The first month of 2018 is almost over, but do you know about these SEO tips for 2018?

1. Check the length of your meta descriptions

Towards the end of 2017, Google announced they were increasing the length of meta descriptions from 160 characters to 320 characters.

This is similar to how Twitter increased their characters per tweet from 140 to 280.

I have done a few searches on Google and noted not everyone has utilised the new character length for meta descriptions.

If you want your listing to stand out from your competition, then I would advise to take advantage now.

2. Make your website mobile-friendly

Mobile-friendliness has been a topic for many years and if your website is still not mobile-friendly, then get in touch with us because it really should be.

What is a mobile-friendly website? A website that modifies its layout, so it fits and looks well on devices with smaller screens.

If you find you need to pinch and zoom to read the text or click links on your website, then it’s not very mobile-friendly.

Act now and improve the user experience for your customers who are browsing your site with their mobiles and tablets.

If you have Google Analytics set up, then you can see the exact resolutions customers use to access your site.

3. Make your site secure

Reports from as early as 2014 indicated HTTPS, i.e. making your site secure, was a ranking factor.

Google did confirm it was a ranking signal, so should you make the switch from HTTP to HTTPS?

I would say YES!

Not only is it a ranking factor, but browsers like Chrome are starting to consider showing warning signs to users when a site is not secure.

If you would like to make your site secure, we can help you, please contact us about it.

4. Think about words/phrases for keywords

It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but sometimes you have to.

When it comes to keywords, website owners should start thinking more about long-tail keywords or phrases instead of generic keywords.

For example, if you have a flower company, you might target “Buy Flowers Inverness”. However, you should be considering phrases such as “Where To Buy Flowers in Inverness?” as well.

With voice search becoming more popular every year, question keywords, like the one above, will become more popular as it’s natural for humans to ask like that.

5. Make your website fast

Finally, make sure your website is as fast as you can make it. Again, this touches more on user experience, but it’s still important.

If you have a slow site, then users will abandon it very quickly. According to Kissmetrics, 40% of people leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.

How do you increase your website speed? Make sure you’re utilising cacheing, image sizes are optimised, and minify Javascript, HTML, and CSS when you can.

Always make sure all functionalities still work on your site when implementing changes. Things like minifying Javascript can break functionalities, which won’t be good for your conversions!

Conclusion

I hope you found this blog post very helpful for SEO Tips in 2018. There are hundreds of ranking factors, but please make sure you’re utilising these five:-

– Meta Descriptions
– Mobile-Friendly Site
– Secure Site (HTTPS)
– Keyword phrases
– Website speed

Do you have any questions? Please do not hesitate to contact us as we’ll be more than happy to help you.