John Lincoln — January 11, 2017 Follow @johnelincolnIn the new year, SEO will continue to evolve just like it has in the past.
New technologies will emerge, new trends will gain in popularity, and some current best-practices will disappear.
Here’s what’s ahead for SEO in 2017.
AMP Will Gain in Popularity
Google loves Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology because it loads web pages instantly. If you haven’t already implemented AMP on your site, now is the time to do so.
Backlinks Will Lose Strength As a Ranking Signal
There are already reports that backlinks are losing strength as a ranking signal. That’s going to continue in 2017 as Google will give more weight to relevant content.
AI Will See Wider Adoption
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already an important component in Google’s suite of technologies. In the new year, you can expect to see other high-tech companies follow suit.
People Will Use Home Devices to Search the Web
How would you like to do some hands-free Googling? Fortunately, there’s some hardware for that. Devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo will make it easy for people to search for content without the aid of a laptop, desktop, or smartphone.
Original Content Will Still Rule
If you want to rank your site well in 2017, you’ll need to populate your blog with fresh content.
Social Factors Will Have More Weight
Brian Dean’s research shows that social shares on a referring page is one of the top 100 ranking signals. It’s likely that social signals will gain strength as a ranking factor in the new year.
Schema Will Grow in Popularity
If you haven’t already added schema.org markup to your website, make it your New Year’s resolution to do so in 2017. You’ll make it easier for the search engines to determine exactly what type of content is on your site.
More Webmasters Will Use HTTPS
HTTPS is the secure version of the HTTP protocol. You can expect to see more webmasters using it in 2017 because it not only adds a layer of security to the website, but also produces some nice SEO benefits.
People Will Use Amazon to Search for Products
In 2017, people who are shopping online are more likely to begin their search at Amazon rather than Google.
More People Will Search Inside of Facebook
Facebook wants to keep people on their site and users are getting lazier every day. Expect more people to use the Facebook search engine.
People Will Start Using Voice Search More Regularly
You’ve probably seen the commercial of the dad in the tent with his son asking a home device to tell him the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field. Although the correct answer may or may not be 3,270 to 1, you can expect to see more people doing voice searches in the new year.
Google Will Dispense More Algorithmic Actions
Usually, Google penalizes a site after a manual review determines that the website owner didn’t play by the rules. In 2017, expect to see that process automated.
SERPs Will Show More Content and Fewer Category/Product Pages
If you search for a keyword related to what some retailers are offering, you might find that the results list includes product and/or category pages. Expect that to change in the next 12 months as Google favors informational content over ecommerce sites.
AJAX/JavaScript Content Will Appear in the SERPs
Webmasters who use AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to serve content have noticed that it’s not included in Google’s index. That will change in 2017 as the Googlebot learns to “see” content that’s rendered programmatically.
Mobile Will Become Even More Important
Mobile is already important. In the new year, you can expect to see more companies adopting a “mobile-first” strategy when it comes to SEO.
International and Multilingual SEO Will Grow in Popularity
In this global economy, expect to see an increase in demand for international and multilingual SEO.
Longform Content Will Still Rule
SEOs that use longform content to reach people will continue to see success. That’s because longform content has ranking benefits.
More SEOs Will Optimize Images
Even the most experienced SEOs are known to neglect image optimization. In the new year, though, SEOs will want to go the extra mile for their clients. One of the ways they’ll do that is by optimizing images.
Clickbait Will Rank Better
Clickbait headlines aren’t just beneficial for social media marketing. In 2017, expect to see Google give a boost in rank to web pages that gets lots of clicks.
Video and Multimedia Search Will Become More Popular
Sometimes, people want information but don’t want to read it. Those folks will use search engines to locate relevant video and audio content.
Better Design = Better Results
If you want your site to rank well in 2017, give it a great design. Google loves sites that provide an outstanding user experience.
SEO in 2017 is all About Quality
In 2017, don’t try to cut corners. It is all about quality. From the content to the titles to the images, you really need to put in the time to succeed.
Good luck!
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