Marketing your business online can be a challenge, however in this post we are going to show you the top 5 areas that will be essential for SEO in 2018.

Ranking algorithms are constantly changing and the reasons for these changes this year is simple; new technologies and user behaviors are changing the way we search the internet. Voice search is growing at a rapid rate and mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches.

To stay ahead of your competitors, it is important that you adjust for SEO strategy for the changes in the future.

How to ace your SEO efforts in 2018

1) Optimize Your Website UX For Mobile Devices

As Google have implemented their mobile first index, it is important that you optimise your website around your mobile users. The key to great mobile UX for any website is to have a fast loading website with all the essential information a visitor needs easy to find.

Mobile UX is also critical for ecommerce shops. By making your website easy to use for customers you can easily increase the conversion rate on your website. A simple tip for your online shop is to make your checkout process extremely simple by integrating payment methods such as PayPal or Google Pay to greatly reduce the number of clicks needed to complete the purchase.

2) Secure Your Website For Visitors With SSL

Google are pushing for a more secure online experience for everyone and it is likely to come to a head in July 2018 with reports suggesting that the search engine will identify all websites not migrated to https as “not secure”.

By implementing an SSL cert on your website, you will boost your trust and credibility among search engines and more importantly, your customers.

3) Create In-depth Content

There was a time where you could create a blog post with 300 words, create backlinks to it by submitting to web 2.0 websites and you would be able to rank for a keyword. Those days have gone since Google rolled out their algorithm changes.

Today, if you have a blog on your website, you will benefit from creating in-depth articles rather than short posts. More detailed posts will highlight your expertise in your area and long form content is more likely to get more shares on social media.

The same principle applies for ecommerce websites. Product pages with lots of content will also rank higher than pages with thin and content that is duplicated from other websites.

4) Optimize For Voice Searches

Voice search is changing the landscape on how we perform searches for information. With the rise of voice assistants by Amazon and Google and smartphones having better voice recognition, more and more people are using voice search to find solutions and even to make purchases online.

To optimise your website and online presence, it is important that you use good meta titles, meta descriptions and make use of schema to get picked up by voice assistant results. Your Google business information should also be completed and kept up to date as this is one of the main pieces of information voice assistants use for making decisions on answers to your queries.

5) Focus On Building Only Quality Links

Backlinks have always been an important factor for ranking websites and in 2018 things are not going to change. Building quality links is becoming more difficult, therefore producing quality linkable content on your website will help to gain new backlinks to your website.

Guest blogging and outreach are more strategies that can help you attract quality backlinks to your website and boost your ranking.

If you are serious about maintaining your online presence and improving your rankings, it is important that you implement an SEO strategy that will work in 2018.