2019 is finally here and it has brought with it new opportunities for marketers. While 2018 might have been the year of acceleration of improvement in marketing strategies, this year presents an even bigger break. There are new digital marketing trends to look out for, and some old ones that are gradually evolving. Search engines like Google are taking the business to a whole new level by upgrading their algorithms. What does this mean? It only means one thing – only the smartest business will stay on top of the competition. Yes! Only the ones that pay attention to why and how users search for solutions online will stay afloat this year. If you are wondering how you can improve your marketing strategy and appear on the top ten search results, master these five SEO trends.

1. Rich snippets will be the next big thing

When you ask Google a question, you might notice that your answer appears as a standout bit of information on top of some results. That standout bit of information is called a snippet. The psychology behind snippets is that users only focus on the first few results of their search queries. Google is taking advantage of this fact by providing pretty much of all the information you are looking for in a snippet. Study data shows that almost a third of all searches will return a snippet. This year, marketers will be looking into ways of optimizing content to show up in snippets.

2. Backlinks to compete with linkless mentions

In the past, Google depended a lot on backlinks as a way of determining the credibility of a website. As Google gets smarter by the day, the relevance and quality of content are replacing the necessity of having a link mentioned in a page. Now you don’t have to struggle to have big names place a link to your site on their pages. The catch here is to have marketers come up with quality, reliable and authoritative brands that will effortlessly earn mentions even without having to use links.

3. Topics will eventually replace keywords

2019 might finally be the year when we forget about keyword stuffed content. Google is making huge advances into getting the exact solutions to people’s questions, and it is doing this by paying closer attention to relevant topics rather than keywords. This means that marketers should now upgrade from generating content based on keyword popularity. What will matter now is content that answers specific questions on a particular topic? Optimizing content to suit the developing topic cluster trend will hold its ground this year.

4. Marketers are optimizing content for voice search

If you are looking for an SEO strategy to drive business in 2019, you should be thinking about how to optimize your content for all the search methods being used today. Many smartphone users are using voice search to find what they want online. Search engines, on the other hand, are being improved so that the results they read out loud are what users are looking for. So, does your content sound as good as it looks? Is it trustworthy? Does it engage with your target audience? Such are the questions that will cross your mind this year as you look for ways to prepare your content to be read out loud. Something else worth mentioning on the smartphone subject is mobile-first indexing. In 2019, Google is set to improve on using mobile versions of content to index and rank. On this, marketers will need to use responsive web designs to reach their audiences.

5. There will be no room for SEO mistakes

The year is still young and the motivation to get noticed might be spiraling high. It is, however, important to remember that business is never much of a competition than it is a journey to personal success. Do not let your energy build up ruin business for you. Making an SEO mistake this early in the year could have a rippling effect on the future of your business. If you want to make it in 2019 and beyond, take your time and strategize. The best SEO strategy is to come up with a long-term strategy. Begin with quality content that users can rely on to solve their problems. Once people earn your trust, Google will follow suit.