Welcome to 2018 and another year of online marketing with Geelong website developers GOOP Digital.
We’d love to tell you that 2018 is going to be a straightforward year and that making a website rank in Google searches will be a breeze. The truth, however, is we’re predicting that ranking in Google is going to be harder than ever in 2018.
Ranking in Google even more demanding
In the early, early days ranking in Google didn’t require much more effort than creating a website, adding text jam-packed with targeted keywords, organising a pile of backlinks if you were so inclined and then sitting back and enjoying the fruits of your minimal labour.
Fast forward to 2018 and the list of requirements for a business website to rank in Google is as complex and demanding as Google itself. Following are just a few requirements if a business website is to have any hope of ranking in Google searches:
- Mobile friendly and fast to load
- Follows and adheres to strict design guidelines
- Able to endure 24-7 scrutiny by Google algorithms without penalty
- High-quality unique and relevant text that answers searchers’ queries
- Keywords that appear in natural patterns throughout the text, in titles and URLs – no keyword stuffing allowed
- Authoritative and appropriate links – websites with irrelevant backlinks will suffer the consequences
- HTTPS security
- Associated with a Google My Business Listing
- Associated with positive and honest online reviews from a variety of sources
- Complies with Google’s new requirements for voice search.
Voice search challenge for website developers
It’s that last point about voice search our website developers suspect is going to play a leading role in search results and rankings during 2018. As Google Assistant, Google Home and voice search become more and more popular, websites are going to have to ensure they comply with Google’s requirements for voice search.
And what are those requirements?
Well, we can say that answers to voice search queries must be grammatically correct, fluent and concise. It’s pretty simple in theory but, as with just about everything Google, there are caveats, and plenty of them.
Websites hoping to stand out in voice searches will need content that answers and satisfies the searcher’s query, will need answers that are the right length (but just what that right length is will depend on the query), will need to be grammatically correct, will need to flow in natural speech patterns and will also need to use words that machines can pronounce.
And that’s just a start. Google’s continually evolving and continually refining how its algorithms read, index and rank websites, and as 2018 progresses the requirements for websites to rank will change again and again.
Even more work for web development team
At GOOP Digital the website developers at our Geelong HQ spend an average 110 hours planning, designing, writing, developing and refining even our most simple websites to ensure our clients’ sites comply with Google’s ever-changing requirements and standards.
To ensure we comply with those requirements and standards we also spend hours each week assessing, reviewing, integrating and discarding information about Google and its ranking prerequisites so our clients’ websites have the best possible chance of gaining prominence in Google searches for what they do, where they do it.
Nobody outside Google knows all the secrets to gaining prominence in online searches, and any web developer who says they do isn’t telling the truth. At GOOP Digital we do know an awful lot about ranking but we also know that what works today might not work tomorrow. Perhaps the only thing we’re 100 percent confident about is that – as we said at the start – we know we have a lot of work ahead of us in 2018 keeping abreast of the demands of the ever-evolving beast that is Google.
Fortunately we’re not scared of hard work.
If you’d like a website that has the best chance of organically ranking in Google for what you do, where you do it – no matter whether searchers are using a computer, a phone, a tablet or other device and whether they’re typing or using their voice to make a search – then please contact GOOP Digital and our website development team in Geelong. Our hard work has paid off in the past and we’ll ensure it does again in 2018.