Google continues to reign over search and they are always coming up with a new emphasis or shift that affects everyone’s SEO strategies. Keeping up with the search god’s whims and shakeups is no easy task and there are new changes and shifts in focus that Google will be looking at for next year.
The first thing that Google will be looking at will, of course, be mobile. Google shook up the search world in November when it announced that it would be performing an experiment in which search results would be mobile first indexing. Mobile search continues to dominate over desktop search with over 60% of all online searches being done from mobile devices. This trend has no intention of slowing down so your SEO strategy has to be keenly aware of that fact. Mobile responsiveness needs to be at the very top of every businesses SEO list starting right now. It won’t make desktop search any less important but being mobile ready will be a huge factor for the upcoming year.
Another uptick in search is voice search. Voice search continues to be rather cutting edge but it will have a huge impact on SEO strategies in the coming year and well beyond. The affect that voice search will have is going to be profound. Voice search is casual and spoken, like everyday language, and is often unfocused. It could very well represent and nightmare for SEO strategies and trying to figure out keywords and long tail phrases. This something to keep a watchful eye on as the new year progresses.
Applications continue to be in heavy use and the use of apps is only going to become more pervasive starting now. The challenge for future SEO is that the majority of users out there are now spending much more time using apps than being in a traditional browser. Two years ago, Google acquired the technology called Agawi. This has allowed Google to stream app content by way of the web. Because of this technology shift, users can get web content without necessarily downloading an app.
Things are shifting everywhere and 2017 looks to be a transitional year for SEO marketing strategies. If you thought your SEO efforts weren’t full time enough, 2017 just may readily convince you.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
