What are the new SEO trends and services to look for in 2018?

As for me, it’s really hard to believe that there is already over a month passed since the 2018 year’s beginning. Anyway, it means that currently there must be a lot of new SEO trends, services, and legitimate approaches, which are now at the peak of their efficiency, or at least keep gaining momentum. And very much similar to the other modern areas of hi-tech industry, the world of the Search Engine Optimization can still surprise us with many new SEO trends and services constantly evolving to provide even better user experience (otherwise, UX). So, given that Google’s major search algorithm keeps developing as well, sometimes there are even multiple changes or really considerable scale – sometimes even happening just within a couple of months. As a result, some formerly use-proven practices and top performing strategies in SEO can quickly become irrelevant, or start gradually falling out of favor. 

What’s New About SEO Services This Year?

On top of that, below I’m going to show you the major changes in the modern world of the search optimization, backed with all new SEO services and advanced approaches emerging in early 2018 – for you to always stay up-to-date and keep making most out of your current optimization strategy. All that being said, let’s quickly run through the major new SEO trends and services to look for throughout this year – starting from the Increasing Importance of the SERP’s Features, Deepening Structure of Rich Snippets, Faster Page Loading Speed, Stronger Page Relevance, Dominating Mobile User Experience, Rising “Linkless” Backlinks, as well as Growing Personalized Search Results. So, let’s look through each of them in further detail.

New SEO Trends and Services for You to Look for 

Increasing Importance of the SERP’s Features

So, the first thing that will need your most precise attention is the increasing importance, and rapid development – seen namely for the main features of the Search Engine Results Pages (otherwise, the list of the SERPs). Taken in general, with the latest developments in Google’s search ranking algorithms, achieving the sweetest spot close to the first ranking positions – could be no longer sufficient for you to get the actual volume or organic web traffic you need with your website or blog pages. Put simply, when you’re looking at the list of the SERPs, you will see that now everything over there is literally packed with lots of different images, hyperlinks, videos, social media suggestions, as well as various widgets, rich article listings, and, of course, myriads of paid ads. As a result, any given web source (even those located within the highest search ranking area) might as well be easily lost now in that really busy mess of other features seen over there. 

Bottom Line

Keep in mind that running in-depth keyword research to get your website or blog well-optimized for the main target keywords and long-tail search phrases will be still important. Note, however, that now you will have to give much more weight to the rest of off-site elements in SEO. What’s more – probably it’s high time for you to consider applying for PPC ads. Also, consider all recently emerging SERP features and new SEO services, such as AdWords, local packs, social media references (for example, like tweets), news blocks, image/video packs, featured snippets, as well as customer reviews and shopping search results.

Deepening Structure of Rich Snippets

Next thing about recent optimization trends and new SEO services to be known by every webmaster and business owner is that rich snippet will need now even more careful structuring. Put simply, there are standard (regular) snippets, and rich snippets – both have a clickable title, a meta description, and its own URL. And given that namely rich snippets are usually coming with much shorter titles – you will have to be very careful when structuring that concise data. Put simply, while the difference can seem absolutely insignificant, it’s already proven that carefully formatted and well-structured rich snippets are attracting a measurably higher number of user clicks. That way, you can get a much better CTR (otherwise, click-through rate), that would in-turn provide you greater income-generating potential.

Bottom Line

Having a proper structure for your rich snippets has become much more important – namely in what way the search engines are going to display the information you’re committing over there. 

Faster Page Loading Speed

It may seem like a no-brainer, but in the modern on-demand world that keeps accelerating over time – people simply usually want to get what they are looking for – immediately, without even momentary lapse. Seriously, there is nothing more frustrating (if not annoying) than clicking on a web source that will keep you waiting for over five seconds, right? People hate too slow web pages – so does Google search engine itself. Given that your page loading speed is among the most important factors that determine a positive user experience – quick responsiveness will impact now not only your average bounce rate, but your overall ranking potential taken in general. 

Bottom Line

Check out how fast is actually fast enough for your website or blog – try Google’s PageSpeed Insights service to see whether your page loading speed is currently taking the major threshold recommended under 3 seconds, or not.

Stronger Page Relevance

Given that Google search engine keeps doing best to provide only perfectly flawless online browsing experience to every user, it has recently started differentiating the actual relevance of every web source within its index – betting more on the best matching user’s search intent (rather than former approach a.k.a. “exact match” it was using to determine the gauge of relevance). So, it means that the major search engines (including Google itself) are going to evaluate the relevance – based on a much broader and really comprehensive analysis of your on-page content taken as a whole via Latent Semantic Indexing. Make sure your content is sufficiently deep and informative, yet flows well for the user so that it can be read simply and at ease. 

Bottom Line

Consider that the major factor of relevancy is now taken as the best matching user’s search intent – even in case there is a small difference from the search query actually submitted by the user. Start researching the most successful and valuable content provided by top-ranked websites or blogs in your niche or subject discussion. Given that it may prove to be a really time-consuming task, you might as well try one of those popular website auditors or content parsers with free trials available.

Dominating Mobile User Experience

Much like with faster page loading speed, mobile responsiveness keeps gaining momentum as the integral (if not dominating) part of the modern browsing experience. Given that everything here must be nearly self-explanatory, I shall limit myself to that.

Bottom Line

Providing a sufficient level of mobile responsiveness is no longer optional, so having a mobile-friendly version of your website or blog is now expected even more – both by the live users themselves, and the search engines for ranking purpose.

Rising “Linkless” Backlinks

No need to say that backlinks themselves are hardly able to bring something new to SEO services in 2018 – simply because they have been “the bread and butter” of organic Search Engine Optimization for many years. Note, however, that this currently most performing (and ethical) practice of getting links from trusted and reputable third-party sources is now gradually losing its original momentum. Put simply, the most recent practice of high-quality link building doesn’t care too much about where actually your links are coming from – it means that the coveted power and incredible power of “link juice” is now taken away to be inevitably wearing off over time. That’s it.

Bottom Line

A single link has now much weaker chances of standing out of the crowd. That way, make sure to pay enough attention to the on-page content (otherwise, contextual environment) surrounding every valuable link you have in your portfolio. Remember, the search engines are now going to associate brand mentions, as well as the rest of personal, institutional or organization-based references – actually without a link itself direly needed to be pointing the way to the corresponding third-party pages.

Growing Personalized Search Results

Currently increasing personalization of the SERPs will be the last thing, more or less new to SEO services in 2018. In other words, the major search engines are expected to keep betting on a more specific way of displaying the search results, getting them personalized not only according to the user’s current location, but also based on the other specific data, such as the common sphere of interests and the recent browsing history. Ultimately – to provide even more individually-tailored list of the SERPs that will be more likely to satisfy the search intent of every user in full. 

Bottom Line

In fact, there is nothing we can do to this point. So, from the viewpoint of making your website or blog more friendly to those personalized search results, there is probably only one thing to be done – simply make sure your actual traffic data is maximum accurate. All you need here is just to check out your rankings via incognito (private) browser mode to have only unbiased checkup results.