If you want your social media business to be on the top of the wave, consider your strategy for SEO in Los Angeles in advance. A shortcut to success is understanding the upcoming trends and developing an action plan for each new trend.

In the year 2018, Google has shaken the world with their mobile and speed-related updates. Therefore, most of the SEO efforts in 2019 are developing in this direction. 

However, some “non-Google” game-changers are also affecting the way we build SEO activities. Let’s explore these trends and how to adapt to them.

Mobile priority index

In short, mobile-first indexing means that Google uses the mobile version of your web page for indexing and ranking. Since March 2018, Google has moved the site to a mobile-first index. The search console may have notified you.

Keep in mind that mobile-first indexing doesn’t mean “mobile devices only.” Mobile devices and desktop versions still have only one index. However, the buzz of the entire “mobile-first” means that Google will use the mobile version to rank after the site is migrated.

Do you understand? Since your mobile version is the main version of the ranking, there is no reason to delay mobile-friendliness.

Page speed

Google insists on providing the best user experience and delivering it quickly. Desktop page load time has always been a ranking factor. In July 2018, it had a twin – moving page speed become a mobile ranking factor.

This important change requires an understanding of which metrics are critical to the Google page speed assessment.

Historically, when analyzing in Page Speed ​​Insights, the site was evaluated only based on technical parameters. Now, for desktop and mobile devices, it’s scored on two different metrics: optimization and new speed.

Brand as a ranking signal

Google webmaster trend analyst has said that Google uses online brand mentions in its search algorithms. There are two ways to use a brand as a ranking signal.

First, through the unlinked brand mentions, the search engine knows that your brand is an entity. By further analyzing all of its attributes, Google can better understand your authority in a particular area.

Second, the mood and context of each component are important: reputation, trust, advertising, complaint resolution, and more. 

Through the background, Google learns to tell good things from the bad. For example, its search quality guidelines state that reputation is important to ranking. Therefore, the sentiments mentioned by the brand will affect the ranking of the website.

GDPR

Let’s bet this spring when your inbox is full of GDPR and privacy policy emails, you get annoyed. So what exactly is this?

GDPR is a general data protection regulation adopted by the European Union. It dictates a very tricky problem – who has the data created by the user’s online interaction. From now on, it is the user, not the company that collects it. 

As a result, users can now request to view company personal data about them and request corrections or exports. If the company does not comply with the regulations, it may be subject to severe fines (20 million euros or 4% of the company’s annual profit).

This regulation affects EU companies and customers. However, international companies should also abide by GDPR. Therefore, Google decided to introduce changes in its Google Analytics. All individual user data is now due 26 months after collection. 

Such data includes demographic and affinity data (preserved earlier), excluding session and goal completion. However, the owner of each site can change this data collection default period. Also, data can now be deleted at the request of any individual users.

Amazon search

First of all, Amazon is not a universal search engine. It’s similar to Google’s algorithm, but it’s used for internal searches within Amazon’s web pages. 

What was the fuss at the time? Well, more and more people go directly to Amazon to shop.

According to one study, 56% of consumers visit Amazon first when shopping. After finding something else elsewhere, 51% check amazon.

These numbers tell us that Amazon is becoming Google’s e-commerce. This means that if you sell something and you are not on Amazon, you will miss out on all 56% of potential customers.

So if you are a seller of books, music, electronics, etc., please include Amazon Optimization in your SEO Los Angeles strategy.

Other things to look forward to in the year 2019…

There are a few trends, but they vary a lot. Although everything on mobile devices is going far, we still need to pay attention to the consequences of Amazon and GDPR. This list is a prediction of upcoming things in 2019, and we will discuss tens of thousands of things till the end of the year. What do you think the SEO environment will be like next year?