A Complete Guide for SEO in 2019

The Definitive Guide To SEO In 2019


This is the ultimate guide to SEO in 2019.

And let me be clear about something:

This is NOT a lame “SEO in 2019” predictions post.

Instead, you’re going to see tested strategies that are working right now… and will work even better in 2019.

So if you’re looking to up your SEO game this year, you’ll love this guide.

Let’s dive right in.

CHAPTER 1:
RankBrain & UX Signals
RankBrian and User Experience Signals
User experience signals were HUGE this year. And I expect them to be even more important in 2019.

In fact, Google previously announced that RankBrain was their third most important ranking factor:

“In the few months it has been deployed, RankBrain has become the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query.”

The question is:

What is RankBrain, exactly? And how can you optimize for it?

Google RankBrain: a Dead-Simple Explanation


RankBrain is a machine learning system that helps Google sort their search results.
That might sound complicated, but it isn’t.
RankBrain simply measures how users interact with the search results…
…and ranks them accordingly.
For example, let’s say you search for “cold brew coffee” in Google.
Cold brew coffee
The #4 result looks especially enticing. So you quickly click on it.
And when you get there…wow! It’s the best darn article about coffee you’ve ever read. So you devour every word.
RankBrain is going to take note…and likely give that #4 result a rankings boost.
Pogo-stick effect
On the other hand, let’s say that you do the same search. But this time, you click on the #1 result without even looking.
But the content is TERRIBLE. So you bounce from the page after a few seconds.
Pogo-stick effect
And you click on the #4 result to find something about coffee that’s actually worth reading.
RankBrain will also notice this. And if enough people quickly bounce from that result, Google will boot it from the #1 spot.
Pogo-stick effect
As you can see, RankBrain focuses on two things:
1. How long someone spends on your page (Dwell Time)
2. The percentage of people that click on your result (Click Through Rate)
Let’s break each of these down.

RankBrain and Dwell Time


Dwell Time=how long a Google searcher spends on your page.
As it turns out, RankBrain pays A LOT of attention to Dwell Time.
In fact, the head of Google Brain in Canada recently confirmed that Google uses Dwell Time as a ranking signal.
Google:
He stated that RankBrain measures when:
“someone clicks on a page and stays on that page, when they go back”

And a recent industry study by SearchMetrics supports this statement. They found that the average Dwell Time for a top 10 Google result is 3 minutes and 10 seconds.

If you’ve spent any time digging through your Google Analytics, you know that a 3+ minute Dwell Time is legit.

And it’s no coincidence that pages with awesome Dwell Time tend to rank best. In fact, RankBrain is upranking these pages for that exact reason.

This makes sense if you think about it:

If you spend a long time on a page, you probably like the content on that page.

And if enough people feel the same way, Google will uprank that content to make it easier to find.

RankBrain and Organic Click Through Rate (CTR)


Google Engineer Paul Haahr caused a stir in the SEO world when he put up this slide at a conference:
Paul Haahr
This slide basically says:
“RankBrain sometimes ranks pages higher up than they “should” rank.
And if that page gets an above-average CTR, we use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent rankings boost.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, if no one clicks on your result, why would Google keep it on the first page?
And if your site is getting clicked on like there’s no tomorrow, why would Google keep it buried in the #9 spot?
If you want a few simple strategies that you can use to boost CTR, check out this infographic that I made with Larry Kim.
Boost organic click through rates
It will help you create title tags and meta descriptions engineered for clicks.
Speaking of click through rate…

CHAPTER 2:Become a CTR Jedi

CTR Jedi

If you want to master SEO in 2019, you need to become a CTR Jedi.
Yes, because of RankBrain.
But also because of:

Google Ads
And:
Google Lists
And most deadly of all… The Featured Snippet:
Google Wiki result
(More on that in Chapter 3)
In fact, one industry study found that organic CTR on mobile search is down 41.4% since 2015.
Mobile Organic .vs. Paid CTR
It’s no secret why: Google is crowding out the organic search results with Answer Boxes, Ads, Carousels, “People also ask” sections, and more.
And to stand out in the SERPs, your result needs to scream “click on me!”… or else it’ll be ignored.

CHAPTER 3:Rank Content In The Featured Snippet


According to SEMrush, 11.3% of all search results now have a Featured Snippet.

And yes: Featured Snippets are stealing A LOT of clicks from the #1 spot.

(As I like to say: “#0 is the new #1”)

The question is:

How do you get your content to appear in the Featured Snippet?

Well, that’s what this chapter is all about.

First, find Featured Snippet opportunities

Your first step is to find:
  1. Keywords that you already rank for
  2. Keywords that have a Featured Snippet
Why is it important to focus on keywords that you rank for already?
99.58% of all Featured Snippets are from pages that rank on the first page for that term.
So if you don’t already rank in the top 10, you have no chance of getting in the Featured Snippet spot.
How do you find Featured Snippet Opportunities?
Ahrefs “Organic Keywords” report.
It shows you keywords that you rank for… that have a Featured Snippet:
Ahrefs – Keywords you rank for
2,416 keywords? Looks like I have some work to do 🙂
2

Next, create “Snippet Bait”

“Snippet Bait” is a 40-60 word block of content specifically designed to rank in the Featured Snippet spot.
Why 40-60 words?
Well, SEMrush analyzed nearly 7 million Featured Snippets. And they found that the most Featured Snippets are 40-60 words long.
Most featured snippets are 40 to 60 words long
For example:
I wrote short Snippet Bait definitions for every page of The YouTube Marketing Hub.
YouTube Hub – Channel Keywords
And these helped my content rank in the Featured Snippet spot for lots of definition keywords.
HubSpot takes Snippet Bait to another level.
They add little boxes to their posts that actually look like Featured Snippets:
HubSpot – Featured Snippet
3

Finally, format your content for other types of Featured Snippets

Snippet Bait works best for so-called “Paragraph Snippets”.
Here’s an example:
Paragraph snippet
Even though paragraph snippets are by far the most common type of Featured Snippet
Type of Featured Snippet
they’re not the only one.
If you want to rank in List Snippets…
Use H2 or H3 subheaders for every item on your list.
List snippets h3
Google will pull those subheaders from your content… and include them in the Featured Snippet:
Featured Snippet content
If you want to rank in Table Snippets…
You need to create a table that Google can easily pull data from.
For example, the content from this Table Snippet…
Table snippet SERPs
…is pulled directly from a well-formatted table.
Table snippet – Source site
So yeah, I’m just getting my feet wet with Featured Snippets.
But it’s going to be a big focus of mine in 2019.
And now it’s time for… read full blog post at: https://backlinko.com/seo-this-year

Originally Published at: Backlinko

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