SEO Trends You Should Have on Your Radar in 2017

In almost the blink of an eye, 2016 is coming to a close. And yet as fast as it went, this year absolutely brims with memories.

Mobile overtook desktop as the primary device used to access websites, Google has launched AMP, Adwords received additional 4th place in SERP, there was a massive update and change in Panda algo. Basically, the last quarter of this year was nothing more than a rollercoaster – according to Mozcast weather graph was extremely high.

SEO TRENDS FOR 2017

I read a lot these day about upcoming ecommerce or social trends for 2017, so I decided to share my feelings and thoughts what SEO in 2017 will look like and what SEO areas I will focus on (at least I will keep the following list for my personal record).

1. Video or Die

I heard that within 2 years we will consume nearly 75% information only by watching video. I am not sure about the exact numbers but yeah if you don’t have a video strategy, start developing one soon. Content is king, backlinks are queen, and video may be the spawn of the two. I expect that more companies will start to embrace in-house video content, hiring their own videographers and eventually, offering more video-based content than text. More video = higher engagement rate and that means better rates from Google. As simple as that.

2. Mobile first

We have been waiting for “mobile year” for at least couple of years till it actually happened 2-3 years ago, or maybe it hasn’t? I know, it might sounds crazy, but in my opinion a lot of changes in SERP are just coming up. Believe me or not, but in top 10 or even top 5 there are still sites that are not mobile friendly.. and this is subject to change, as some of you might noticed that for the last 2 months Google put a lot of effort in testing mobile SERP. I think it is the best time for you to get familiar with Mobile-first Indexing by Google https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html

3. SEO Agencies will disappear

Ok, probably not.. But I think the best and most profitable time for SEO Agencies has just come to an end. Why? SEO became much more difficult than it was 2-3 years ago. And when I say more difficult, I mean it. Biggest SEO companies in our industry are already changing their offer, and the rest will follow. The reason behind is quite simple. They just know that for most of their clients, they won't be able to achive top 10 results for general queries that Client is after. A nice-juicy-high-traffic phrases are out of reach for smaller players anyway. If you run a hotel or a restaurant forget about top 10 or even top 20 as it's been already reserved for aggregator sites such as Booking.com or Trivago. On the other hand some Clients become more aware what SEO is all about and realized that without huge effort from their side, typical SEO agency will not deliver anything.

4. Voice search

This is my favourite one! A higher and higher percent of Google queries are coming through voice searches. I suspect that what we'll continue to see is that the percent of queries with an instant answer result keeps rising over time. Siri, Alexa and Google will literally tell you not only what day it is but will be able to order a pair of sneakers from your favourite store. Those whose business rely on creating short, not-detailed or in-depth content will be forgotten. Simplistic product price comparison or score sites are in a real danger. My personal task is to get my most relevant business queries into top 5 SERP and then try to appear into the featured snippet -> that is the only way to be picked up by Google voice answer.

5. Content

Content that engages, is interactive and enables readers to choose different paths will be highly expected. A lot of content is being created these days. People are inundated with information. They will continue to click away from anything that is not easy and convenient to read. On the other hand I expect higher rates for content creators (design and copywriting). Content marketers will be demanding much larger budgets for content promotion and distribution. On top of that, I hope that brands will start to target content down to individual preferences, desires, and interests. At the end of the day, for some of us, creating the niche content will be the only way to survive.

6. RankBrain

I think in 2017 we will hear a lot about this mystery algorithm. Rand in his awesome White Board Friday, put some lights on it: what Google is saying is with RankBrain, they're going to take any query that comes in and RankBrain is essentially going to be a query interpretation model. It's going to look at the words in that query. It's potentially going to look at things possibly like location or personalization or other things. We're not entirely sure whether RankBrain uses those, but it certainly could. It interprets these queries, and then it's going to try and determine the intent behind the query and make the ranking signals that are applied to the results appropriate to that actual query.

So, basically Google is going to use RankBrain to determine what type of content is expected and filled in with user intent. Some of them will require freshness, domain authority, content depth and others will be focused on engagement. I can’t wait so see major changes in SERP.

7. User and other stuff

This list might be endless. There are probably tones of other ranking signals you should have on your radar in 2017. Customer service is the key for success, that is for sure. You should also keep your link building white hat. Site speed will be a huge factor as well. And try to figure out what Artificial Intelligence can do for you. H&M is a very good example: https://hbr.org/2016/09/messaging-apps-are-changing-how-companies-talk-with-customers

I am more than happy to read your thoughts and comments. Wish you all Happy New Year!