Search Engines take into account many different factors when ranking your website. Therefore it is important for your website to keep on top of its Search Engine Optimisation to facilitate a continual rise up the natural listings.
In 2018, there are a few areas where we recommend focusing your SEO efforts:
Voice Search
With Google reporting that over 40% of adults now use voice search on a daily basis, it is important that your website is optimised for it. In order to achieve this, you need to adopt a new keyword structure:
- Identify areas where you can add more conversational tone that would work well for voice search
- Headings that are formatted as questions also allow Google to identify content that would work for voice searches
It is expected by 2020 that 50% of all searches will be voice search. With such a huge amount of new potential when it comes to content, you can see the importance of adapting your website for voice searches.
Alt Text
Alt text is used for the visually-impaired and plain-text users to allow them to understand the context of an image through a short text description. More often than not, alt text is wrongly used as a chance to keyword stuff. However, this usually means that the description is no longer accurate for the image. Instead, the alt text should be used to give an accurate description of what the image actually shows. If that description includes the keywords, then great, but if it doesn’t then you shouldn’t use it as a chance to keyword stuff. A good description will give the image a chance to rank in the search engines image results.
SSL
An SSL certificate allows the data from all communications with your website to be encrypted, meaning that even if the site was hacked, the data stored could not be read.
Currently, Google Chrome users will see sites without HTTPS marked as non-secure which make it important to implement an SSL certificate. Google also announced back in 2016 that they would start to favour sites with SSL certificates, meaning that your website has a better chance of ranking higher in the search engines if it is a HTTPS website.
Rich Snippets
Structured data formats HTML in order to communicate to search engines how your website will display in the listings. Although this is likely not to be a ranking factor, it does have an impact on the click-through rates, therefore making it something important to consider. Using schema, you can implement rich snippets to make your listings in the search engines stand out.
Ranking in Position Zero
Position zero or ranking in the Google answer box has fast become a new trend. It means that you will appear top of the search engines by providing a solution to the search query. Ranking in this position is great for directing traffic to your website as it means that you will appear twice on the search results: once at the top, and the other position will either be the first search result or possibly up to the sixth.
If you are interested in learning more about this, we have written another article showing you can how you rank in the Google Answer Box.
To stay ahead of your competitors, not only in the search engines but also with your website content, it is worth paying attention to this year’s website trends. By following these tips, you will successfully be able to get your website optimised.
