Rank higher on Google. That’s a line we hear all the time. It’s to be expected since everyone wants to boost their Google ranking, especially to help generate higher conversion rates. In this post, you’ll find a handy overview of technical SEO trends. If you use them wisely, you should witness a jump in your Google score. Bring on those conversions!
Mobile first
People have been preaching it for years, but mobile first should be top of mind in your SEO strategy. With increasing frequency, folks are doing quick searches for a local restaurant, group activity, cute boutique, etc. That means your website should be mobile-ready:
- Install Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP is focused on improving user experience, showing pages with a quick load speed by leaving out any unnecessary content. You can spot pages with an AMP-version in mobile search results by the letters AMP and a small circle with a lightning bolt. Multiple website plug-ins are available for download, or you can simply ask your website builder for help.
- Link building is still an important factor in Google ranking. The links should be high-quality, so we don’t recommend purchasing your links. Tip: focus on the quality of your content, use social media appropriately, and ask clients/customers for reviews.
- Voice Search. It’s impossible to ignore. Voice Search is becoming ever more significant, especially since it’s so popular with younger generations. Make sure your content is up to the challenge by using primarily long tail keywords and phrases. Imagine how you would search for something by speaking a query out loud (or use Google’s keyword tool) and use those phrases in your content. Do the same for your metadata. We’ll dig into that in more detail later on in this blog post.
- Improved User Experience (UX). This is a huge player in the field of search engine optimization. By conducting user experience research, you can find out if your website is offering the ultimate experience or whether you still have ground to gain in that area. Make sure your visitors feel catered to and that they enjoy navigating your website. That means they’ll stick around longer and return more frequently.
Voice Search
In recent years, the number of spoken search queries has grown by 20% and naturally that number is only set to increase. Typing a search takes more time and effort than simply asking Siri a question. On top of that, visitors keep their hands free to do more important things — like making sandwiches. So practical! But how do you use Voice Search as an asset in your Google ranking?
- Use long tail keywords. As you can imagine, a spoken question often contains more words than a typed query. That’s why you need to use long tail keywords. For a question like, “Where do I find a house painter near Amsterdam who is flexible and affordable?”, you would use the words ‘house painter Amsterdam flexible affordable’ instead of just ‘house painter Amsterdam’.
- Make sure you have reviews. Local reviews are a great way to score — and they’re the best kind of online word-of-mouth marketing. It’s Google’s goal to offer relevant and solid answers to any search query. If your painting company has the best (authentic) reviews, Google will recommend you more highly than a different company with few to no reviews. Additionally, reviews help out with link building, which is another priority for Google.
- Your FAQs are relevant for Voice Search since their grammatical structure is in line with spoken search queries. Aim to make your FAQ section as robust as possible.
- Relevance and readability are important for your score. Use short sentences and don’t misuse keywords. (Using a search term three times in one sentence is a no-no that gets punished by Google, but of course, you’re already aware of that.)
- Avoid formal written language. Any time you’re writing content, write as though you’re having a conversation with a customer. Spoken language style is easier to read than more formal written language, and it aligns more closely with spoken search queries.
Content robots
Content bots are artificial intelligence (AI) apps that create coherent text based on pre-entered data. Slowly but surely, these bots are gaining ground. They’re able to create recaps of sports matches, or they can whip up reports about a company’s stock exchange performance. The robots can turn standardized data into stories that are pretty easy to read. Of course, creativity is not really a factor, since that’s still very much the work of humans. But the technology is evolving quickly!
You can call on these bots for your own content marketing. They can quickly and easily write SEO-focused articles to help give your Google ranking a boost. Keep in mind that it’s a bit of a shortcut since the robots write content based on existing information and following a fixed format. Knowing Google, they’ll likely create an algorithm to penalize that kind of thing. But why not use the bots as a basis for your own creativity? Put the robots to work, then add some of your own flavor. That way you’ll have quick and easy access to new content, but it will still be valuable and unique. Which will, in turn, improve your Google ranking.
Future plans or get started today?
The latest SEO trend, content creation robots, are still a bit of a futuristic concept. However, the future is closer than it seems, so keep an eye on the trend if you want to quickly and easily boost your ranking. The rest of the SEO tips in this blog post are not future plans at all. You should implement them today (or really, yesterday), in order to stay friendly with Google and generate higher conversion rates.
Want to make sure you’re putting these SEO trends to good use? Give Textmetrics a try! Our editor offers automated hints to help you optimize your pages for search.