If you are an online marketer, you must be well conversant with the fast-changing search algorithms that tend to unsettle SEO strategies. Google keeps marketers on tenterhooks by veiling the updates as much as possible with an occasional confirmation.
Therefore, to stay at the top of the game, SEO practitioners are always on the watch out for new things in the offing so that they can act fast before others can react to them. The urge to know what lies ahead has led to learning the latest trends that would impact the business and marketing.
According to market watchers who keep a close watch on Google’s ways, the current year 2018 is going to be an exciting year for NJ SEO in terms of changes that are likely to happen.
To figure out the possible changes, you can take a cue from the changes that occurred in the closing months of 2017, and by taking into account some new technologies peeping on the horizon, the following trends should show prominently throughout the year.
Video and image searches will dominate
The visual aspects of online interactions have become much more dominant, and the trend will keep growing. Over the past few years, people have become more inclined to visuals like videos and images that they engage with very carefully. It has been possible due to the visual friendliness of social media platforms and higher internet speed.
If these are some indications of the way things are going to unfold this year, then it is evident that the way the search engines treated videos and images is undoubtedly going to change. User interactions with visuals are going to improve, as technology will allow better recognition of visual elements inside videos and images more accurately. Searches for visuals are going to become more sophisticated.
The sharp increase in voice search
If you follow the technology trend, then the popularity of smart speakers must have caught your attention. Throughout 2017, smart speaker sales like Google Home and Amazon Echo have headed north, and the trend is likely to gather momentum in 2018, as we are likely to experience newer models.
It shows that since voice activates the speakers that are capable of providing results against spoken searches, internet users are going to embrace voice search in a big way. The way people framed search queries is going to change as they would no more type search queries but just whisper sentences to the ears of search engines.
It seems quite logical that businesses would have to rethink search engine results pages that could now respond in a not-so-visual manner.
Knowledge Graphs will substitute featured snippets
Featured snippets have been the staple offering in search results for the last few years. Google had gradually increased the frequency of featured snippets that carry specific and concise answers to search queries.
It makes it easy to understand whether to click on the link or not as its relevance becomes clear. Suddenly there was a sharp decline in the frequency of featured snippets in the last two months of the previous year when featured snippets had to make way for similar answers from Knowledge Graph boxes.
The event points to the possible increase in the use of Google’s Knowledge Graph that is going to dominate the space that featured snippets had occupied alone all these days. Users are ready to lap it up, as they would receive more consistent and better answers.
Personalized search results will affect ranking calculations
It has been almost a decade since Google has been trying to serve users with more personalized search results and every year it is improving. The aim is to provide searchers with a SERP that is their very own, influenced by their online behavior as reflected in the browser cookies, individual search history, and other information.
As technology gets further sophisticated, increased searching convenience and the growing popularity of smart speakers would give a big push to personalized search results. It means it will now become difficult to predict what your business should rank for or how it will rank.
SEO would go beyond the traditional search engines
Although Google and Bing are the names that come to mind when we talk about search engines, these are not the only happy hunting grounds for SEO marketers anymore. Although there might be a debate if there is life on Mars, there should not be any doubt that there are searching spaces beyond Google and Bing.
Increasingly, companies are turning to third-party platforms like Yelp and Amazon and using them as search engines. Even digital assistants like Siri are gaining popularity as search platforms. Since the search horizon is expanding, you too must think about venturing into the new search world.
Be ready for some big shakeups in the SEO world in 2018.
Author bio: Scarlett Dunham is a journalist who closely follows the digital world and is especially attracted to the activities of NJ SEO companies. She is so fascinated by SEO that she plans to write an e-book about it very soon. Scarlett loves aquatic adventure sports.
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