With the New Year just a few days away, it’s about time we took a look at some of the new and exciting trends that are going to dominate the SEO industry over the next 12 months.
In their ongoing quest to improve the user experience, Google and other search engines introduced plenty of complex, innovative technologies, and we expect even bigger things in the future!
With that in mind, here are three SEO trends every website design company in Dubai and across the globe should know:
1. RankBrain is here!
RankBrain is a machine-learning (artificial intelligence) system that helps Google better optimize their search results. Its artificial intelligence capabilities mean that the process of ranking websites will constantly evolve and improve, and we may even see traditional algorithm updates go out altogether!
This new technology primarily looks at two key factors when judging websites:
1.Bounce Rate: Bounce rate has to do with how long users spend on your website, and the time elapsed between their first click from the SERP to when they close the page. The quicker they run away from your content, the higher your bounce rate will be!
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR): CTR works on a very simple concept: the more people that click on a certain webpage, the higher its ranking will be! It’s always worked that way for search engines, and the introduction of RankBrain will only further cement this. Here, it is important to remember that CTR and bounce rates are interlinked.
A great title is useless without proper content because you might get more clicks, but the bounce rate will probably be high. Conversely, even the best content in the world won’t save your rankings if there aren’t enough people checking it out in the first place.
This is why it’s so important that web developers not only start optimizing their pages properly to catch Google’s attention, they also make sure that the design itself is one that will keep viewers engaged for hours!
2. Mobile Searches Are the Future!
In 2018, more than 70% of all online searches were from mobile devices, and experts are predicting that this new smartphone dominance will only increase in the coming years.
Google Has Certainly Taken Notice too: The tech-company announced earlier this year that it was shifting over to a mobile-first index. This new index, which hasn’t yet been implemented, will prioritize websites that have mobile-friendly versions when deciding rankings.
Besides, it’s also going to consider the mobile version of your site, the real version!
So, What Should You do to Prepare for this: The first step is to make sure all your content is consistent across the desktop and mobile versions. Many people hide longer content on smaller screens by adding a “see more” button, a practice that won’t go down well with the new algorithm.
Google also recommends moving away from the “m.” version of websites and implementing responsive design.
Lastly, make sure you get in touch with a responsive website design company and have them optimize your mobile sites properly.
We’ve seen many examples of entrepreneurs designing pages that are painful to use on phones and tablets, simply because they felt like they had to design something for smartphones, but didn’t have the required expertise to do the job properly.
3. Links and Content Will Still Reign Supreme!
When everything is said and done, true SEO is still all about link building and content!
Without quality content on your page, you won’t get backlinks; without these links, you’ll never reach the first page of results.
And if you’re not ranking high in the first place, optimizing for RankBrain or the Mobile-first index won’t matter!
In short, SEO is going to be all about link building and providing users with quality content they’ll enjoy. Once you have a high enough natural ranking, you can start implementing the other trends we talked about in this article.
