How important is SEO in 2019? It's more important than ever before, if you want high-quality organic website traffic and qualified leads. Let's take a look at the latest evolution of Google SEO best practices:
Google SEO in 2019
- Mobile is prioritized like never before. If your website is not ready for mobile use, this is an immediate need. Not being ready will damage your SEO rankings on Google. Google's indexing is increasingly prioritizing mobile, and you will be left behind if your site isn't ready.
- Google SEO best practices are also becoming heavily image-based. Ensure your images have the right alt text and metadata to be able to convey to Google accurate descriptions that utilize SEO keywords. Technology isn't anywhere near the point where it can accurately assess and describe images consistently, so your descriptions and metadata are what Google uses. They're the primary way Google “sees” the images on your website.
- That said, use the alt attribute to embed photos. CSS calls will not get indexed, which means Google won't recognize them when considering images as a factor in search result rankings.
- Googlebot itself has more than 1,000 new capabilities. Its functionality is now kept concurrent with Chromium, rather than the outdated version that was available before. This is leading to changes in SEO practices. It remains to be seen all that will evolve, so be aware that it's something to keep an eye on in the future.
- For that matter, HTML links should start using hrefs. Google's been stressing this for a while. Many sites use JavaScript or alternate languages that don't utilize hrefs. Googlebot will not crawl these links.
- Google is always keeping a step ahead when it comes to evolving search results. They'll soon feature 3D and AR results. A good example of this is how Ikea allows you to view furniture from any angle on its app. Google wants to offer this across a range of results, both product- and education-oriented.
- Sometimes your content is time-sensitive in nature. It could be a live stream that's happening soon, or a post that's time-limited in nature. For this, you can submit the URL to Google directly. Their Indexing API can be requested to crawl the content quickly. The data will need to be structured correctly to allow the Indexing API to consider the request.
- Google is also trying to communicate how rich snippets are created. These include the “other questions” results that often come up for specific topics. Rich snippets are a good way to produce additional SEO results, but they require learning about structured data markups.
- There's a trial program for Google Search Console. It will allow you to get page speed reports. This can help you understand how site speed relates to Google ranking. It's not known when this will come out of trial, but it's a needed capability for many businesses.
How Important Is SEO in 2019?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is so important that it's becoming very complex to understand all the ins and outs. Many businesses and organizations work hard to keep on top of all these factors, but not all have the full marketing capabilities to really take advantage.
If keeping up with the increasingly complex world of Google SEO best practices is taking time away from focusing on other elements of your business, it is time to consult a digital marketing agency that can handle an SEO strategy for you. Working with an agency can not only be more effective, but also free you up to focus on the strengths you already have in your business.
