10 Important 2019 SEO Trends You Need to Know

10 Important 2019 SEO Trends You Need to Know

It’s time to require our annual look into what’s ahead for SEO professionals in 2019.

What SEO methods and ways can work and assist you to dominate within the SERPs and earn a lot of revenue in 2019?

Here ar ten necessary trends you would like to grasp in 2019, per forty-seven of today’s high SEO professionals.

1. Understand Your Audience & User Intent

Does your audience like text? Images? Video? Audio.

Knowing this can all be a lot of necessary than ever in 2019, consistent with our specialists.

“You ought to perceive what somebody is expecting to search out once they question a word or phrase and you would like to present them the solution within the easiest way attainable,” aforesaid Mindy Weinstein CEO of Market Mindshift.

Motoko Hunt, president of AJPR, agreed, adding that the interests, tastes, and preferences of your audience will modification a lot of quickly than you think that.

“Even if your web site content is utterly written and optimized, if it’s in hot water a wrong audience, it won’t grow the business,” Hunt aforesaid.

Tomorrow’s upper-level web site is all regarding the audience, aforesaid Julia McCoy, CEO of specific Writers.

“If your web site enhances your audience’s journey, you’ll be rewarded by Google and your visitant can invest in you,” McCoy aforesaid.

This is particularly necessary as a result of rankings are unsteady over the past year to assist work the linguistics intent of a user’s search question, aforesaid Jesse McDonald, SEO specialist and director of operations for TopHatRank.com.

“It are going to be a lot of crucial than ever for SEOs and content specialists to focus heavily on the user intent of the keywords they're targeting whereas making content,” McDonald aforesaid.

Casie artificer, senior director of digital promoting at KoMarketing, has conjointly noticed Google’s shift in keyword intent.

“We have to be compelled to assume a lot of regarding the funnel and wherever we actually need to pay our time,” artificer aforesaid. “Do I need to pay time and cash making an attempt to rank for a broad term or ought to I instead shift my focus to terms more down the funnel, wherever consumers square measure a lot of knowledgeable and a lot of doubtless to have an interest in what I’m selling?”

To adjust to the current shift in 2019, you'll have to be compelled to modification the method you’ve been doing all of your keyword analysis, aforesaid Chuck's worth, founding father of Measurable SEO.

“When doing keyword analysis in 2019, it’s imperative that you just check the SERPs to ascertain if websites like yours square measure ranking for a targeted phrase,” worth aforesaid. “If the highest SERPs square measure full of directories or review web sites and your site isn’t one in all those, then go to a different phrase.”

The time is currently to prevent matching keyword phrases and begin ensuring that your content comprehensively answers queries your audience is asking via search, aforesaid Jeremy Knauff, CEO of Spartan Media.

“Ideally, we must always take our content a step more by anticipating and respondent follow-up queries they will have once they receive the solution to their initial question,” Knauff aforesaid.

2. Go Beyond Google Search

Could Amazon and Apple remove Google’s search dominance? Eli Schwartz, director of SEO and growth for SurveyMonkey, believes this.

“I assume that 2019 are going to be the year that, once again, SEO won't simply be concerning the way to optimize for Google, however, we'll need to take under consideration these alternative ‘engines’ similarly,” Schwartz aforementioned.

As Cindy Krum, business executive of MobileMoxie, acknowledged, SEO is concerning exposure were and but folks square measure looking out – not simply obtaining the primary blue link. thus you want to find out how to drive traffic and engagement for things aside from simple websites.

“If potential customers square measure looking for apps, you would like to rank in app stores. If they're looking for podcasts or videos, you would like to rank wherever folks rummage around for those things,” Krum aforementioned. “Strong brands are getting multi-faceted, ranking over simply websites. robust SEOs got to do identical issues.”

Jes Scholz, an international digital director for Ringier atomic number 47, aforementioned she conjointly sees the scope of SEO increasing to hide visibility on alternative platforms.

“Think on the far side driving users to your web site by ranking number one within the SERPs,” Scholz aforementioned. “How are you able to get visibility for your content in featured snippets and therefore informal interfaces, with hosted articles, with content aggregators and alternative such opportunities to confirm your whole reaches your target audience?”

In 2019, you furthermore might should a minimum of think about optimizing for devices, aforementioned Kristine Schachinger, digital contriver and SEO advisor.

“For those with a product which will be sold-out or brands which will like the exposure, being optimized for home assistant or audio-only devices can’t be unheeded,” Schachinger aforementioned.

Ultimately, this all needs the most effective content on the quickest platforms double-geared to fulfill the users where they’re returning from, in step with Keith Goode, IBM’s senior SEO contriver, counterintelligence.

“The entire search expertise is our domain of experience and management, and our goal isn’t to simply drive traffic,” Goode aforementioned. “It’s to confirm that we’ve optimized that search expertise, whether or not web-based or app-based or [insert consequent huge technology]-based, to make the foremost economical and interesting intersection of the user’s desires and also the site’s offerings attainable.”

3. Structured Data Markup Is Key

Use structured information whenever doable, aforementioned Marcus Tandler, co-founder and decision maker of Ryte.

