Besides, Google's mobile page speed update has made page speed a ranking factor for mobile devices. That said, there are only two things that you need to implement in your SEO strategy in 2019 to use linkless mentions: First, brand mentions need to be tracked. Voice search is mostly a mobile device thing, so don't forget to check whether your website is mobile-friendly. Basically, it means Google will use the mobile version of the page for indexing and ranking to make the Web more mobile-friendly. But, the thing is, the mobile version will be the indexed content in both cases. There are no requirements that your site be mobile-friendly to be included in the process of mobile-first indexing. So, pages without mobile versions will still be indexed and, of course, will still be shown on mobile devices. So it doesn't mean better rankings in Google search. Google now has all the personal user data expire after 26 months from the day it was collected. That is why we can expect a lot of marketers to shift toward SEO, which is beneficial for the SEO industry in general.
The hottest SEO trends for the year ahead… You knew this article was coming. Some of these trends you’ve already seen this year, and some are new, but we can definitely expect to see more of all of them in 2019.
So let’s take a look at the hottest SEO trends you’ll need to know about to be fully prepared for next year.
1. Page Speed
This one is probably the most obvious trend on the list: We all know for a fact that the Internet of today is all about speed. Over 50% of visitors expect your page to fully load within only two seconds, so there are no other options apart from joining the race. Besides, Google’s mobile page speed update has made page speed a ranking factor for mobile devices.
Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool has undergone some slight modifications as well. Now the tool has separate tabs for speed and optimization.
The speed parameter is now measured based on FCP (first contentful paint) and DCL (DOM content loaded) parameters.
However, if you’ve been using other tools for measuring page speed, some discrepancy may occur. The reason is that Google now extracts data from CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report) , which is based on real-user measurements.
As for optimization, it’s the same old set of parameters according to which the overall technical website optimization score is being calculated.
To see whether the changes have actually made any impact on SERPs, our team conducted an experiment. Right after the page speed update went live, we analyzed one million pages, their optimization scores, median FCPs, and median DCLs for each unique URL. The experiment revealed these three core results:
- An average page ranking within 1-30 positions in mobile search has been improved by 0.83 optimization score compared with pages analyzed before the update.
- Optimization score has extremely high correlation with positions in mobile SERPs: 0.95.
- There’s hardly any correlation between median FCP/DCL metrics and mobile search results.
So, as you can see, the main takeaway from the experiment is that Optimization Score is exactly what influences mobile rankings the most. That is why it now needs to be worked on in the first place. And, so far, there are nine ways for Optimization score improvement confirmed by Google.
2. Linkless Mentions
It’s probably clear to every SEO practitioner out there that backlinks remain one of the most powerful ranking factors of all times. Undoubtedly, however, linkless mentions are also making their way toward becoming an equally important ranking signal.
The thing is, search engines are now intelligent enough to calculate a site’s authority by associating mentions with brands and brands with their sites. The evidence of Google’s taking linkless mentions seriously is apparent:
- Google’s Panda patent refers to mentions as to “implied links,” meaning that they could be equal in weight to traditional backlinks.
- Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes said in his keynote at Brighton SEO in September 2017 that links and mentions on social networks are both of the greatest importance.
- Earlier, at SMX West 2016, Duane Forrester, formerly senior product manager at Bing, had stated that search engines can quite easily use mentions to determine site authority, and that unlinked mentions can become as strong as backlinks.
It all brings us to the conclusion that it’s only a matter of time for unlinked brand mentions to become an official ranking factor. That said, there are only two things that you need to implement in your SEO strategy in 2019 to use linkless mentions:
- First, brand mentions need to be tracked. Luckily, there are now plenty of tools (such as Awario) that can offer you a helping hand with that. (With Awario, you can filter mentions by sentiment to respond to the negative ones first.)
- And, second, proceed with growing your mentions. Since unlinked mentions are gradually becoming a real thing, make sure to enrich your arsenal of link-building tactics with social selling, reviews, social customer care, influencer marketing, etc.
3. Voice Search
Although this trend has been with us for the whole of 2018, it’s looking like 2019 will have all the hallmarks of being called the year of voice search.
The number of users searching Google without keyboard is growing dramatically. In fact, Google claims that about 70% of queries now include natural language and, of course, that tendency is mostly…
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