As you might already know, search engines change their algorithms periodically in order to prevent people from gaming the system, which would give them the upper hand against their competitors. In this article, we’re going to talk about the upcoming changes in 2017.
What you need to update your website
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Google believes that every website must be highly responsive in order to reduce the bounce rates. They wish to provide all users with an invaluable experience while browsing through the pages. Now, they have revealed the accelerated mobile pages, which is an open source protocol that allow immediate loading of pages on smartphones. Moreover, the pages load quickly without consuming more mobile data. In fact, the regular webpages would use around eight times more data than the new protocols presented by Google. If you still haven’t, take advantage of this feature to improve the user’s experience and your rankings.
Artificial Intelligence Is a Product Now
Google decided to integrate machines with artificial intelligence to make search algorithms smarter and more human-like. According to Google, their new concept is going to provide users only with relevant information when they search. This means that website owners must improve their sites making them more unique.
From what we see, black hat SEO techniques are becoming even less effective today. What’s more, such techniques can harm your rankings considerably. High quality articles, which provide value, are your only choice to rank higher.
User Friendly Experience
For Google, there’s nothing more important than the quality of service you provide to all visitors. The Silicon Valley enterprise has made user experience optimization one of their top ranking factors. The largest search engines such as Google and Bing rank websites with a better user experience higher than other sites. Now, not only does your design need to be flawless, but it must be simplistic as well, and customers should not get confused or lost while searching for their desired service.
Optimized Links
Distinguish your brand by creating branded URLs in order to separate your website from others. Such URLs are highly beneficial for the SEO of your site and you should make sure that yours are updated. This will improve your SEO score considerably. Make sure that you use ‘short branded links’ as they are unique and users prefer them more. These links look like this: goo.gl (Google) / pep.si (Pepsi Co.) or nyti.ms (New York Times). Our statistics show that the CTR is increased at least two times with shorter URLs. Moreover, the links will help you whenever there is a limit in post characters on social media platforms.
Try to integrate these trends into your search engine optimization efforts in 2017 to ensure that your website is updated. This will allow you to stay on top of your competitors and earn more visitors. Of course, if you’re unable to perform the tasks above, then it might be time to hire a professional company to take care of this job for you.