“With AI changing into more and more vital for Google, structured information is changing into a lot of vital still,” Tandler aforementioned. “If Google needs to maneuver from a mobile-first to associate degree AI-first world, structured information is vital. in spite of however smart your AI is, if it takes too long to ‘crawl’ the specified info, it'll ne'er be nice. AI needs a quick process of contents and their relations to every alternative.”

JP Sherman, enterprise search and findability skilled at Red Hat, aforementioned you must begin viewing and understanding structured information, schema, active and passive search behaviors, and the way they will connect with behaviors that signal intent in order that the behavior of search becomes a way larger effort of findability.

“Contextual relationships between topics and behaviors, supported by structured markup, is that the crucial trend we'd like to start out understanding, testing, and implementing for 2019,” Sherman aforementioned. “Using info design, tags, information and a lot of recently, structured markup, we’ve had the power to present search engines signals to grasp this topical and collateral content structure.”

Further, Jamie Alberico, SEO product owner for Arrow natural philosophy, aforementioned you must “leverage your existing content by desegregation expressible and truth check structured information markup. These markups area unit a key link between factual reality and also the screenless future.”

And Bill Slawski, director of SEO analysis at Go Fish Digital side this tip:

“[Understand] and [use] applicable schema vocabulary on pages for product, offers, events, contact info, sameAs social and entity associations, structure info, ratings, and expressible content.”

4. Create Exceptional Content

Google algorithmic rule updates in 2018 discovered that Google is aggravating its target evaluating content quality and at the depth and breadth of a website’s content, aforesaid Eric Enge, top dog of Perficient Digital.

“We tracked the SEO performance of variety of various sites,” Enge aforesaid. “The sites that provided exceptional depth in quality content coverage virtually soared in rankings throughout the year. Sites that were weaker in their content depth suffered compared.”

Enge aforesaid he expects to visualize the trend of Google bountied sites that offer the most effective in-depth experiences continued in 2019.

“Google was frequently calibration their algorithms during this space throughout the year, and that i believe there's still a great deal a lot of calibration for them to try and do,” Enge further.

That means if you’re still making content simply to stay your diary alive, that won’t be ok to any extent further, aforesaid Alexandra Tachalova, digital promoting authority.

“The issue with this content is that it isn’t ok to accumulate links, thus there’s a chance that it’ll rank on Google,” Tachalova aforesaid. “Think double regarding business enterprise such posts, since they won’t pay off. It’s higher to try and do one post that's properly distributed each few months than doing many per month that may solely receive many visits.”

What you wish to try and do is produce content that solves a haul – content that moves, motivates, and connects with individuals, aforesaid Matt Siltala, president of Avalaunch Media.

“If you'll be able to answer a matter, get a lead, build an acquisition, facilitate with SEO (link building), name management, social proof or community building functions with a chunk of content, then you win!” Siltala aforesaid. “Do your analysis, be the answer to the matter that folks have, and supply one thing that's meant for individuals versus attempting to ‘SEO’ the crap out of it and you may continually do higher in your efforts.”

Shelley Walsh, director of ShellShock, expects to visualize the amount of content quality rise in 2019.

“Content strategy in SEO isn't almost responsive a question and obtaining users to the page. It should additionally use language to have interaction the user and guide the user to ensuing action,” Walsh aforesaid. “There square measure still way too few pages doing this well. a lot of use of content maps and skill maps would facilitate this.”

5. Increase Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness

Establishing and growing your experience, authority, and trustiness – higher referred to as E-A-T in Google’s search quality rating pointers – are going to be another key trend in 2019.

“Although the E-A-T pointers ar written for Google’s formula raters, instead of Google’s formula itself, it helps United States to grasp wherever Google is heading within the short term,” aforementioned Dixon Jones, founding father of DHJ Ventures. “I assume this can facilitate SEOs begin to grasp that ‘quality’ comes with context. you can't rank thus simply writing authoritative content unless you're already associate degree authority on a given subject.”

Grant Simmons, VP of search selling at Homes.com, aforementioned you must scrutinize content distribution and promotion from a name viewpoint.

“Hire specialists to author, leverage information from notable entities, and guarantee credentials and credit is given to each, with applicable affinity to the promoted whole,” Simmons aforementioned. “How are you able to get additional of your staff to weblog, write, and speak? however are you able to (the brand’s people) be the go-to supply for journalists around your core topic expertise? as a result of that level of experience is what Google is searching for to power their results.”

Like Google, Bing conjointly desires to reward E-A-T.

“A major goal of our ranking team is to make associate degree formula that may rank documents within the same order as humans would as they're following the rules,” aforementioned Frédéric Debut, Microsoft’s senior program manager, Search & AI. “You will solely do thus at the dimensions of the net by generalizing your ranking formula the maximum amount as potential. It seems that trendy machine learning is incredibly sensible at generalizing, thus you'll expect our core ranking formula to induce nearer thereto ideal Intelligent Search product read that we tend to hold internally and that we tend to attempt to capture in our own pointers.”

6. Invest in Technical SEO

Websites still grow in quality per annum, creating technical SEO a serious space of investment in 2019 and on the far side.

