Due to regular updates in Google Algorithm, the confusion always remains among SEO newbies as to which SEO techniques can help their website to achieve high ranking in SERPs.

Even SEO experts experience failures when it comes to search engine rankings because search engines like Google are never consistent in their algorithm updates. What works today may not work tomorrow.

Now, as 2017 is almost ending, we need to come up with a certain understanding about Google Algorithm changes occur in this year to achieve success in the upcoming year 2018.

Here, we will go through some inspirational SEO lessons learned in 2017, which can help in designing a successful SEO strategy for future.

Increased Traffic Results In High Ranking

Increased traffic and the high ranking are just like the hen-egg scenario. High ranking results in increased traffic or is it opposite to that? To accelerate traffic on your website, you can ensure that your social media optimization strategy is strong enough. The click-through rate plays a major role in achieving high ranking. So, you can double check your metadata and snippets to meet your traffic goals.

The Quality of Inbound Links Is Significant

The debate relating to the quality and quantity of inbound links is going on since the starting days of SEO. Many SEO marketers lost the trust in link building strategy and stopped working towards it. But, as per the recent study, it was found that backlinks are one of the top 3 factors considered by Google algorithm while ranking the websites.

User Intent Rather Than Keywords Is Important

As per the data from SEMrush, 18% of domains ranking high for a specific keyword doesn’t contain that keyword in the body of its content. Now, it is no more a necessity to ensure the frequency of the keywords in the content in order to achieve ranking for that particular keyword. However, it is not harmful to include keywords in your content but it should be ensured that the user intent is taken into consideration while writing content for your website.

Longer Content Can Yield Higher Ranking

It is not necessary that always longer content is the quality content but it definitely can help in getting a high number of shares and likes. The content getting maximum likes and shares are likely to be ranked on top positions in SERPs. As Google considers longer content to be highly researched material and thus, it tends to get a higher ranking. So, it is recommended to include longer blogs in your content marketing strategy.

User Experience Matters a Lot

Google gives priority to websites providing excellent user experience. Below mentioned are determinants of comfortable user experience –

• Overall visits on website
• Time spent by user per session
• Number of pages visited by the user per session
• Bounce rate

The more you work on the design, navigation structure and functionality of your website, the better user experience you would be able to provide and that can ultimately result in high ranking.

Launching New SEO Strategy for 2018?

Though Google algorithm can be quite unpredictable, still following the above-mentioned lessons learned from SEO research, reports and predictions in 2017 can really help in launching a successful SEO strategy in 2018.