As you enter 2018, it’s a great time to re-assess your mission, purpose and goals for your home care business — particularly when it comes to your website. You probably know by now just how important SEO is in driving traffic to your site. But keeping apprised of changes in this realm is key to staying relevant. Here are the top five changes coming in 2018 in regards to home care SEO.
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Link Building
This year, it will become increasingly important to develop and maintain a strategy to seek out quality links, making sure they add value and assist you in building authority for your target niche, advises Search Engine Watch. Your priority should be to seek coverage from sites that offer relevancy to your business, as referral traffic will contribute greatly to your site’s organic search rankings. The key to a successful SEO plan this year will require that you focus on relationship building, helping your brand develop powerful contacts and links that will pay off over the long haul. Remember, your industry is one that’s focused on caring for people, which is why it’s critical to foster trusting relationships with clients and potential clients.
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Gain Speed
Your target audience is on the go. They don’t have time to wait for a slow website because they have their own families to worry about while seeking information on an elderly parent, for example. In addition, older adults may not have the technical savvy that others may have, which is why it’s important for your site to load quickly and correctly. Frustration can cause your searchers to give up and go elsewhere. It’s all about survival of the fastest, even in the home care industry. Speed is important because it’s a ranking signal and it’s a major UX (user experience) factor, which also impacts rankings, points out Search Engine Land. Google wants websites to load in three seconds or less. Can yours do that?
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Utilize Voice Search
Voice search is really going to continue to take off in 2018. According to a Google study featured on Forbes, 41% of U.S. adults use voice search on a daily basis, and that number is only growing. Furthermore, the ratio of voice search is growing faster than type search. But the same keyword research routines can’t always be applied to voice search. That’s because those who utilize voice searches use normal, conversational sentences rather than the more robotic query lingo. We have a variety of keyword research methods that can help you target those phrases that will help in this endeavor.
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Incorporate Mobile
If you haven’t done this already, you’re already way behind. Especially when you add in the growing use of voice search, the number of Google searches originating on mobile devices is huge. And because mobile friendliness is an important ranking factor, you can’t ignore the need for mobile SEO. There are so many benefits to mobile websites, there are almost too many to list. But here are a few:
- Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites, and this will increase in importance as we navigate through 2018.
- People use mobile devices to do everything from simple Internet searches to buying big-ticket items like cars and appliances.
- It’s faster and easier.
- It helps build credibility with customers.
- It allows you to reach more people, more quickly.
- Your website will look stellar and function well no matter what device the searcher is using.
- Your reputation will benefit, too. People equate a well functioning website with success.
2018 will be the year that brands realize the potential of putting mobile first, instead of viewing it as an afterthought — particularly if Google decides to make this the year it finally rolls out its mobile-first index.
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Add Featured Snippets
SEO and SERPs have opened up well beyond the first, second and third search results as part of featured snippets. These are the quick lists that show up at the top when you search for something. The popularity of featured snippets is increasing the competition among those vying for “position 0” in the SERPs. With nearly 30% of the test Google search queries showing featured snippets, this makes it critical for you to optimize your site’s content to meet Google’s high standards regarding featured snippets.
Lists, tables and graphs are popular, as well as Q&A formats. These all make it easier for Google to find the right content and feature it in that coveted position. This year, you’ll want to focus on optimizing featured snippets for voice search. The juxtaposition of these two growing trends will give you increased opportunity for your home care company to display at the top of the SERPs. In order to do this, you will need to consider the changes in search queries, using longer keywords and more natural language. In a nutshell, featured snippets can increase your site’s authority as well as brand conversion.
Contact A Servant’s Heart Web Design and Marketing
If you’d like to know more about how the experts at A Servant’s Heart Web Design and Marketing can help you make these changes to boost your home care SEO in 2018, call us at (760) 227-2720 now.
