If you have got your website all optimized for the mobile-first indexing, loaded it with the good quality, informative videos and have updated all the useful and trustworthy content on the website; trust us, you are covered for the time being! Yes, you heard us right. You actually are covered for a specific time period (don’t know how long or short it would be) because you never know when Google’s team plan on introducing another Google update.
As per Moz, there were 13 changes in Google’s algorithm in the year 2017. And while in a discussion on algorithm changelog for the year 2018, there is evidence of John Mueller of Google saying that “We make changes every day because we’re not always playing pool all day we’re actually working”backed up by Danny Sullivan of Google saying that Google launches several core updates per year.
Thus, in such a competitive and innovative era with professionalism at its peak, it is necessary that your business company, the web development company in Pakistan along and your marketing team understands the essentials of SEO and the latest things to kick-start the New Year 2019 with full bloom.
5 SEO essential things for the year 2019
Know/ understand mobile-first indexing
For a long time Google has crawled and indexed the desktop websites first and have ranked them accordingly but now, Google is going for the mobile-first indexing. What does this mean? Well, as the number of people using smartphones is increasing every year, Google has decided to rank the websites according to the presence of a mobile-friendly site. When Google starts crawling and indexing, it goes for the mobile version of your website first and so if you have one, your website would be ranked at the top. If not, Google would rank the website which has a mobile-friendly version of the site above yours.
Thus, for 2019, you need to make sure both the versions of your website are similar and that you have a mobile responsive website.
- You need to ensure the similarity of the content (audio, video, visual, and written), structured data, metadata, social metadata, and the switchboard tags on both, mobile and desktop version of the website.
- Get search console verification and app indexation verification for the mobile version of the website.
- Make sure the content you have on both website’s versions is the same. Try using accordions and drop-down menus smartly as hidden content is devalued in the mobile-first index.
Wrap your heads around the mandatory insertion of voice search
There is no more a question of whether to do or not when it comes to optimizing your website for voice search in the year 2019. Presently, the voice searches on Google are up to 35 times more than those held in 2008. Compromising on this feature means you are compromising on delivering a highly in-demand SEO facility to the viewers. To have a functional voice search option, you need to work on the authenticity and quality of the content. Try adding questions in the content like ‘How to optimize for voice search’, ‘How to cook delicious pasta’ as similar words are used to ask the questions in voice search.
Moreover, a study shows that 40.7% of the voice search results are made from featured snippets. Thus, another tip to improve the voice search is to make your content appear in a featured snippet.
Work on increasing the CTR
The CTR or the click-through rate of the link or a website is what shows the increase in conversion rate. This has a direct influence on the SEO of the website. Thus, you can work on increasing the CTR in the year 2019. This can be done in several following ways:
- Pick the appropriate title length adding a good keyword in the beginning
- Meta description must be precise and useful
- Work on making the content informative
- Using the numerical/ numbers in the title helps
- Make the post visually appealing by using attractive color combos
- Optimize the website loading speed
Content, the variety of content style and the links will always remain the key
The content, links, and RankBrain were listed as the top three search ranking factors in Google’s search algorithm by Andrew Lipattsev of Google. Since then, most of the efforts are directed towards creating content that helps in ranking the website among the top making sure that the other things that we have just discussed above matter too.
Focus on E-A-Ts
Google’s intention to showcase content written by the experts in the field has driven them to focus on the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the content on our website.
Work on videos and visual content
Videos and the related blog post content has become a big deal! According to Cisco by 2021, 80% of all the online traffic will be driven with the help of online videos. Wouldn’t you want to start investing in it starting from right now?
Support commenting on the website
According to Google, “Comments are better on-site for engagement signals for SEO than moving to social.” Thus, make sure you allow commenting on your website.
Rank brain and UX signals
Another thing you should know about SEO in 2019 is RankBrain- the machine learning application for improving the website ranking and the UX signals of the website. With its machine learning feature, it studies the searching and clicking behavior of the viewers. Then if a number four website is opened by the visitor, Rank Brain considers ranking it higher in the list. It focuses on the CTR of the page and the time a visitor spends on the page. Thus, to increase the dwell time and CTR of your web page, you can focus on the tips mentioned above.
Time to work on it!
With this, the things that you should know are now embedded in your minds and we hope to soon see you practice them. SEO is a game changer for businesses and we are sure you would surely want to win through it, right?
