Each year, the focus of SEO strategy shifts just a bit, and if you fall behind, you could lose search positioning to competitors and miss out on opportunities to connect with new customers. So, what’s trending in 2018? Which SEO tactics have proven most effective in the first half of the year? Here are a few things you should be aware of.
Deep-Dive Content
Creating relevant content for popular searches is still the prime directive where SEO is concerned, but it’s no longer enough to hit the right keywords and surround them with related content. You have to provide optimal value for search users if you want to get Google’s upvote, so to speak.
If you’re looking for a formula, pundits seem to agree on one point – posts should hit the 2,000-word mark. However, there is a pretty big caveat here. The devil is in the details, or to put it more succinctly, readers want specific, detailed content. For some reason, the consensus is that more word count equals greater detail, but this isn’t necessarily the case.
What you don’t want to do is chain yourself to a word count and then try to fill it with content, whether it adds value to the user experience or not. Long form is just one of many forms you can use to convey your message and provide value for users, but if you’re filling your content with fluff just to hit a high word count, your efforts are unlikely to be effective, especially in the long term.
Tweak Your Link-Building Strategy
Somehow, link-building has become a four-letter word. But like it or not, Google algorithms have hitched their wagon to backlinks, which means they’re still a significant means of optimizing, regardless of how much Google badmouths link-building strategies.
What can you do in 2018 to keep linking strategies relevant? Linking to internal content is pretty much a given as it is 100% within your control to create and manage such links. As for quality backlinks, organic strategies are de rigueur. Quality content provides the platform from which to garner reposts, shares, and other means of spreading embedded links across the web.
Modernize Keywords
It’s a mobile-friendly world these days and voice tech is taking off like the dickens. This means you have to update keywords and keyword phrases to take advantage of these newer means of searching. What language patterns do users display when searching with mobile and voice? Capturing the nuance of these new forms of search can help you to choose appropriate keywords.
Add Video
By now the value of video should be pretty obvious, but in case you have yet to make video a major part of your online and SEO strategy, now is the time. It’s attractive, engaging, and sharable, which makes it a real asset in the world of SEO. Adding video to your content arsenal is a great way to move forward with optimization efforts for the remainder of 2018.
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