SEO is constantly changing. Over the years, it has been declared dead but proved to be alive in a different form. The coming year is no different. SEO will take on another shape and here are the five trends that will influence the change.
Schema Markup in Everything
Have you noticed that some of your search engine results are different than others? They come with a picture, a star ranking, and other information while the rest display humble, plain text. The difference lies in the use of schema markup by the more attractive search results. The goal of schema markup is to provide more useful results to searchers so it enables search engines to easily tell what a page is about and the different elements contained in it. More useful and attractive equals more traffic and sales.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Goes Faster
Google’s AMP initiative introduced a new standard for building web content designed to make mobile browsing faster. Intended as a lighter version of HTML, AMP pages load almost instantly on mobile devices. Because loading speed is crucial to user experience, search engines favoring sites that utilize AMP, which is a trend that will intensify in 2017.
More Search is Spoken
When you type a question in the search bar, Google is more likely to return a result with an informational box at the top of the page. These boxes are called ‘rich answers’ or ‘featured snippets’, which include a reference to the source webpage. While asking a question isn’t common when typing, it is prevalent when using intelligent personal assistants, such as Apple’s Siri. Sites that rank highly in rich snippets will find an advantage, especially as voice search becomes more popular.
Denser Content
Content has been getting longer. Previously 150-word web pages were enough. Today, it’s not unheard of to write long pieces, sometimes called skyscrapers, that comprehensively cover a single topic. 2017 will see pages increasingly crammed with information.
Reaching Out to Influencers
Influencers enable your brand to reach new audiences while building web links. With rise of social media, content is increasingly discovered by sharing. And influencer content gets shared most of all. In 2017, SEO needs to step outside content marketing and page optimization into building relationships with industry peers and notable influencers to create a beneficial web.
When optimizing your website, try implementing these trends and discover their effects on your rankings.
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