shoes” is 1,340,000. While the phrase “adidas black men’s shoes” has only 320 searches per month. Here, the people who searched “shoes” will have uncountable results to choose from, making their choices more confusing. Thus, this technique may increase the click rate but the conversion rate will still be low. On the other hand, those who searched “adidas black men’s shoes” have a higher chance of buying from your site, as they already have made up their minds on what to buy.
In recent years, the focus has shifted away from ranking on a Google page and onto generating ROI. Even if your site is 10th on Google search results but is generating handsome profits, whoreally cares? If you simply can’t engage your audience on your site, then there is no point of promoting your products or services.
2. It’s not just you, but the voice search is also getting smarter
And by far the most important thing 2017 will bring will be the enhanced voice search. For quite some time, we have been using interactive voice assistants like Siri and Cortana for our leisurely habits. But 2017 may finally be the year where voice search hits the bigger picture by overcoming the tiny role in our mobile devices.
Making your site future proof by adding a voice search engine, may be a great idea. Making your content voice search friendly by adding question phrases such as what, why, where and who, is the idea that is quickly spreading like wild fire in the minds of many businessmen.
3. Videos will be the top grossers in years to come
We all know what a good source of entertainment videos are, but do you know that by using enough videos, you can improve the ranking of your page on the SERPs?
A report by Marketing Land states that videos make for 62% of all Google searches universally.
Recently, Google has started giving more attention to blended results where videos and content can appear according to their relevance. So, why not grab this opportunity to appear on the first page of search results by including an engaging video in your content?
According to Quicksprout.com, videos get 50 times better organic page ranks in Google as against plain, static text results. For example, interested mobile buyers get a better view and experience of the mobile they want to buy when they see the ‘unboxing and features’ video of the mobile, rather than just reading out the features. Most of the visitors would prefer a video of things they want to execute rather than reading the steps of execution.
Considering their steady growth over the years, videos are certainly in the mix to grab the top search results in 2017.
Conclusion
SEO in 2017 is likely to be just as surprising and exciting as it has been in the past. Brands need to start using their time now to start strengthening their sites for the trends of the future.
Trends are continuously changing, and if you can’t keep up with those trends, then even big money won’t be able to save your blushes
What according to you will be the next SEO trend in 2017 ?
