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The Future of SEO: Our Predictions

By Snap Agency December 11, 2018

Predictions help us plan for the future and grasp opportunities the moment they emerge. While predictions can be wrong, they can also serve as a driving force for new innovations—if enough of the consumer base becomes convinced that the prediction will come true. In the same way, the future of SEO will be largely driven by the products and results we want to see.

Read on to see what SEO trends we’re expecting in 2019 and beyond.

1. Site Comparison Will Change Market Research

Forbes explains that most built-in plugins focus exclusively on personal sites, and solely offer comparison of various pages and functions within your own domain. However, SEO is a competitive field: this makes us think that we will soon see competitive analysis platforms and helpful functions emerge—possibly as soon as 2019. If coders can configure these comparison packages as user-friendly, shareable content that’s available to business owners within filtered markets, it would change not only 2019 SEO standards, but the entire e-commerce platform.

Bringing much more to the table than a way to compare apples to apples, it will show you how to turn your site into a veritable grocery store of knowledge—appealing to every consumer out there. Flickerleap tells us that site comparison is not just smart, it’s crucial because it can:

  • Help you boost your online presence and improve your Google ranking by recognizing the strengths in your SEO marketing
  • Provide opportunities to network and build connections with other companies
  • Allow you to use your competition as a gauge for the successes (or failures) of your own marketing and media

2. We’ll Continue Saying “Adios” to Local SEO

Google’s Pigeon algorithm—and other updates since—have shifted and shrank the geographically targeted regions until local SEO has become nearly impossible for small businesses to maintain. As they fight to keep the support of the big brands and corporations, Google has been shoving the mom-and-pop businesses to the side to keep their support.

In fact, Neil Patel reports that a small business no longer has the option to track and target keywords like [business type] + [city] and use the results, catering their content to positively spam directories, results, and social media to raise their search standings to the first page of Google results. Although this SEO prediction is a possibility, we believe there is still hope for local SEO with the help of local businesses like ours. In fact, check out our article to see three ideas for boosting your local SEO and taking back some “search” power from the big dogs of the business world.

3. Mobile Search Will Take Over

Neil Patel reports that according to Comscore, mobile search has already passed the tipping point and become the primary source for e-commerce with over 40% of 2018 transactions being completed on mobile devices. Not just a passing fad, mobile search is here to stay, and will only get bigger as technology has quickly forced mobile access to jump from a luxury to a necessity. We’ll see this trend continuing to 2019 and beyond as mobile devices continue to become an increasingly crucial presence in everyday life. In fact, the Telegraph shows that the average mobile user spends an equivalent to one whole day out of the week browsing online. In order to keep up, 2019 SEO standards must adapt—and quickly. At the very least, building and maintaining a mobile-friendly website will play a crucial role in the success of your online traffic and overall ROI.

4. Voice Search Compatibility Will Become a Must

Just like mobile search will continue its takeover of the world wide web—with nearly every American walking around with a smartphone in their pocket—voice search is also on the rise. Although some organizations are hesitant to expanding their 2019 SEO trends to account for voice search, not confident in the lasting power the technology, we beg to differ. In fact, ComScore predicts that 50% of all search inquiries will be voice searches by 2020. Simply put, optimizing your 2019 SEO for voice search is not just a cool idea, it’s a must.

Pure Content explains that the primary reason users like voice is because they want to find useful information more quickly (and easily) than they could by using a desktop computer or turning to their mobile browser page. In today’s world, where we are so used to instant gratification, convenience and ease are everything to users. Don’t miss out on the incredible potential voice search can bring to your 2019 SEO standards.

Position Your SEO Efforts for Success in 2019

We hope these SEO insights will help you confidently carry your business into 2019. Still need some guidance? The experts at Snap are standing by and ready to help.