If you’re interested in the upcoming SEO trends for 2019, we have three topics for you:

• Voice Search
• AI
• Mobile First

SEO is many-layered and of course there will be other areas of development for it within the next year, but these three subjects should be the main focus of your SEO efforts in 2019.

Mobile First for SEO

By now, everyone who knows anything about SEO (search engine optimization) knows that more than half of all internet searches are done on a mobile phone. Your website must be optimized for mobile or you will lose out on significant internet traffic.

Furthermore, Google has prioritized mobile with its Mobile First indexing. Since March of this year, as Google announced on its Webmaster blog, they are now crawling, indexing and ranking your site based on its mobile version.

In 2019, it’s predicted that the number of mobile searches will climb ever higher. This, combined with Google’s Mobile First indexing, means your SEO efforts should be centered around the user’s mobile view of your website. Make sure your content is mobile friendly and keep your meta descriptions and titles short so they display in their entirety on Google searches.

Voice Search

One of the ways those mobile searchers are querying Google and other search engines is by using voice search. This type of search has skyrocketed in the past couple of years, in part driven by the adoption of the smart home assistants, Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

According to this article on Alphametic, 20% of all mobile searches today are voice searches; 40% of adults use voice search once a day, and by 2020 half of all searches will be voice searches.

If you haven’t already, it’s vital to start optimizing your SEO for voice searches. This means no longer targeting hot keywords or even short keyword phrases, but researching natural questions instead. Find out what questions people ask relative to your brand or service and write content to answer those questions and meta descriptions that address them. A great, free tool for this kind of SEO research is Answer the Public.

AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Ever since Google admitted they’ve incorporated an AI, called RankBrain, into their search tools, this new aspect of search has meant changes for SEO. In 2019 the use of AI is expected to climb rapidly.

What is RankBrain?

RankBrain is one of Google’s search algorithms, but it uses machine learning to sort through search queries. It customizes the algorithms Google has, applying different sets of them to different queries. According to MarTech, RankBrain can “adapt and gain knowledge about the real intentions of search engine users and the kind of information they are seeking.”

In that same article, MarTech writes that RankBrain prefers long-tail keywords that are similar to what people ask when they perform voice searches. You need to start thinking about your content as providing answers to the questions people ask in voice searches, the same questions that RankBrain prefers when it’s collating queries.

This brings us back to something that has always been the foundation of good SEO– keeping the person who is searching for your product or services top-of-mind. Even though the details vary, the key to effective SEO remains the same: helping people find you. Think of what those searchers need, what they are seeking. Tailor your content to answer their questions and meet their needs and you will be well on your way to increasing your website traffic!

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