On the 17th of January 2018, Google revealed in its official blog titled – “Using page speed in mobile search ranking“ that from July 2018, page speed will be considered an official ranking factor for mobile searches.
Soon after this article focused around a major on-page SEO factors that will affect the search ecosystem was published by Google, a debate about prominent Offpage SEO trends that can disrupt the world of SEO in 2018 sparked in the industry.
Experts have been discussing and debating new, disruptive offpage SEO trends for 2018 that will bring about a substantial change in the way people look at the search ecosystem. But unlike every previous year, these trend predictions are more focused around user experience than just SERP rankings.
Here is a list of top 5 offpage SEO techniques that experts at SEOBox believe will adapt, evolve and outlive the rest in 2018 and beyond.
Technique #1 More Focus on Web 2.0 Sharing
One offpage SEO technique that experts at SEObox are betting their money on is Web 2.0 submission. This SEO offpage technique involves submission of content and websites on high quality web pages to get authoritative backlinks.
Most people know that credible backlinks have a very strong correlation with SERP ranking. If experts are to be believed, sharing content via Web 2.0 submission sites such as hubpages, squidoo, etc. is likely to become even more popular in 2018.
Technique #2 Rise of Forum Submissions
Another offpage SEO technique that experts believe will make waves in 2018 and beyond is Forum submission. This offpage SEO activity became immensely popular after Google’s Gary Illyes revealed that a thriving community can boost SERP rankings immensely. Participating in forum sites by posting questions and replying to different threads can help website administrators build a thriving community and drive torrents of traffic to their sites, and that helps boost their SERP rankings.
Technique #3 Q&A Sites will become Immensely Popular
While forum sites can help build a thriving community, Q&A sites such as Quora and Yahoo Answers can help drive high-quality, relevant traffic back to a website. Experts expect that 2018 will see more companies embracing Q&A sites to increase visibility and exposure of their websites. High-authority Q&A websites allow searching for topics related to business and industry and writing detailed informative answers to user queries or questions around products or business. Answering these questions with a link back to the site can help drive relevant traffic.
Technique #4 Image Sharing will become Prominent
In 2017, creating visual assets was the top priority for 55% of B2C marketers. This is because 27% of all searches are for images. Sharing images related to a business or products on image sharing sites can help drive a lot of relevant, high-quality traffic. Experts suggest ensuring proper optimization of images with URL, description and title tag to make the most of image sharing technique in 2018 and beyond.
Technique #5 Focus will Shift to Video Submission
2017 saw a dramatic surge in the number of companies using video submission to increase awareness of their brand. Experts believe that this trend will gain more prominence in 2018 and beyond. This is because one-third of all digital time is spent video watching and videos drive a 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs. In addition, a survey revealed that 43% of users want to see more video content.
Conclusion
Though all these offpage SEO techniques look promising now, it will be interesting to look out for the ones that will adapt, grow and outperform the others in the months to come. Industry experts are hopeful that the search ecosystem will continue to become bigger and better with more websites focusing on user experience than just ranking, links and traffic.
