As we enter the second quarter of 2019, you will notice that the search engines are becoming smarter by the day thanks to the latest developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analysis. Unless your tech startup is staying on top of these many changes, you can risk seeing it sink into the deep dark ocean of search engine results. We believe that the solution to your problem is a strong and effective SEO strategy tailored to your business needs.
Neil Patel, the guru of digital marketing and one of the world’s top web influencers, defines SEO as “the process of optimizing your online content so that a search engine likes to show it as a top result for searches of a certain keyword”. The digital space is changing faster than ever, the competition is fierce, so if you want to make the cut and be listed among the top 10 results on SERPs, you should constantly optimize your website.
Let’s have a look at 3 game-changing SEO trends to follow in 2019 if you want to boost your tech startup:
Mobile-First Indexing
According to an infographic report published by SEO Tribunal, 52.2% of all online traffic in 2018 was generated through smartphones and it is predicted that by 2019, this number will increase to 63.4%. Google has foreseen this trend and as of March 2018 started the process of migrating websites to mobile-first indexing. Especially in their early years, startup companies are very susceptible to market changes which means that you should focus more than ever to make sure that your business website is mobile-friendly. However, this does not automatically mean “mobile-only” as there is still a single index with both mobile and desktop versions.
The to-do list for tech startups
- Focus on improving mobile load time;
- Separate URLs for different devices;
- Verify structured data on your mobile site, as well as on your desktop version;
- Ensure that resources are crawlable;
- Prepare for accelerated mobile pages to enhance the user experience.
Voice Search
According to a report published by Search Engine Land, only 3% of the chief marketing officers are currently optimizing for voice search. However, 43% of the respondents said they would optimize their SEO for voice within the next 12 months. 32% of them said the changes would take more than a year. In contrast with the traditional way of searching for something online, when addressing a search vocally, we tend to use longer sentences and a much more conversational tone.
The to-do list for startups
- write for the long-tail queries;
- strive for the featured snippet;
- optimize local voice search, i.e.,make sure you use geographically relevant keywords in your content and make sure your business has a My Business page which will help your search engine rankings;
- as Siri uses Apple Maps to provide local business results, make sure your business also appears on Apple Maps.
Featured Snippets
Google defines featured snippets as descriptive boxes at the top of Google’s results which help people more easily discover what they’re seeking, both from the description and when they click on the link to read the page itself. By winning a featured snippet, your startup’s website will be displayed twice on the first page of search results, and this means an increase in your organic traffic and conversions.
The to-do list for startups
- optimize your content to answer questions in short yet informative sentences;
- create good content that would rank on the first page;
- use bulleted lists and numbers, especially for your sub-headers.
Final thoughts
As digitization takes over all industries, if you want to boost your tech startup and remain competitive, you should constantly optimize the content on your website, following the latest SEO trends on the market. Get in touch with us today and our SEO specialists will help you implement a long-term plan to achieve constant results.