What is the latest update in SEO?

Hey all you SEOers! It’s that time of the year again when we need to look at the latest Google SEO updates once again.

Over the past years, SEO has been changing constantly.

Some experts have been contemplating that the company has made up gradations in Google Penguin algorithm probably in February this year.

Yes! It is speculated and conjectured because Google is not someone who would let the cat out of the bag so easily – they are excellent secret keepers and are not going to reveal their strategies to us.

Google has taken it very seriously that the users get the right content for the queries they search for. And for that, numerous updates have been made in their algorithms from the past year.

#1. Schema

Using a Schema markup is becoming progressively important with the forever transforming Google and the evolving user trends.

Schema’s job is to make it simpler for search engines to fathom and comprehend your site, thus helping to ensure that it is displayed correctly. Schema can also be especially helpful when Google chooses to display rich answers, such as Quick Answers or a Rich Card.

Google likes to make life easy for its users by displaying answers as simply as possible so that they can find what they are looking for. As of now, rich snippets are displayed for recipe and videos, AMP articles, local businesses, music, reviews, and TV & movies.

#2. Hybridization

It is a well-known fact today that users have become extremely sophisticated online and the demands of digital marketing manage to pull professionals closer together.

Now, mobile users check business mails on the go and desktop users redeem social media coupons.

To tap into this potential and cache of customers, your team should be up and about running hybrid campaigns, and be prepared for these changes.

To make sure your team is hands on:

• Conduct trainings where you can manage to help members of different teams get to know each other’s goals and strategies
• Create shared projects where members of different teams come together for joint goals
• Advance ahead with common documents between the different teams that define vocabulary, expectations, and roles so that everyone can communicate effectively

#3. Changes on the SERPs

Google has been testing and trying out the SERPs this past year. Particularly, they have been increasing the number of characters allowed in some of the Meta descriptions and titles.

This trend could pose a challenge for marketers because they have not been rolled out to all websites, nor has Google announced that they are permanent.

For the sites that are fortunate enough to receive the extra traffic, there are great prospects for including more keywords and more compelling descriptions to help attract more people to the website.

#4. Mobile and speed

Since the year 2015 when Google first introduced the AMP project, the importance of speed, particularly on mobile devices, has grown.

The search engine has always recognized and made it clear that slow load times hurt the user experience, which is why even a one second delay results in a considerable reduction in conversions. With AMP, Google can intensify the importance of speed.

1. Google Penguin
2. Google Hummingbird
3. Google Panda
4. Google Pigeon

We’ve synthesized these changes as the most far-reaching and notable SEO updates you need to stay on top of.

The purpose of the update is to provide a more beneficial, relevant and precise local search result. And unlike Penguin and Panda updates this is not a penalty-based update, but a core change to the local search-ranking algorithm.

So get set and gear up to dominate SEO in 2018!