Some key areas of concentrate on the technical facet of SEO can be:

Speed: “Sites can finally begin to become easier and quicker as SEOs discover that Google is appreciated sites quite once thought for [first substantive paint] speed,” in step with Jon Henshaw, founding father of Coywolf selling and senior SEO analyst at CBS Interactive.

“A twelvemonth means even a lot of the websites you encounter are going to be heavily JavaScript driven (likely one amongst the large frameworks, like React, Vue.js, and Angular). which means it’s time to acquaint yourself with a minimum of a touch JavaScript, and the way the foremost search engines play best with JavaScript-driven websites,” aforementioned Paul Shapiro, director of strategy and innovation for Catalyst.

Progressive net Apps (PWAs): “For 2019, you ought to begin pondering however your web site might go on as a PWA within the future. however, will your PWA become keepable expertise your users would love to place on their home screen?” Tandler aforementioned.

7. Win with On-page Optimization

On-page improvement can still be vital in 2019, aforesaid Tony Wright, CEO and founding father of WrightIMC.

“We area unit still seeing unbelievable results from nothing over on-page SEO techniques for several corporations that are available in the door,” Wright aforesaid. “Links area unit still important, however the most important bang for many companies’ SEO greenbacks is current on-page improvement. as a result of on-page SEO isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it manoeuvre.”

Alexis Sanders, technical SEO manager at Merkle, conjointly shared some key web site optimizations:

• Content that answers common user questions.
• Ensuring internal site search is providing relevant results.
• Shortening conversion process.
• Ensure that repeat customers can restock commonly purchased items simply.
• Customer support responds to questions related to the business.
• Consider use of chatbots to lighten the load for basic, common questions and procedural tasks.
• Users are easily able to navigate to physical locations.
• Providing users with their stage in fulfillment funnel (think: clear, visual process forms).

8. Get Ready for Voice Search

Last decade, “the year of mobile” became a form of running joke. Every year, the specialists foretold that this, finally, would be the year of mobile. Year once year. till plug finally matched reality around 2015.

Well, is that this year the year of voice search? yet again, not quite.

As Wright place it:

“In my opinion, the ‘juice isn’t well worth the squeeze’ nonetheless for many corporations once it involves exposure in voice queries,” Wright aforementioned. “However, i believe additional corporations can consider a voice optimisation strategy next year. As I aforementioned last year, voice search is returning, it still simply isn’t quite there nonetheless.”

Although voice search got several attention in 2018, Aleyda Solis, international SEO authority and founding father of Orainti, aforementioned voice search is simply a chunk of an even bigger shift, from specific “results” to “answers” as a part of a extended “conversational search journey.”

“This can solely gain additional prominence and importance in 2019 – and therefore the shift has already started,” Solis aforementioned. “While ‘voice’ could be a better thanks to request answers in some situations, it actually isn’t the perfect format to satisfy the intent in additional advanced answers (e.g., once examination services or products).”

All that aforementioned, archangel Bonfils, decision maker of SEM International, aforementioned voice search may be a game changer for transnational and polyglot websites.

“Hopefully, marketers can understand in 2019 that the effective use of voice response can’t be done by translators (machine or human). the employment of voice is, and can be, terribly totally different from country to country, region to region, idiom to idiom, socio-economic class to socio-economic class, etc.,” Bonfils aforementioned.

9. Watch Machine Learning

Dave Davies, CEO of stem web selling, aforesaid machine learning is close to explode in 2019.

“While we’ve seen machine learning in search with RankBrain, Google News groupings, etc. we have a tendency to haven’t extremely practiced truth power of what it will be. this can be the year that changes,” Davies aforesaid. “We will see the schoolwork work returning with a number of the layout changes the engines area unit pushing out and their drive to answer intents instead of queries. this can be the foundation of machine learning’s impact on search.”

But machine learning won’t simply be one thing to observe on Google and also the search engines, aforesaid Jenn Mathews of Jenn Mathews Consulting.

“Companies ought to adopt machine learning to develop distinctive content for SEO, starting with a group of knowledge supported specific variables,” Mathews aforesaid. “Machine learning, including the requirement for analysis and reportage, as testing new ways and implementation is imperative to understanding successes and failures.”

10. Optimize for Featured Snippets & Other Google SERP Features

In addition to optimizing for your own web site, you want to additionally optimize for the Google search expertise in 2019.

“Answer boxes, recipes, the data graph, carousels, and who-knows-what-else can take an excellent larger emit of organic traffic,” aforesaid Ian Lurie, CEO and founding father of pre indication. “That makes SEO even additional necessary, as a result of exposure is the maximum amount concerning visibility within the SERPs because it is concerning clicks.”

That means optimizing for featured snippets (a.k.a., position zero) and different Google search options can still be {an necessary|a crucial|a vital|a very important} trend – and additional important than ever – in 2019.

“We are ready to win several answer boxes for our own website and consumer websites,” aforesaid Jim Bader, senior director of SEO at Vertical Measures. “Every time this happens, it ends up in a major spike in organic traffic.”