SEO in 2018: What's Changed?

SEO (search engine optimization) is always changing, and just like Facebook updates its algorithm nearly every other week, search engines also have algorithms to update and adapt. As content marketing continues to become a more and more prevalent practice, and the internet is filled with content, it's the job of the search engines to divvy up the most relevant results so that users have good internet experiences.

So in 2018, when content marketing is an essential part of a good digital marketing strategy, and you need to ramp up your SEO, what do you do? What are the best practices? Has SEO changed overall?

We want to dive into what the state of SEO looks like in 2018 and how you can still stand out among the crowd and see success.

1. On-page content development is the most successful SEO tactic.

Over keyword research, link building, meta data, and more, on-page content is seen as the highest ranked SEO tactic in 2018. This means that creating and publishing quality content on your website that includes relevant keywords to your business and industry is the number one way to get your website to rank higher on search engines.

And one of the reasons this is the case is because on-page content is kind of like a conglomerate of SEO tactics. Not only are you offering full pages for keywords and backlinks to other pages and blog content on your website, but you're sharing quality information that search engines want to provide for their users.

So continually updating the content throughout your website is as important as ever. And no matter what anyone tries to tell you, blogging is not dead. Blogging is always changing and evolving, as is the scope of digital marketing as a whole, but it is still an incredibly powerful strategy when it comes to your search engine optimization.

2. Link building is the most difficult SEO tactic to implement.

Link building is, namely, the process of building links back to your website. And when SEO first really started being a thing, it was incredibly popular and created some pretty insane results for a few big blogs and websites out there.

But the process is long, hard, and tedious.

First of all, you still have to have great content that people want to link back to. And then you have to tell people about that content.

There are many ways to go about this and it can often be a completely hit or miss situation, requiring a lot of time on your part. We recommend using this strategy anytime you happen upon a blog article that you know your company has a relevant blog post about, and then asking if the writer would link it. But otherwise, we don't really recommend this tactic.

3. The majority of businesses outsource some or all of their SEO strategy.

SEO is a specialty. And not a lot of businesses have the resources to pay the salary required of a specialist in-house. Luckily there are many options for businesses who want to hire a freelancer or contract an agency.

Agencies that specialize in content creation know a good bit about SEO as well. After all, keyword optimization is a huge part of page content. So lucky for you, you don't have to look much farther than our contact page right here if you're interested in ramping up your own SEO strategy.

4. SEO budgets are increasing overall.

This year, most businesses are putting even more into their overall SEO budgets rather than planning to decrease them. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that search traffic (especially in the United States) itself has started to slow.

Of course, this doesn't at all mean the end of SEO, it's simply a slowing trend that we're seeing right now. It will eventually increase again, but for now, that means more money to fight to be seen.

Not only that, a lot of online businesses are realizing the cost of organic traffic. Just because you're seeing organic acquisition and not direct paid acquisition does not mean that it has come at no cost. Organic traffic is powerful and can result in a higher quality lead or more loyal customer, and it costs more to generate that than it does to garner a click.

That's because organic cost is seen more in the time it takes to set up and implement these SEO strategies. SEO is not a set it and forget it and overnight success it kind of thing. SEO takes months, even years, to really reap the benefits.

But it's such a powerful digital marketing strategy that it's worth every penny. And that's why we're starting to see these budgets increase much more than we're seeing them decrease.

If you're interested in how SEO and content creation can help your business, request an assessment and we'd be happy to audit your business and figure out how we can help you grow.