SEO Trends: What you can’t ignore in 2019 (Part II)

SEO is constantly on the move to a brighter horizon…

On my previous article, I discussed the first part of the SEO trends businesses shouldn’t ignore this 2019. If you haven’t check that out yet, here’s the link to the first part.

These SEO trends should always be part of your builds and strategies. Like other SEO trends, these set will keep you at the top of your game, in particular:

• Beefing up the technical side of your website to entice search engines to include your website at the top of searches. It’s like housekeeping rules to keep your website squeaky clean.
• Showing that SEO is not just about getting those blue links on the top of search feeds. This shows that SEO can go outside the box and offers versatility.
• Providing a wider range of choices and techniques that you can add to your SEO Arsenal.
• Keeping up with the latest security issues that can affect you and your consumers and most importantly;
• Showing ways to see where your customers are and how to avoid them from dissuading them to stay on your website.

5. Beefing up Website Security (Using SSL)

Have you noticed a change in Google Chrome recently? You might notice that small padlock icon or that alarmingly “Not Secure” note on the website’s left-hand corner of the address bar. Here’s a screenshot:

A Secure URL

An Unsecured URL

This is part of Google’s campaign for every website to adapt to SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or the utilisation of HTTPS.

They are now labelling websites as “Not Secure” if the website is not using HTTPS. In line with this, Google also announced that they will reward websites that amp their security with a slight boost in ranking.

This is a smart move for Google considering that security is a primary concern for everyone whether it’s their home, business, personal information or even the website they use.

And now more than ever, it is important to beef up your website security.

Everyone is keen on online data privacy especially now that GDPR is in its full effect. GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation passed by the European Union that gives restriction to companies in utilising a user’s data or personal information.

Though it is passed as an EU Law, international companies still have to comply with this regulation. So in one way or another, everyone is affected.

And now that Internet Security has entered the game, what’s up now for SSL? Does it really help your website? Definitely, it does!

Using SSL has manifold benefits:

• Provides an extra layer of protection on your website from the ground up.
• Makes transactions secured and prevents unauthorised access to confidential information. With this protocol, everyone can heave a breath knowing that their information won’t be jeopardised.
• Protection from hackers, for your business and your customers.
• Avoiding the higher Bounce Rate that results in visitors backing out of an unsecure site.
• Increases your chances for conversion. Customers would have peace of mind to transact with you.

In general, we don’t need to have second thoughts on adapting SSL to our websites. Whatever kind of website we have right now, it’s important to beef up its security.

6. A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Searches…

Recently, Google search results showed an increase in the percentage of showing images on SERPs.

Google has already improved its image search in 2017 but this recent algorithm of some sort has caught attention. A study published by SEO Clarity shows that the occurrences of images on the top 10 queries show a significant increase from 24% to 34%. This increase was seen on April 13 this year.

Additionally, they found out that more than a third of all keywords now contain Google Images.

Here’s a graph showing the count of keywords where Google Images was ranking in the Top 10 positions:

Image Source: SEOClarity

Here’s a graph that shows the occurrence of images in the Top 3 positions:

Image Source: SEOClarity

With this data, we can conclude that Google is taking steps in making the image search as another venue for traffic.

Google hints here that websites should focus on optimising for image search, and the intentions are now clear for SEOs with more images showing up on SERPs.

This is definitely a gold mine we should dig into. If you want to have better results on Google Image Search, these tips could definitely help.

7. Focus on making Structured Data Markup

Search engines and robots do not see websites the way humans see them. And in order for them to understand what a website is and cater to the searchers, they rely on what we call structured data.

This is a specific piece of code that serves as a feed for the search engines and bots to read and understand. Once read, this data will be displayed on their search results Learn more about structured data here.

As time progresses, Google is becoming more advanced in displaying website information on SERPs. They are pulling out more and more data from Google to create a more meaningful display of data like creating its own meta description based on the information fed to it. And the utilisation of the Structured Data plays a vital role.

