Digital marketing and its subset SEO evolve with time. The best way to become an SEO expert is to stay updated with the changing algorithms and trends. Now that 2017 draws to close, we look at some of the more prominent SEO trends that were nascent this year but are likely to become way more significant by the time 2018 gets over.

1. Digital Assistance and Voice Search

Voice searches have radically transformed the way we communicate or process information. Digital assistants can actually change our search patterns. Going by Google statistics, almost 20 percent searches are already performed through voice commands. With voice search emerging as a major trend, SEO is likely to move more towards verbal expressions and long tail keywords.

2. Stronger and more effective link building

In 2018, a successful search engine optimization strategy would be the one that dwells upon relationship building and managing to leverage links and contacts that are likely to be beneficial in the long run. For instance, SEO training courses should teach individuals ways to include guest blogs as an integral part of their links, without affecting the reputation of the brands. Spam links will also have to be handled with dexterity.

3. Visual Search

Search engine giants like Google are working on an image-based search system where the use can use images and graphics instead of words or voice commands when conducting an online search. It is interesting to note that rich visual content boasts of higher clicks on most search engine sites. Image searches can prove to be truly helpful not only for checking out on a specific product or service but also for educational purposes.

These are just some of the trends that are likely to be predominant this year. We will be looking at more trends in the next part of the article.

Once the basic tasks of setting up a formidable SEO strategy has been accomplished, your SEO services specialist may suggest you to add a few more to your checklist before you can launch your website. We look at some more of these tasks to pay heed to.

Conduct a keyword research

Performing a comprehensive keyword research is one of the most important steps to undertake. List out all the products and services you offer. Create as many combinations of words and phrases for representing these products and services as possible. Once you have a comprehensive list of options, you need to use the Google Keyword Planner for checking on their performance. Shortlist ones that register highest response rates and use them in your content.

Your SEO consultant will be able to assist you in arriving at a performance based list of expressions that will click for your website.

The URL, the Page Title and the Meta Description

Creating a friendly URL structure helps in ensuring higher search engine results. Having a suitable URL ensures higher ranking. You need to include the more important keywords in your URL and make them more meaningful. Using hyphens and underscores are equally important as well. Dynamic URLS should be avoided as well.

The title tag represents the Webpage. The title must be uncommon and must include keywords sparingly. However, the keywords should not be stuffed in the description. It should be readable and meaningful and the important keywords should be used first.

The Meta description is a short summary of the web page. It should not be above 160 characters in length. It should be a compelling statement that can.

Creating unique content that is suited to a target audience

The content you create should be unique and has to be targeted to your choice of audience. Use keywords and key phrases judiciously.

These are the basic steps to undertake for ensuring a robust SEO strategy. You can continue to build on the same as you go.

Setting the ball rolling in a start-up may not be an easy feat. Regardless of the nature of company in question, there would be plenty of work to do. Be it, financing, staffing, resource planning, testing or paperwork; they would all need an equal amount of attention. And there is also a SEO strategy to devise and implement. Your SEO expert will provide a basic SEO checklist that can help. Here is an SEO checklist for your website.

Begin by installing Google Analytics

Google analytics is the best analytics tool that is available in the market and it is free. When measuring the success of your SEO strategy, the most common metric that comes up is the keyword ranking. However, if you choose to focus on the SERP positioning of the website alone, you will be missing out on the bigger picture. This is why a comprehensive analytics tool is important in order to have a clear understanding of how the organic traffic is being converted. Even the most basic SEO training course will help you learn how to use this analytics tool.

Use the Google Search Console

The Search Console is a free tool that is provided to those who manage websites, by Google. It was previously called Webmaster tools and is used for getting data about the status of the website and its organic performance in the search engine. You can use this very handy tool to check if your website has duplicate content and can also keep a tab on the search engine rankings. It also helps you check how many people visiting your website and the click-through rate of your web pages.

Watch out for errors and broken links

Search engines reach out to your websites through these links. Therefore, if there are crawl errors or broken links, the search engines may not be able to find your website content and hence may not be able to perform the indexing and push traffic into it.

These complete the basic SEO checklist for your website. We will be looking at more such important points in the second part of the checklist.

Have you ever felt that no matter how much effort you take, your SEO strategy never becomes as successful as you want it to? As your SEO services specialist will explain, you need to perform a detailed competitor analysis. You need to know what your competitors are doing right that you are not. We look at 3 more steps for performing an in-depth competitor analysis.

1. Take time out to study the competitor website

Most of the time, we are obsessed with keywords or Meta tags or back-links. However, one of the simplest things to do is simply study the websites of your competitors. You should check how the site has been designed, the quality of content that have used, whether they have static URLs or dynamic ones and so on. A simple study can give you complete view of the how their web presence is and where you need to improve.

2. Check on the seemingly unimportant SEO factors

Keywords and back-links done, now it is time to look at some other seemingly unimportant SEO factors which are actually very useful. Check the SEO ranking of your competitors on Google. Check how they are performing on other popular search engines like Bing and Yahoo. Find out how many indexed pages your competitor sites have with the more popular search engines.

3. Check the social media presence of your competitors

Your SEO consultant is likely to advise you to check on the nature of social media presence enjoyed by your competitors. Social media is responsible for driving traffic. However, this study may not be a simple one. You can start with social bookmarking. Look through some of the better known bookmarking sites. Check for competitor posts and how popular they are. Browse through Facebook and Twitter to check if your competitors have profiles that are publicly available.

Performing a competitor analysis for SEO is not an easy job. You need a specific set of tools and templates provided by your SEO services assistant in order to complete your analysis.

One of the key steps to undertake right at the beginning of formulating an SEO strategy is a comprehensive competitor analysis. As your SEO expert will tell you, mapping your competitors helps in a fair understanding of where your own position in the market is and what you should do to climb up the ladder. Here are 3 steps to begin with.

Step 1: Identify your competitors

Begin by identifying at least four competitors you wish to map. This could seem confusing since the rankings would be based on online searches and local business competitors. What you need to do is combine both and arrive a concise list containing not more than four entities. There are some specific tools available for help. Opt for a SEO training course that guides you on the same.

Step 2: Perform a keyword research

Once your competitors have been identified, perform a keyword research. You need to know which keywords are being used by your competitors and how successful they are proving to be. Here again, there are some special tools to be used for carrying out a keyword research. You can ask your SEO expert to assist you.

Step 3: Perform an analysis of back-link gaps

Analyzing back-link gaps will tell us which of the websites are establishing links with our competitors but not building links with us. This analysis is critical because this helps us to close the gaps with their back-link profiles and boosts our search engine rankings by fetching the links that are attached to the competitors. Here again, there are tools available for your help and assistance. Your SEO guide can share the same with you.

A competitor analysis incorporates a few more steps. We will look at them in the following article for a more comprehensive guidance.