Top five SEO trends that are shaping the internet industry in 2017

This year modern Search Engine Techniques have dominated the world, replacing the old traditional methods. Google is everyday rolling fresh changes in its search algorithm in order to give users more desired and absolute results. Multiple changes that have taken place in digital space in 2016 are still being used but some had vanished with the past year, such as  boost SEO ranking with Google AdWords.

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Many significant updates have been witnessed by this year 2017, viz. shift of Desktop First index to Mobile First index, Priority of Local SEO in ranking, trend of Voice Search etc. SEO Experts are teaching themselves everyday about the Google’s new roll out in order to give maximum output to their clients. One needs to be very careful, informed and adaptive to remain at the top in SEO Industry.

Let’s check out some of the important Trends that are Shaping the World of Search Engines in 2017 :-

1.Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Works or Not- It was first introduced in February 2016 in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), a powerful technique that enables a website to load super quick on mobile phones even on slow Internet Connection. In its beginning phase, AMPed pages don’t get good response from users because most of the people were unaware that what this “lightning bolt” symbol means and decided to click Mobile-Friendly Pages in SERP.

For using AMPed Feature, you have to use the AMP properties in website’s HTML and JavaScript. For WordPress based site it’s too easy, install an AMP plugin and customize it accordingly. The best part of AMP based website is that it consumes about 10x less data than non-AMP websites and loads upto 4x faster comparatively.

Although, AMP is not directly proportional to the ranking but indirectly it is, decreases the bounce rate, increases average session, improves the Click Through Rate (CTR) and consequently elevate ranking in Search Engines. AMP is still in its experimental phase but sources confirm that the project is still pretty central to the Google Search strategies.

2. Google’s Rich Answer Getting More Popular: - With the growing days, the attention span of people is reducing, everybody wants quick answer to their query. This is the reason why Google has introduced the Rich Answer Box concept. Gone are the days when people strived for 1st position in Google, now all SEOs want ‘0’ organic position in SERP that appears above the rank 1 website,  

The feature snippet contains the exact and quick answer to user’s query along with Title and Landing URL. Google pulls out the meta data from the website’s content to show in Rich answers. No matter, at what position the website is ranking on 1st page, Google selects the website’s content that give most appropriate answer to user’s question containing ‘How’, ‘When’, ‘Where’, ‘Who’ etc.

The Quick Answer box contains any type of relevant answer in the form of Charts, Image, Feature Snippet, Recipe, Maps, Tables etc. If You want your website to come up in Rich Answers then you should always write clear and complete contain on any topic, optimize key phrase in title, header, meta tags & alt tags, put the question within <h1> tag &<li> tags for proper listing of points. This is the lesson for all Webmasters that if you will design the content in right way i.e. User Centric Content, definitely it will get you lots of traffic from Rich Answers.

3. Power of Voice Search in 2017 :- Nowadays, Google Voice search is in trend, just speak out your question no need to type , say ‘OK Google’ and Google will get you anything like Genie in old Aladdin stories.

Some market facts say that the Voice search is growing exponentially day by day and if it will be continued in the same manner then one day this Google Voice Search will occupy a major part of Search. The purpose of Voice search is to perfectly understand the user’s intention in the query and giving them the fast answer. The need of the hour is to understand the fresh trends and re-strategize the website optimization for target audience.

Like Google’s Voice Search, other software giants such as Microsoft and Apple have their own Voice Search named as Cortana and Siri respectively.

4. Content is the King: - This is not something new that Google has introduced, Content Marketing was always a part of Digital Marketing, the only difference is that now Content Optimisation has become a crucial part of search engine ranking. Well researched, Unique, engaging and dense content is the secret key for the Online Marketing Success.

Google has noticed that many of the Content Writers just copy content from 3-4 websites, change some words, use synonyms, inject keywords and fill that in a single one. Many people still practice article spinning using tools or writers. But I don’t think we can call this a quality content.

The correct way to write a content that ranks is to first do a proper research on a topic, understand the concept, collect facts & stats from distinct sources and at last add some value from your own side i.e. Your Viewpoint. This type of high quality excellent content containing minimum 300 - 500 words will definitely help you to get on the top.

Well written content helps in getting user’s valuable attention, good ranking in search engines, new leads and conversions, backlink from high authority websites and brand exposure.

5. Trend of Cross Channel Promotion

At this time when it is tough to grab the user’s attention, Cross Channel Marketing is quite significant. This is the reason why one cannot only rely on Search Engine Optimization or Content Marketing to get desired traffic and target customers.

Also different users love to spend their time on distinct platforms, some likes Facebook or Some likes Twitter, some chats on WhatsApp or some do it on Snapchat, Someone’s choice is YouTube or Someone’s is Vine etc.

The main point to notice is that if a Brand wants to get complete exposure then it has to be socially active on every platform. A Brand should do proper SEO, upload interesting Videos on YouTube, publish its Blog, tweet it’s latest updates, put latest pics on Instagram, run Facebook Ads and PPC Campaign then only a Brand can get good customer’s engagement stats.

Cross Channel Promotion has numerous benefits such as more Brand Visibility, Diverse publicity, deep understanding of Market Ups & Downs.