The SEO trends to watch in 2019
While the realm of SEO and digital marketing have advanced exponentially over the last few years, so has our understanding of digital marketing as business owners. Search engine optimisation has finally hit a peak where small business owners know all the right questions to ask, and have a good grasp of the right considerations to keep in mind. Instead of wondering about how instant the results of an SEO campaign will be, they’re looking forwards how that will turn into long-term success – and that’s the perfect change of mindset to occur. But it’s not just the mentality of everyone towards SEO that’s changed. The intricacies – like the strategies behind the method – have evolved, shifted and shaped into something a whole lot more holistic, and brands are quickly catching onto this too. Instead of SEO just being a simple matter of ranking better, the big picture is now being seen – from keyword research through to compelling, optimised content; the entire strategy is now better understood. Beyond that, Google has also expanded its capabilities to cater for how users are searching. From mobile-responsiveness through to more accurate, detailed search phrases – the way we incorporate these factors into our SEO strategies is now far more complex. And that means understanding the user behaviour we have at hand, and how to adapt to the way they’re choosing to use their devices. To be able to do all this, it’s important to consider how rapidly these changes are happening, and the tools that will help you deal with the evolution of SEO altogether. In 2019, expect these shifts to be ever more fast-paced; get your hands on the insights and weapons that will help you kickstart your campaign the right way. Access better, more accurate insights These days, there’s no need to guess what kind of audience you’re dealing with or how they choose to behave online. You don’t have to throw a few guesses of keywords out there and hope they’ll stick. Previously, you had to dig far and deep to find out what keywords you needed to deal with, and as they chose to dip and fluctuate in search volume, swapping them out was a huge hassle. Nowadays, there’s a plethora of tools online to help you find the right phrases to incorporate into your SEO strategy; you just have to know how to access them. Luckily, keeping tabs on all this isn’t so hard to do. The first and biggest weapon is social media. These platforms are overflowing with insights into how your users are functioning, what they’re reacting to, what they’re searching for and even what they’re purchasing. These channels also let you literally look into their individual lifestyles, and then tailor your advertising to suit. A few tools to help you uncover all this include: Facebook Audience Insights The simplest tool under your belt, and at no charge at all. Use this platform to access detailed information on your target audience’s recent purchase activity, their age, gender and lifestyle; their education and marital status, their job role, household size and even what language they speak. Narrow down to location and see where they live specifically. Buzzsumo Use this handy tool to analyse how content is performing across different social media platform. You can compare your content to competitors’ and even broaden it out to see your entire industry. Best of all, you can just throw in a keyword and see all the most trending or important content to keep an eye on – great for content strategies. Taking advantage of smarter keyword phrases It used to be that you had to create individual landing pages for every single keyword that you wanted to target in your campaign. And then you had to make sure they’d even perform. This turned out to be a costly and energy-dependent task that was almost not worth all the effort. Eventually (phew), Google’s advancements released the much-celebrated Hummingbird algorithm update, which meant that key phrases are now more flexible. Users can input longer tailed key phrases like ‘Cheap Melbourne pet accessories’ and get a nice and healthy list of results. That’s because websites now no longer have to target odd keywords that don’t always make sense, just to get results. You can see how much these phrases have evolved by typing in a simple query into the search bar and seeing the longer form suggestions from Google: Going beyond search volume But while all of these flexible changes are all well and good, it’s also time to think outside of just pure search volume, when talking about what keywords to target. Instead, we need to get our heads around the fact that keyphrases Google says pull high search volumes, may not actually mean a truck load of clicks as a result. This is likely because Google has incorporated nifty features like it’s dictionary to provide answers to simple matters like users searching for definitions, rather than a specific website or service. Therefore, they have no need to actually click through to any other link. This means a loss in clicks for the search volume that marketers might be looking up The answer to all this? Stay away from search volumes that aren’t translating into clicks at all. Other handy tools But as you chug along with your SEO campaign, you’ll find little bits and pieces that you’ll need to tidy up on. And whether that’s your keyword research or content strategy, these two tools will help you get started quickly: Google Correlate: Perfect for generating new content ideas and strategies, as well finding innovative keyword research, Correlate is a lifesaver you need to keep at hand. Ahrefs: Find tangible insights your can use in your campaign, all backed by detailed insights. This platform has long been the ‘God’ of all SEO data and should still be considered as top-player. Want to kickstart your SEO campaign? Contact an expert at Significant Digital at 03 8753 8315.
