As you may know, Google is constantly evolving its search ranking algorithms every year.

In 2017, Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) emerged.

In 2018, many new trends are emerging, which would affect SEO factors.

Here are some of the upcoming trends in SEO in 2018:

1. Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Features- SERP feature is any inorganic result displayed on a search engine results page, such as AdWords, news block, rich snippets, and site ratings. Such features add a visual layer to an existing result. Site links, videos, tweets, and shopping results would also be featured prominently on search engine results pages.

2. Rich Snippets – Web developers add structured data markup to their web page. A rich snippet improves search results by adding images, ratings, and a website URL. Rich snippets on web pages must include a ‘|’ symbol on it.

Such rich snippets would get more click-through rates.

3. Page speed – In today’s fast moving environment where speed is the most crucial factor, this is a more dominant SEO factor, Google recommends a page load speed of 3 seconds or less to load any web page. Google provides a tool – Page Speed ​​Insights, which would help you optimize your web page speed, it also provides information on various optimization techniques to improve website speed.

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

4. Relevance of the content – Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is an indexing and retrieval method. It is a mathematical technique called singular value decomposition to identify a pattern, between terms and concepts.

Search engines rate your website content using LSI, scan your website and check content using related terms and keywords. More attention should be paid to writing relevant content that matches your topic.

5. Google voice search – On Google, people search for spoken words instead of typing in the search box. An SEO strategy must include conversational words.

6. Mobile Friendly Websites – Billions of people use the mobile version of websites as it is quite convenient. The mobile site is a search ranking factor; in fact, Google indexes your mobile website before the desktop version of your website. Responsive web design feature compatible with many web development technologies like bootstrap which makes your website mobile or tablet friendly.

Why Mobile Optimized Sites?

• A desktop version of the websites does not seem easy to use on mobile devices.
• 2.6 billion active smartphone users
• Google labels mobile-optimized sites as mobile-friendly.

7. Linkless Backlinks – A news article mentioning a brand name, business, or a review done for a business or brand on another website, blog, or on social media are examples of linkless backlinks becoming relevant today. Relevant articles, blogs or social networks must include the brand or trade name.

You need to align your online business with the latest search engine updates by spending a lot of time and effort.