How to stay up-to-date with the modern SEO and what latest techniques should I use in 2018?

Staying adapted to all currently valid ranking factors of SEO and employing latest techniques with use-proven performance is a definitely challenging task, I should admit. Nowadays, we can see the world’s online search giant (a.k.a. Google itself), as well as the rest of top leading industry players and related specialists – all dropping many different hints and sometimes even controversial suggestions about the very concept of SEO, and the latest techniques calling every website owner for appropriate action. But how to find the way in all that noise and put the right focus? Yes, it’s hard to stay always up-to-date – particularly in the ever-changing reality of the modern Search Engine Optimization. Nevertheless, below I’m going to try to outline what critical changes and new approaches to SEO, with the latest optimization techniques, should be accepted in 2018 by everyone looking for better rankings in Google’s SERPs. That being said, now let’s see what we actually have to that point.

Game-Changing SEO: the Latest Techniques to Focus in 2018

Google’s Mobile-First Index

Yes, it’s already here – as Google has finally started ranking mobile-friendly content essentially over the rest of conventional desktop-oriented web pages, which failed to adapt to the new portable reality. That way, here are some points to be focused now in this respect:

• Start moving with your website towards getting switched to responsive web design, instead of maintaining its separate version designed for mobile browsing solely.
• Consider creating a fully consistent content for all users – no need to hide and/or create different types of content for mobile and desktop browsing.
• Check yourself right now – try Google’s default testing tool to make sure you have everything in place with a good mobile-friendly user experience.

Influence of Machine Learning

Seriously, no joking here – as Google’s RankBrain index can now not only determine your search rankings more accurately, but has already learned to measure on-page content and backlink profile quality. Of course, the major search index is doing that in its own way, but we will have to concentrate at least on these two main areas of analysis:

• CTR – getting your organic click-through rates well-optimized will now provide even more considerable benefits. The thing is that for high-ranking search terms having too low CTR, there is a very high vulnerability to a potential ranking downturn. That’s why I recommend prioritizing your top-5 primary keywords by their CTRs (ideally, focus on those below 10%), to be refined with the maximum enticing titles and well-optimized description tags.

• Dwell Time – this is very similar to user bounce rate, but this key metric is focused more on the user intent and active engagement. Put simply, Dwell Time considers only user’s return back to the search results, when a suggested web page displayed in Google’s SERPs appears not fully satisfying a genuine search intent of the user. So, let’s face it – given that Google has already learned how to identify the quality of on-page content, now it can “understand” intent match to deliver even more appropriate results. And it means that the preeminent importance of high-quality content becomes now a cornerstone of global online development. Just keep that in mind.