This is a sponsored post written by SE Ranking. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.
With every new year comes predictions, trends, and forecasts. They are all valuable and interesting. However, one can only predict but Google has the power.
So we’ve decided not to reflect on what might happen and focus on what worked in 2017 and will most likely work in 2018.
The use of mobile devices and all kinds of smart gadgets will continue to grow, so optimizing your site for the mobile search is no-brainer as well as paying attention to the local rankings.
Getting to know your competitors deeper and in more details has always been and will be a great strategy to follow.
So let’s look at those and a few other important tasks you need to focus on in the year to come.
1. Ranking & Optimization for Mobile Devices
A fact to remember: mobile search is different from the desktop search. Period.
The content of the mobile search can vary from the desktop as well.
That’s why optimizing your website for mobile search is mandatory.
Checking for mobile ranking is also crucial.
A good example of a tool that checks the rankings with 100 percent precision is keyword rank checker from SE Ranking.
The tool accurately tracks daily keyword rankings for mobile results in Google, Bing, and Yahoo. It also provides extra information on search visibility and traffic so you can make timely website changes and optimize your SEO tactics.
To make sure that your website works and looks good when viewed on mobile devices, you can use the website audit tool from SE Ranking.
This will positively influence both your conversion rate and rankings, as Google will consider the adaptive website design (one that fits into any screen size) as another positive factor for ranking since April 2015.
2. Employ Custom Competitor Research
You can spend hours in tedious research or you can use tools like SE Ranking’s competitor research tool to help you get insights on how your competitors are running their campaigns and how you can beat them all the way through.
You can go even deeper and get custom competitor data to build your strategies upon.
For example, your client has a moving business that operates in New York. You are researching their competitors in the area starting with ozmoving.com:
Using the standard tool, you can see what competitor keywords are generating the most organic traffic from Google and what queries they are advertising for, as well as get a full view of their ads history:
After that, you can do some extraordinary things.
You’ll have access to all kinds of data – including ads, keywords with the most up to date search volume, and competitive data.
SE Ranking can develop such a database that’s specific to your niche and region. This is something exclusive and is done per project basis. Contact SE Ranking at help@seranking.com for more details.
3. Local Search Ranking & Optimization
On-site and off-site optimization for local search is becoming more important every year.
Local rankings vary from your global rank, so pay close attention to your SEO activities to make sure that you are outrunning your competition at the ZIP code level.
To track local rankings in search engines, use tools that monitor your local pack, maps, and organic search ranking results.
You need to discover how your customers are finding your website, as well as how you can outsmart your competitors.
SE Ranking tracks your rankings on a country / region / city level as frequently as you want.
4. Use Keyword Grouper
Keyword grouping (or clustering) entails collecting keywords into logical groups, so the work toward one keyword group will undoubtedly affect the results of another.
This approach can take your search marketing efforts to a whole new level.
Let’s say you have two search queries – “best computer of the year” and “buy computer online”. How will these two combinations be used: on the same page or on different web pages?
To get an answer to this question you need to analyze your potential competitors and find out whether the ranking pages for these keywords are similar.
It is a really time-consuming task, especially when you are doing it manually.
So use special SEO instruments like Keyword grouping from SE Ranking to get this job done quickly and efficiently.
Sophisticated optimization and smart approaches are keys to successful search engine marketing.
If there are tons of unknown variables, the data can be unclear and your optimization efforts might yield no results.
Keyword grouping is an important part of getting the outcome you want.
It’s been around for quite some time but is not widely used – maybe because not many people understand how to do it and what it’s for.
We encourage you to use keyword grouping tool and see the difference in your optimization.
5. Do SEO on Your Own
For many years SEO has been, and continues to be, a scary and mysterious monster for many small business owners and even marketers.
But the truth is when you use right tools, all within the same platform, SEO is really easy and fun.
All the scary tasks like keyword research, competitor analysis, rankings, traffic and conversion trends, etc., can be done with a few clicks.
For instance, SE Ranking has been developed with a simple purpose of creating a platform that anyone can use for SEO, regardless of the level of expertise (or the absence of such).
You will get all the tools you need in one platform within the same interface. It includes the following useful features:
- Website ranking – which is 100 percent accurate.
- Keyword suggestions and grouping.
- Backlinks monitoring.
- Website audit.
- Competitor research.
- Automated reporting.
- Page changes monitoring.
- Social media auto-posting.
- Marketing plan (a.k.a., a step-by-step plan for what you need to do to get to the top of the SERPs).
- And more!
We at SE Ranking are sincerely hoping that in 2018 you will be doing SEO on your own. Let us know if we can help!
EXCLUSIVE FOR SEJ READERS: SE Ranking offers a lifetime discount on any plan of your choice – just enter the following code at the checkout: FOREVER25. But before you purchase, try it for free – no questions asked!
Image Credits
Featured Image: Image by SE Ranking. Used with permission.
In-Post Photos: Images by SE Ranking. Used with permission.
