It happens to the best of us: You go into the New Year with high expectations, more determined than ever to crush your goals and succeed. But when you check in on the progress you’ve made come February, you find that you’ve hardly made any progress at all. It’s all too easy to get carried away with goal setting for ourselves and our businesses.
Goals are good, but achieving them is even better. There’s something to be said for having a laser-sharp focus on one or two goals.
This quarter, we’re concentrating on AMP and schema, two technical SEO trends we’re obsessed with and already implementing for our clients.
The Emergence of AMP
One of the biggest SEO trends to come out of 2017 are accelerated mobile pages–AMP for short. These are pages coded to load lighting fast–4x faster, in fact, and using 10x less data than non-AMP pages. It should come as no surprise that the Google algorithm favors them.
Sure, you lose some design and user experience elements with AMP pages, but with load speeds that clock in at fewer than one second and proven increases in click-through rates, it’s worthwhile.
News outlets were among the first to adopt AMP, but in 2018 we expect AMP to become ubiquitous across more websites. SEO experts should consider adopting AMP and another way to improve mobile rankings. We recommend that a website has a few pages–or at least one–that provide an overview of programs and services.
Schema’s Still Important
A lot of websites are behind on implementing schema markup: website code that helps search engines deliver better search results. For such an SEO essential, it’s not as commonplace as you’d imagine.
In a study of 300 U.S. marketing agencies and B2C advertisers, just 17% reported using schema markup. And it’s no wonder. It’s a time-consuming, techy task, but it’s a crucial component of a great SEO strategy.
As voice search becomes even more prominent, schemas will become even more crucial to helping voice assistants understand content. We expect to see more developments in schema markup technology this year.
That’s why we custom code it into our websites. It’s not easy, but we work hard on the things that matter. Schema matters.
Talking Tech
All this tech talk is esoteric, but it’s vitally important. Why else do you think SEO experts get so amped up (no pun intended) when they talk about it? The content that your website visitors can’t see is just as important as the content they can see–because the stuff they can’t see is ultimately what gets them there in the first place.
If you’re ready to rev up your business’ SEO strategy in 2018, Webconsuls’ SEO services can help. We’re proactive in keeping abreast of SEO trends, tools and best practices, so we can implement them into strategies for our clients that just plain work. Contact us for a free, no-strings-attached consultation.