When it comes to building a web page, SEO is just as important as how the website looks. Things have changed drastically over the past few years, and 2017 promises to bring even more changes. Remember when people would keywords stuff their content just to get a high ranking? While painful to read, it seemed to do the trick. These days, having good content is king. As a wordpress developer and designer, much of what I do is getting my customers the best website possible. However, once the site is up and running, it is up to my clients to give the content needed to keep them where they need to be in the search engines. If you are wondering what changes will happen in the new year, here are a few anticipations.
Enhanced Mobile Experiences
One of the first areas that will improve is the mobile experience. More people are accessing web pages via their smartphones than their laptops or desktops computers. Believe it or not; some people don’t even own a computer. They do everything on their phone or tablet. In response to this, Google has begun updating its indexing to mobile first to rank pages better. To put this in laymen’s terms, it means that your sites mobile formatting will be important in ranking.
Since Google is planning on using mobile engagement metrics to regulate desktop rankings, then there is an urgency to fix sites where traffic profiles remain desktop substantial. Every company needs to ensure that they are delivering a great mobile experience. SEO teams will drive investments to enhance mobile websites, both from a UX perspective and technical SEO.
Less Focus On Bigger Content
If the fact that Google is now going to evaluate your mobile efficiency didn’t shake you up, you should know that the “big” content factor may be falling soon. Regardless of what they say, bigger is not always better or more efficient.
The past few years have shown a surge of interactive pieces to support text content. It will engage your visitors and drive better results. You can achieve larger link acquisition with a simple text post, white papers, and static visuals. The large designs with all the bells and whistles are not always necessary for overall effectiveness.
More Imaginative Keyword Research Methods
Google has removed search volume data from the accounts that are not utilizing their AdWords program. Some have Adwords spending accounts where they can get search volume data from, however, many companies do not. To help identify keywords, we will need the help of other programs and tools.
Look forward to improving your keyword research without using Google’s program. It will be interesting to see the community sharing their creative methods to approach this part of SEO.
Anxiously Awaiting The New Year
With the holiday season in full swing, I look toward the upcoming year with excitement. Though these are just three developments that we need to keep my eye on, suspect more fluctuations by the year’s end. I don’t expect the overall landscape to be drastically different than it is today, just tweaked. Technical SEO and PR tactics will still play a vital role in the process. While I am not anticipating anything big, we can always count on Google to prove us wrong. What do you think?
