Because Google changes its ranking system throughout the year, search engine optimization is becoming harder to improve your search engine result rankings with outdated SEO strategies/trends. Experts who want to keep their ranking and traffic improvements are always looking to find new SEO trends to outrank their competitors. Here are the top six  SEO trends that every expert should follow.

1. Watch Machine Learning

Machine learning is exploding, and search engines use them in analyzing web pages and SERP (Search Engine Results Page) results. “We’ve listened up machine learning in search with Google Rankbrain, Google News groupings, etc. But, we haven’t experienced the true power of it. This is the year that changes,” Dave Davies (CEO of Beanstalk Internet Marketing) said. Machine learning will have a tremendous impact on SEO. Updating algorithms manually will not work anymore. Even Google Panda and Penguin use machine learning.

• So, What Exactly is Machine Learning?

According to Stanford University, machine learning is the science of using computers that haven’t been explicitly programmed. In simple words, search engines have multiple phases of ranking that happen in series, such as initial retrieval, contextual ranking, primary ranking, personalized ranking, etc. Google uses machine learning in Rankbrain for search and other ways. Machine learning is going going to change the best SEO practices and significantly impact SERP results. So, make sure you are ready for machine learning implementation in your SEO campaigns to be prominent in SERP rankings and loved by search engines and users.

2. Get Ready for Voice Search

As you might know, the voice search is getting popular more and more. People love to talk instead of writing. Statistics show that one of five searches from mobiles came through voice, that means 20 percent of the Google searches carried out via mobile voice queries. It is said that, by 2020, half of the Internet searches will be coming from voice searches. The future of SEO is bright through voice search SEO. So be ready for voice search and make sure your site has the qualities to allow search engines to find your site whenever someone does a voice search.

3. Win with On-page Optimization

It will be good news for Digital Marketing Agencies. On-page SEO will still play an essential role.

Yes, backlinks are still important but, On-page SEO also plays a significant role in the world of SEO. Remember, the two factors of SEO; On-Page and Off-Page. Then, why you’re missing out on On-page. Sometimes, you’re doing everything right but still don’t rank or get any traffic. The problem was inside the website. Most of the people don’t focus on On-page optimization and stick to build backlinks. On-page SEO isn’t a set-it and forget-it tactic. It must be changed time-to-time to get better SERP rankings and traffic.

Some features you might focus on while doing On-page SEO.

• Make sure your internal searches work perfectly
• Your content must answer basic questions and actionable tips
• Optimized Metas
• Great High-Quality Content (that provide value to the user)
• Make sure your site loads fast
• Make sure your site is mobile-optimized

4. Invest in Technical SEO

Websites are continuously growing every year, which makes technical SEO a major area of investment.

Some key areas of technical SEO will be:

• Speed: Site speed is one of the major factor search engines see while indexing/crawling your site. The faster your site will be, the faster the chance of your ranking.
• Mobile Friendly: Your site must be mobile-friendly to improve your technical SEO and SERP rankings. It’s easy to check out your site to see if it is mobile friendly or not. Without trusting on other local tools, why not use the tool Google gives you itself. Just enter your site URL and get insights into your site. You can see how it looks on mobile.
• Duplicate Meta’s: There’s a lot of website on the Internet and large sites with hundreds of thousands of pages (especially e-Commerce sites.) In fact, 54 percent of the site with duplicate metadata, and approximately 64 percent of the sites don’t have any metadata (also known as meta descriptions.)
• Keyword Cannibalization: It’s really important that your site does have a cannibalization tag. It creates confusion among the search engines. For instance, you have two pages to rank on the same competitive keyword, now the search engine has to decide which one is the best. Each page has lower CTR, diminished authority, and low conversion rates than the other one. Make sure you choose the right one and make the right decision. You can take help from Google Search Console’s Performance to look out which pages are competing for the same keyword. Use the filter to check which page has the same keyword in URL, or search out manually how many pages are rank on that keyword.

5. Watch For GDPR

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) passed in the European Union. Users decide, not corporations that collect it. In simple words, a user can now request to see what personal data corporations have about them and ask for its correction or export. If a company or corporation doesn’t comply with the regulations, it has to pay severe fines.

As a result, Google’s decision to introduce some changes. As of now, all personal data of the users expires after 26 months since it was collected. Plus, it’s now possible for users to delete their data upon their request.

6. Mobile-First Indexing

In 2018, Google rolled out its mobile-first index. So, how does it work? Google now ranks a website on the basis of the user experience (UX ) they provide on mobile devices. If a site has both mobile and desktop versions; the index adds the mobile one, and if there’s only the desktop version then it will be indexed as normal. If your site doesn’t have a mobile-friendly version, Google will index something you can’t show to the mobile users. That means you lost a huge chunk of traffic.

Conclusion:

SEO is growing rapidly. If you don’t stay updated with the latest trends, strategies, and tactics, you won’t be able to rank or expect to get any traffic. SEO is digging deeper into the latest technology trends like augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and other technology. So, it’s important to stay updated to the trends and provide value that your user is expecting from you.

Author: Usman Raza is the co-founder of Christian Marketing Experts and marketing specialist at PSDtoWPService.com. He has been writing for magazines and newspapers since 2001, and editing and managing websites since 2006. Usman has a BA in Business Development, Philosophy, and English. When not working, he’s probably spending time with his family. Follow him on Twitter @usmanintrotech.