To keep up with this, make sure that you mark up your content whenever possible. There are a lot of tools are available at your disposal, especially the use of schema.org, Google’s tool that you can rely on when creating your structured data.

8. To Google Search and Beyond…

There’s no doubt Google is the most popular search engine known to man. In fact, it is our go-to tool for everything — whether it’s a product, random information, answers to your health or travel questions, and simply just everything.

But is Google’s dominance coming to an end? Do consumers and searchers start treading new ground in the digital space? Could other platforms make a cut into Big G’s search dominance?

Many believe so and see that SEO this 2019 would be a critical game for Google.

Amazon Search

One example many are eyeing is the rise of the Amazon search.

To be clear, Amazon is more of an internal search engine for Amazon pages. But lo and behold, people are starting to go directly to Amazon rather than hopping between Amazon and Google.

In a study conducted by Kenshoo, it shows that 72% of shoppers are using Amazon to find products with 56% going straight to the website before visiting any other websites.

This is a remarkable statistic, especially to eCommerce websites. This platform is becoming a hub for potential customers. Being absent on Amazon is equal to revenue loss because the majority of consumers can be found here.

Bing and Yahoo

Bing and Yahoo still play a big game in the search engine land. Even though Google is way ahead in the number of searches it receives, the numbers that other search engines possess shouldn’t be ignored. In the data presented by Statista, it shows that Google still holds the top spot of the global market share but notice how this started decreasing with 88.47% this April 2019. On the other hand, other search engines like Bing and Yahoo! show a good fight as it has seen an increase in market share of 4.81% for Bing and 3.13% for Yahoo!. This proves that other search engine still has their fair share.

Your action plan

The action plan for this trend is simple. It’s basically the same action that we do: Keyword Research, Image Optimisation, Meta Tags and others. But we have to cover a wider audience.

For example, we usually do keyword research with tools that aggregate Google’s data. Now tools are using data aggregated from other search engines and we can maximise its potential. Like Ahrefs for example, their updated Keyword Explorer Tool now lets you explore different platforms and we can take advantage of it.

We should all take note that SEO is optimising for search engines, not only for Google so we should also take a look at working out other search engines as well.

It’s not all about Search Engines

We all know (and I’ve said it already) that SEO is optimising for search engines. But we have to widen our horizon and think beyond getting those blue links.

SEO is also about strategies on how to gain more traffic to your website and entice people to visit and hopefully turn into a customer. So we have to be where our searchers are. There are other platforms available that we can look into.

Youtube

We can take a look at YouTube as a potential area. Though it is technically owned by Google, we can still consider this in our arsenal knowing that more and more people are heading directly here before going to search engines.

And it is predicted that in 2021, 80% of all online traffic would be accounted for online videos. Google is also trying to implement the search algorithms of YouTube to their search engines. This is evident in Image Searches that show videos, video snippets on SERPs and an increasing number of videos that can be seen on searches. This goes to show that videos are making a great impact.

Social media

Social media is another area to consider. With a staggering number of 3.484 billion users this 2019 and is expected to increase yearly, this is a platform everyone should watch…

Social Media is a hub for everything and anything under the sun. It can be considered the “marketplace” of the digital space as it showcases different items.

Social Media marketing will grow continuously, offering new areas to explore. With its interactive and snappy approach with users, there is no question why this platform entices the people. And as the new generation emerges, there are more things to watch out for.

Other platforms

Podcasts, mobile apps and the like and more and more options will be offered that will make SEO more versatile. We just have to remember, and I will reiterate, that we have to be where our potential customers are. And that is how SEO beyond Google works out.

So there we have it, here are the SEO Trends that we shouldn’t be ignoring this 2019. Keeping a checklist of what’s working with SEO will keep us at bay with our ranking, traffic and our position on search engines.

Any SEO trends that I miss? Let me know in the comment section below!