Welcome to 2018. Everything in Internet Marketing is about to change.
At least that’s what they are all going to say in all of the prediction blog posts you will read. Everyone seems to be posting their predictions about 2018 because they know that no one goes back a year to verify accuracy. The prognosticator is king for a year. If they happen to get one right, they get to brag the whole next year.But they don’t care if they dn’t. They got what they wanted. These posted predictions are just guesses by professionals and those who wish to be thought of as professionals. But, in the end, they are all just making guesses. This post won’t be full of my predictions, but rather talk about why most predictions on what’s going to be big this year are fake.
Actually, on second thought, I will make a bold prediction: There will be many predictions about the one big “thing” that will make your website rank higher in 2018. And, of course, the person posting the prediction has the solution for sale. The problem is that no predictions will be right unless the prediction is that nothing has really changed significantly. Just be the best resource.
No matter what or how many algorithm changes, everything Google and the other search engines do is aimed at finding the best resource to any given search query. If you focus on being the actual best query and proving it (not faking it), you will rank. And, more importantly, you will last while other sites come and go because their guess/trick got lucky until the next filter catches them.
We have all seen blog posts that claim to have a hidden secret to ranking. There was a time when they said your website must have video to rank. So people started adding video and pretty soon, we even had sites that were all video. The problem is, unless you were selling video capability, it didn’t help. Google didn’t care that much for video out side of YouTube. it also ignored that business to business clients (an many employed consumers) surf the web in the daytime while at work. Last I heard, most offices do not like video viewing in the office.
The worst example of the video craze was a Periodontist we talked to who insisted that his whole site be video. He wouldn’t listen and languished for years in the rankings despite his efforts to bounce from one SEO company to the next until someone would fulfill his video prediction. He has since changed his website but he chased another trend and still hasn’t ranked as of this writing.
Then there was the time when many predictions said blogging on your website was the big thing. So everyone wanted a blog! They even justified it as having “Fresh content”. The problem is a blog that blogging wasn’t the answer. Useful content was always the answer. If your blog isn’t full of useful content for visitors, won’t get you ranked. Google quickly took care of blogging just for the sake of ranking. Pretty soon the grand prediction of blogging became a penalty that could hurt your website. Those who blogged with actual useful content in mind flourished.
So, I’m sure you see the big picture here. Ignore predictions and just create good smart content that helps people. If you sell widgets, be a great resource about widgets and make it easy to trust and contact you. Be the expert and don’t fake expertise. That is the only prediction you need for 2018 and beyond.
