Each year brings its own predictions and trends. The predictions that work are the ones that come from the past year’s search trends. Therefore, if you want to know what is going to work in 2018, you need to know about everything that worked in 2017. Every December, SEO teams from across the world pull together different reports to analyze what worked and what bombed. The fresh ideas for January come from thorough analysis of the previous year’s reports and numbers.

The past year ushered in some iconic changes in terms of local results, mobile-friendly results and user satisfaction. Here are the few trends that dominated 2017:

  1. Mobile searches overtook desktop searches with Google’s emphasis on mobile-first indexing strategies.

  2. The rise of IoT, smart speakers and personal assistants made it the year of voice searches.

  3. There were next to nil changes in Google’s search algorithm.

  4. Keywords became more subjective and less about frequency.

  5. The use of personal assistants led to an increase in preference for hyperlocal search results.

  6. Google Answer Box predominated and etched out new rules for ranking and search engine friendly performance of sites.

  7. Google ruled the search domain with 92.78% market share (Dec 2017).

2018 is about to bring a list of the most critical SEO tasks for any SEO company in Houston. Aside from optimization for hyper-local search results and voice searches, there are many things teams have to focus on to ace the 2018 search trends. Let’s take a look at some of those essential tasks you need to complete before this year ends as well.

Ranking for mobile devices

Ranking for mobile devices no longer means to simple rank for Google browser for mobile phones. It also means answering the calls of Siri and Cortana. Over 60 million people from across the 50 states talk to their virtual assistants from time to time. The presence of mobile VAs has made driving a lot safer and easier. Over 53% of the users use the assistants to find a playlist or play music, 51% of users use them for weather forecasts, and over 50% of them use them to receive search results from Google.  

Mobile is opening new windows of opportunity for all brands and websites, who are interested in optimizing for voice searches. Personal virtual assistants make mobile searches a lot different – they include long sentences, question form sentences, and they are likely not as disjointed or precise as Google desktop and laptop searches.

The basics of optimizing for mobile devices is very simple:

  • Make sure your site is responsive

  • Your website should support Google bot crawling

  • The content should include a mention of your location

  • Your keyword game needs to evolve (keep reading!)

Improving your keyword game

You need to check out the new keyword grouping trends. When you use a keyword grouper, you can collect all your keywords in logical groups. It gives a new perspective on keyword combinations. You can target several related keywords and find out how you can use the high volume keywords in conjunction with the low volume keywords.

To understand what is best for your website, you can take a look at your competitor sites. Find out how they are grouping their keywords. Unless you have keyword grouping tools, this task can be laborious and tedious.

The new trends of keyword grouping can also help you come up with voice search friendly key-phrases for your website. Using WordStream will give a clue about the trending keywords. However, to create your own collection of resonating search phrases you might need the help of tools like QuestionSamurai.

Invest in custom competitor study

Until and unless you understand what your customers are doing to find a loyal audience, it will be challenging for you to optimize your site for a similar group of audience. The most successful of all websites often delve deeper to build custom data collections from competitor websites for forging their own strategies.

Using the latest competitor research tool, you can find out which keywords are performing best organically. You can also find out how they are performing for different search types. Hyper-local search results with mobile-friendly layouts are the best choices for the 2018 search market. People love them mobile phones and smart speakers, and they are going to love the websites that give them the exact answers to their queries each time.

These three tasks are going to be the very basics of every SEO strategy you will come across in 2018. This year is going to define a change in the topography of search results as long as Google is concerned.

Author bio: Mike Garish is a digital marketing genius. He leads his own team of marketing experts. His work with the leading SEO Company in Houston has helped multiple companies perfect their local search rankings and mobile search performances.