SEO trends in 2018

Mobile internet has been very important on search engine marketing for the last few years. In any case, this year will be especially relevant, because foresight is that Mobile First Index is going to be deployed permanently. 

This, in short, means that Google is going to start taking as a reference the mobile version of the site above the desktop´s. It will go through pages using its mobile bot and it build indexes based on this tracking. 

As it is easy to understand, what is not present on mobile will also be so in Google index because it simply won't be accessible to tracking. So, if you are one of those who still have a version of your site on a subdomain m. or similar, it is time to consider doing something with that. 

On the other hand, we learned something that was both a well-known secret and a trend that was to come. Starting this year, loading speed on mobile will be a factor in ranking by itself, specifically from July this year, according to the official announcement from Google via its official blog on Search Console. 

In fact, its recommendation says specifically to use its tool Page Speed, which gives us some tips to improve the loading speed. You can also get more complete reports using the extension of Chrome Lighthouse. 

No matter how you measure it, the important thing is that you get to it and have it done before summer. 

Another great revolution that is occurring progressively and somewhat in silence is the machine learning. 

Basically, it is about the efforts that Google is doing in order to understand the search intentions carried out by users semantically. Instead of focusing on simple keywords, it aims to improve the algorithm so that it understands the natural language of the person who carried out the search. 

In 2015 (this 3 years ago) Google RankBrain became a reference in the future in the world of SEO. It is Google´s firm commitment for the machine learning. This virtual brain analyzes millions of searches and traces the relationship between various concepts simulating how neural networks function in the human brain. 

Be careful as this which is not a minor matter. RankBrain is considered one of the top 3 ranking factors, so it is time to reconsider our content, make it more natural and semantically consistent. 

For Google´s brain, the time on page (optimal is to exceed 3 minutes), the CTR and the pogo sticking are major factors. 

This last one refers to those users who enter and bounce off very quickly: for Google is very bad sign since it understands that this result is not relevant to that search intention. 

Concerning CTR (Click Through Rate or Rate of Clicks), the trend in 2018 is that organic results will continue falling. 

We do not mean that "SEO is dead", which is one of the recurring phrase from the Phoenicians. But it is undeniable that with Adwords advertising, Google Cards, featured fragments and several carousels... getting some visibility and clicks on the links is increasingly getting hard. 

We will not go into the importance of taking care of titles and descriptions at this point (it is vital, but you know it). It is about trying to get the zero position, and for that you have to bring to the forefront the best possible content, the more accurate and better structured. 

Most of the results of the outstanding fragments need to answer questions, definitions, recipes... All this implies that you must answer questions explicitly organized and hierarchical. 

Use the question in the title of the page and answer it with a simple definition. When the answer involves a process, make a detailed list that summarizes in a list using verbs that involve action. 

You must not forget to use structured data. Schema helps you add semantic meaning to the text. 

Closely related in terms of format with what we have just commented are voice searches. 

With the awesome level of penetration mobiles have on internet, searches are being very impacted by a new way of interacting with search engines. 

Users use less screens and keywords but they use very specific questions more on their intention, but very long-tail concerning its formulation. It is important that we understand at content-level that we must respond to questions and, in addition, factors of geolocation are very important. The user wants to closeness.