9 Predictions About The Future of SEO

The only constant thing in the world of SEO is change. It has come a long way from being all about on the page optimization, building backlinks and creating relevant content. It is not just about the meta tags, placing of keywords and using the relevant content. It has devised a more inclusive strategy that goes beyond everything that can be imagined.

You never know what is in store for the future of SEO, while you are still working on the old SEO techniques. A single change in the algorithm can bring a massive change in the SEO world, which goes unnoticed until the rankings of the websites see a change.

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Here are 9 predictions for the future of SEO:

  1. Use of AI in Algorithms

We can’t deny the fact the search results have become considerably precise day by day. The accountability for this can be given to the modifications and upgradations that have been made by the search engine algorithms. The future search results may become more refined with the use of AI in the search engines, where the machines begin to understand what the humans are searching for and start to respond in the same manner. This would make the search results mu h more refined and thereby increase a lot of competition for the ranking. Imagine the topmost result appearing in the search results is the most appropriate one, and imagine just the next result going totally useless.

  1. Increased Value of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

What do you think is the top stories carousel in the search results for? Well, it is a proof that the search engines value the mobile-friendly sites more than the other sites. This is credited to the incorporation of the Accelerated Mobile Pages feature into the search algorithms. This was first tested for the mobile web browsers but now, even the desktop browsers have started displaying top stories. Amazed? Well, by now you must be wondering as to how you would make your page come in the top stories. The key is making your website mobile friendly! Around 66% users prefer going to sites that are mobile friendly and the future of SEO will be centered around keeping the results mobile oriented.

  1. Incorporation of Penalty Filters

The latest update in the Penguin algorithm of Google brings up the feature of real-time crawling and updating every time the webpage is recrawled. This will eliminate the spam quotient in the web pages. This, in fact, is a warning to the websites to make sure that they get rid of all the poor-quality content on their websites and avoid getting devalued in search engine results. Also, the search engines will look for a faster crawling rate, re refresh rate, query space freshness requirements, the value of changes and content type. It means the update frequency of the web pages will rise considerably. Speed is a concept worth noting for the SEOs.

  1. Creative Content Will Play a Major Role

At the present moment, SEO is not very closely tied to content on the web pages. But in the near future, SEO will certainly be focused on the kind of content that is present on a web page, evaluating it for the relevance and usefulness to the searcher. It will be focused on making refinements to improve how timely, contextual and useful is the content. This also means that the type of content will also matter. The future belongs to the audio-visual format of contents and not simple text. This means, in order to prevent the bounce back rate and build up your trust rank, you need to be updated with the content. Also, plagiarism and spinning will become very easily caught, with the integrated penalties for each wrong practice.

  1. UX Will Play a Larger Role

Gone are the days when SEO was just a Technical thing. It has slowly and steadily occupied a larger relevance with the way people interact with the web pages. It can be said that with the passage of time, even SEO has become creative. The new algorithms have started searching for the obsession that your website can create For the user. If your content is not engaging the users, you will eventually lose the SEO race. In the future, tracking the user experience will become a necessity. So prepare yourself for the big small change from today and create a unique user experience.

  1. Building Backlinks Will Go Outdated

The future holds in store a secret sauce to the recipe of the brilliant SEO techniques that must be put to use. What’s that? It would make backlinks, the most used SEO technique go outdated, yet bring up building actual relationships with the local community into the trend. Putting it in simple words, SEO would be less technical and more analytical. The more solid relationships you have with your clients, the more promotion you have from real-time active users and that’s what SEO in the future will be all about. Rich reviews, shares and cross promotions will determine the ranking in the future.

  1. Refined Results with User Feedbacks

This seems a little confusing but has a lot to do with your website’s ranking. The new algorithms will focus on the reviews and feedbacks submitted by the users to analyze the relevancy of the search results. This means that if a products website lacks the review section or a services website lacks the testimonial section, the crawler would not consider it a trustworthy or reliable website. This is a warning to incorporate the feedback from your clients and customers on your website.

  1. Blurring of the Line between Social Media and Search Engine

This is evident as social media has started maturing as a more competitive platform for establishing a brand presence. It is a place where businesses can find the most directional audience, and hence, conversion.  There should not be a doubt when it is said social media will soon become storehouses of information and trigger searches. And none of us can deny the fact that we have become habitual of searching on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. I hope you got the point! This also brings to light the fact that SMO will overshadow SEO. And if you haven’t noticed, let me tell you that tweets from authorized accounts already appear in Google SERPs.

  1. Personalization of Searches with Voice SEO

As the world advances towards faster generations of communication, the connectivity to the World Wide Web is sure to strengthen. This implies that the use of virtual personal assistants such as Siri and Google Now will become more and more common, thereby raising the demand for voice SEO. These assistants bring answers to all queries such as calling someone, playing a song, asking for directions, finding out movie timings etc. This means your websites should have these common questions in the offsite design for better reach to the searches done through voice commands.

What are you waiting for? It’s time to give a jerk to the comfy chair in your office and make some decisions that will affect the future significantly. As a business, it is the time when you must revise and reorder your SEO strategy. Start thinking if more creative ways to be found by the people. The best SEOs have already started working on this.

Be it Google, be it Yahoo or be it Bing, all of them is striving hard each day to add another level of intelligence to their search engines. This is the first step of making the traditional SEO harder. Every time when a new media format comes up, the entire world of SEO is shaken up. I mean each one of us saw how text got replaced by infographics and images. And now, the future is all about videos!

SEO Is Not Internet Black Magic

SEO is no longer the same internet magic that helped you improve your website rankings. The search engines are already stomping down content that isn’t relevant or valuable. This is a clear indication that traditional SEO techniques are going to be obsolete very soon.

There are a lot of bright days ahead for SEO. The search engines as a whole will focus on machine learning, understanding of semantics, connections and patterns, user experiences, presentation etc. No black hat SEO techniques will work. SEO will continue to evolve until it has nothing more to change.

This also brings to notice the fact that SEO as a domain will vanish as the internet matures. And it has to for the future is all about ‘talking in context’. This brings in to focus the relevance of the query. In simple words, the future is about automated SEO.

Conclusion

Start building websites in a way that they are seen and favored by search engines. Create content that users will wish to consume, in the most trending media format. Make the most out of the automated SEO future by preparing for it from today itself. There are just too many eggs in the future SEO basket!

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Amit Mishra

Amit Mishra, the co-founder of Media Search Group, loves to pen down about marketing and designing. Be it search engine optimization(SEO) tips and strategies, Social Media Optimization, Increasing Engagement, and Traffic Score, Web Design and Development, Mobile Applications, Conversion/Sales, he covers it all. Been in the business for a long time, Amit Mishra knows some of the best strategies on how to expand and grow a Business Online.

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