Our digital expert Ash Young looks at the next steps for Google and SEO
Google and SEO – what’s next?
The world of digital never stays the same. To be successful, you always need to be evaluating and adjusting your strategy. This should be viewed as a positive though, since it means that there are always new opportunities for you to take advantage of.
A great example of this is Google’s Jobs Panel, which we looked at in last month’s column. This feature is helping companies to bypass traditional jobs’ boards and outrank their competitors.
It is just one of the ways in which Google are looking to provide users with the information they’re searching for directly within the search results.
Another recent example is Featured Snippets. These are the boxes displayed for selected results at the top of Google’s search results pages, that highlight information in bullet points, tables or answer boxes.
Featured Snippets and Further Monetisation
Moving forward, it’s likely we’ll see Google continue their push towards displaying more information to searchers in this way. So, if you’re prepared to spend some time creating new content and optimising existing pages on your website, you could take advantage of new on-SERP trends in 2019.
For example, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see property search listings brought into the search results. In a similar way to how the Jobs Panel has helped Google to break the monopoly of big recruitment sites such as Indeed, a similar move in property could help them control searches for properties over websites such as Rightmove.
In addition, existing and potential new features in the search results such as these are likely to be monetised by Google at some stage.
You only need to look at their move to charge companies reliant on their Maps integration to see that often, free features you come to rely on will eventually cost.
What’s to Come In SEO?
In terms of wider SEO success, many of the fundamentals will remain similar. Companies will need to continue to find the harmonious balance between technical SEO, usability, content creation and the building of quality backlinks.
Wherever possible, synonymous working between the roles occupied within a marketing team will be vital to securing the best results possible in each of these areas.
Finding someone that is able to nurture the relationships required to secure you coverage with external publishers could also be priceless for you.
For help with any of your digital marketing needs, get in touch with Evoluted today.
