SEO (Search Engine Optimization) includes all the techniques that allow to position a site or a web page among the first results on search engines. It can also be called natural referencing and is opposed to SEA (Search Engine Advertising) which are the paid commercial links. In the results of search engines such as Google or Bing, SEA results are displayed before SEO results. Together they are the SEM (Search Engine Marketing), which is the branch of marketing that consists of optimizing the presence of a website on search engines.
Today, according to Ahref, one of the most widely used SEO tools in the world, 91% of the pages referenced on Google have no traffic at all due to a lack of SEO optimizations. But we still need to know how to build a natural SEO strategy. To do this, we must understand how the Google RankBrain relevance algorithm works. Regardless of your business sector, one of the main recommendations to make your website appear in the top 10 of Google searches is to optimize the pages of your site as much as possible so that each user remains on average 3 minutes and 10 seconds on it and increase the conversion rate. To be visible, it is important to work on its content, internal networking, multimedia content and user experience.
Why develop a SEO strategy?
SEO allows to optimize the visibility of a website or a web page by making the desired pages appear in first position on a search engine. Indeed, studies show that only the results displayed on the first page are likely to be consulted by the user, the objective being to position oneself in these results to generate traffic acquisition. In order to achieve this objective, a digital strategy is adopted combining these three main categories of natural referencing:Â
- The infrastructure elements of the website and in particular the responsiveness of the site on mobile phone
- Elements of page content optimization
- The development of net linking (external links between sites)
Persistent 2018 trends
The major SEO trends for 2018 were concentrated around the terms “quality” and “accessibility”. There are three trends in 2018 that meet the quality and accessibility requirements that will still be competitive levers in 2019: attention to content, mobile responsiveness and page load times.
In an SEO strategy, offering quality, unique and relevant content related to the site is essential to improve the visibility of your website and reach new customers.
Accompanied by the right keywords, quality content promotes good SEO. It also allows you to position yourself by complying with the Quality Rater Guidelines of Google referencing, which favors content written by experts, facilitating the identification of authors and references as well as the possibility of contact.
It is also necessary to think about creating websites adapted to mobiles. Indeed, so-called “mobile responsive” sites, i.e. adapted to all screen sizes, are necessary today to optimize natural SEO because the Google “mobile first” index now analyzes mobile versions and not desktop versions.
Finally, page loading time must be as short as possible to ensure better accessibility of your website and offer a quality experience to Internet users.
New trends for 2019
In addition to these 2018 trends, there are new trends for 2019.
Despite the growth of ATS strategies, which are increasingly effective despite competitiveness on this channel, SEO remains essential, particularly in response to the increase in the use of ad blockers by Internet users.
In 2019, a new form of SEO, SXO or Search Experience Optimization, will also be introduced, which takes into account the quality of the user’s experience when searching for information. The user experience is at the heart of Google’s positioning criteria, and this “new SEO” confirms it.
With the explosion of voice searches, natural SEO strategies are being overturned. Indeed, with the development of these strategies, Google is becoming a page providing information content, and no longer just a search engine. Indeed, it directly offers a featured snippet, which is a Google search result that directly answers a question with an excerpt from a site answering the question asked. This new search method reinforces even more the importance of the choice of keywords used to write content and snippets optimized for SEO.
These “featured snippets” are also called “zero position” in Google searches. This tool that allows to be referenced first in search results is an essential element to take into account in an SEO strategy because being in the first results of the page is good, reaching the zero position is better!
And as this year’s SEO trends are linked to each other, we will note the predominance of video content in search engines, and which allows to be placed at the famous “zero position” so coveted. According to Cisco, the world’s leading digital transformation company, video content is expected to account for more than 80% of online traffic this year and according to HubSpot, 43% of users would like to have more video content.
Then there has been a marked increase in searches directly via e-commerce platforms such as Amazon or Prestashop, which are now becoming direct competitors for search engines, especially with the expansion of chatbots and PDAs.
Finally, the focus on the consumer experience addressed at the beginning of these new SEO trends for 2019 is reinforced by the importance given to comments and the possibility for users to express their opinion on a site, a criterion that will certainly become more important in 2019.
As an SEO agency, we can carry out an audit of your website in order to improve your natural SEO.
In conclusion, it is now obvious that having an SEO strategy is essential for the development of a brand. However, it is a long-term strategy that requires adaptation efforts and regular enrichment of the site. Moreover, even if SEA is an increasingly serious competitor, SEO makes it possible to target the user by offering quality content that meets a need formulated without containing parasitic advertising.Â