At the beginning of each year, you can expect to see lots of articles pop up online about what the biggest SEO stories of the coming 12 months will be. Charleston SEO professionals start to sound more like sports commentators, each with their own strong opinions on what trends will die out, which ones will become more important, and what brand new topics will suddenly rise to the forefront. Obviously, some of those predictions come true and some don’t, but it’s always a good idea to look ahead and gather opinions from different sources to help direct your online marketing efforts. In today’s blogpost, we do our own predictions about 2019 SEO trends. Unfortunately, you may find them a little bit less hysterical and hyperbolic than other articles you may read on this year’s expected trends.
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Just Like Last Year
A few years ago, Google made what was arguably the biggest change to its search algorithm in a very long time, giving heavy priority to websites that function well on mobile devices. Since then, Google has been relatively quiet, only making minor adjustments to close loopholes in small, specific areas. We actually don’t see evidence of any similar huge change coming in 2019, either. We do know that Google is continuing to develop its neural network as an alternative to the algorithm system of ranking search results, but it would be surprising to see that replacement take place as early as this year. And because Google is by far the leader in keyword search at the moment, that means that the field in general should be relatively quiet.
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Possible Developments
That being said, there are, of course, a few areas where we could see changes that would affect a broad range of industries in the area of keyword search. We discuss one of those areas, digital audio indexing, in the latest edition of our PalmettoSoft podcast, which you can listen to on our website. Another potential change is the increasing number of searchers who use Amazon.com as their starting point for shopping for products online. Google does offer ecommerce options within its search results, but online shoppers appear to be making Amazon their preferred resource when they are looking to place an online order. Charleston SEO providers who serve ecommerce clients should be aware of this trend and what challenges and opportunities it may present for them going forward.
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A Huge Opportunity
If 2019 is relatively quiet in the world of SEO, as we expect it to be, that actually presents a huge opportunity for Charleston SEO firms that know how to take advantage of it. When there is a big algorithm update or other change on the way, SEO consultants have to spend a lot of their time researching the change, anticipating how it will affect their clients’ websites, and making adjustments to their SEO strategies in order to keep those websites competitive on the search results pages. But when they don’t have to focus on those changes, SEO experts can concentrate on other things, like coming up with ideas to boost their websites past the competition in the current landscape. Without major algorithm changes to grapple with, 2019 will be a perfect time for your website to implement a creative new SEO strategy and seek to pass up your competitors in the Google and Bing search results. You may want to add digital audio throughout your website, launch a YouTube channel with informative videos that your audience will love, or experiment with pay-per-click on Google or Facebook for the first time.
Digital audio is one SEO area where we may see somewhat major changes in 2019.
Partnering with a creative, innovative, and experienced team of SEO experts is the perfect way to make the most of a quiet year and take your digital marketing strategy to new heights. Even more importantly, when things do pick up and Google announces major changes to its ranking systems, you will be prepared with a website that already works very well and has great metrics. You and your team will be ready to meet those challenges together and stay ahead of the competition.
