Planning ahead is the best SEO strategy you can have. It’s time to start thinking and taking care of your website ranking now.  The several SEO trends will smoothly shift from 2017  to 2018 adding more spices to the search engine world. So, what are the most important SEO trends in 2018? Let’s discover now!

Voice Search

More and more mobile users are searching in web simply speaking to their phones rather than typing search queries. According to Google one of the five searches is made via voice command. This means you have no option here: you need to adjust your keywords to voice search. Use more long tail search keywords and natural language closer to a conversational tone.  For example, “best marketing agency in Sydney” should be replaced with “Which is the best marketing agency in Sydney?”. 

Mobile Optimization

Being mobile friendly is not an option anymore. It’s a must. And it is important to know that Google will not award you for optimizing your website for mobile devices. Google is just dropping down the websites that are not mobile friendly. In fact, since 2015, mobile searches on Google’s SERPs have been higher than searches from a desktop. Mobile first index will be probably deployed in 2018, even if not businesses should pay much more attention to their mobile performance today not to lose time when everybody else will be mobile optimized. Mobile search is all about context. And as SEO is going more local, businesses have a better chance to attract customers at a local context. 

User Experience

Google made all clear that it is all about the user and user’s experience now. This means all businesses need to invest in UX design. Website with good structure and design tends to attract more users and provide the needed information. The most important factor of good user experience is the website speed. Nobody, really nobody likes slow loading websites. Also, it is important to test your navigation structure and readability of your content. If your bounce rate is high, it means your content and website structure is upsetting. There is no meaning to drive a high traffic without turning it to valuable conversions or engagement. 

Content and Infographic

The major player in organic search will remain content marketing. Valuable content is still the best way to drive an organic traffic and let Google know, that you are interesting for users. Hiring a  professional content writer who will deliver quality articles or a research piece is always a good idea. The ideal length for a good content varies from 1300-1800 words. Though many can argue with this statement.
Spice up your article with an interesting and well-structured infographic. Stats show that articles with infographic perform better. They are having more shares and likes in social media. The key principles for good infographic are to keep it simple and to the point. 

Link Building

Link building is not a new SEO strategy, but it will keep its strong position in 2018. A quality backlink is still a very valuable source for an organic traffic. Establishing good relations, generating good contacts and being mentioned on a popular website in your industry will definitely have a good reflection on your Google rankings. A real challenge is to try escaping from guest blogging and start to develop a better link building strategy, as Google warned publishers that they are going to be more attentive to guest blogs to prevent questionable links and spammy backlinks. 

One thing is clear. SEO in 2018 will be interesting and SEO specialist have a lot to do. No more minute to spare, you need to start optimizing now!