14 Feb 2024
- 01 Jun 2017
- 5 Min read
SEO news & Google updates: May 2017
- by Emily Park
May 2017 has been a busy month in the world of SEO and digital marketing. Google announced plans to mark even more websites as “not secure” in its Chrome web browser, it was found that up to 40% of households will own a voice-controlled device by early next year, and even more secrets about featured snippets have been uncovered.
To ensure you’re up to speed with what’s been going on in the industry, we’ve pulled together some of the most important stories from May 2017. And, to help you stay ahead of the game, we’ve also outlined how each of these developments could affect you and your business. Read on to find out more.
Internet advertising spend to surpass TV
This year, companies are expected to spend more on internet advertising than television ads, according to Zenith Media’s new Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report. This will be the very first time that the balance has tipped in favour of digital advertising.
It is expected that the overall spend on internet advertising will rise by 13% to reach £163bn. And, in terms of internet ad spend, the fastest-growing component will be social media. The amount of money spent on social campaigns is expected to grow at an average rate of 20% a year until 2019, when it will hit £43.8bn.
If you would like to stay ahead of your competitors and attract as many customers as possible, it’s wise to move with the times and consider putting more money towards online advertising. You should also make an effort to create an appropriate social media presence that shows your brand in the best possible light, and gets your name in front of as many potential customers as possible.
Google plans to mark all HTTP pages as “not secure”
In January, Google announced that its Chrome web browser would be marking HTTP pages as “not secure” if they have fields for passwords or payment details. But, the search engine has published an update to say that “not secure” notices will soon become a lot more common. From October, the warning will be shown when users enter data on a HTTP page, and when they visit any HTTP page in Incognito mode.
This is a particularly important update for business owners with ecommerce sites. When you’re hoping to make a sale online, the last thing you want is for a “not secure” warning to scare a potential customer off. So, if you haven’t converted your website to HTTPS already, this is certainly something you should look into as soon as possible. Not only will this help to reassure potential customers, but Google has said that it considers website security to be a ranking signal. Therefore, making the switch could help your site to climb the search engine results pages, too.
Google tests dropping featured snippet results from organic listings
If your site has earned a featured snippet, it will currently rank #0 as well as within the organic listings below. But, this month, Google has been testing the effects of dropping the additional organic result for URLs occupying the instant-answer box, according to The SEM Post.
From a user’s perspective, this makes a lot of sense, as being presented with the same result twice isn’t particularly helpful. And it means businesses will benefit from there being 11 organic spaces on the first page of some SERPs, rather than the usual ten.
Optimising your content to rank #0 is a great way of helping your website climb to the top of Google’s SERPs. And, we have a guide to earning featured snippets, which contains plenty of advice on how to do so.
“How to” queries are most likely to have a featured snippet
Featured snippets are becoming increasingly important as voice search becomes more prevalent. In response to this, Moz’s Dr. Pete recently carried out some research to see what he could learn from conducting 1,000 voice searches of his own.
His analysis uncovered a range of things, like the fact that text snippets account for roughly two thirds of all featured snippets, lists make up approximately 30%, and tables account for less than 2%. But, perhaps most interestingly, he found that “how to” queries are most likely to present you with a featured snippet.
If you’re trying to write content that ranks at #0, this just goes to show that targeting “how to” queries could be the most effective strategy.
40% of homes could own a voice-controlled device by 2018
© Moz
Research conducted by Radiocentre, Global, and Radioplayer has found that up to 40% of households could own a voice-controlled device by early 2018. These ‘smart speakers’, such as Google Home and the Amazon Echo, use personal assistant software to answer users’ questions and help their lives to run more smoothly.
The rise in popularity of these devices means that voice search is going to become even more important. And, as we mentioned in a previous post about how voice search matters for SEO, voice searches tend to be phrased much more naturally than queries that are typed. Therefore, this is something you need to keep in mind when writing content for your website.
And, there you have it: five of the biggest SEO and digital marketing stories from May 2017. You can now consider yourself bang up to date. We’ll be back at the beginning of next month to let you know what happened in June.
We also post daily industry updates on our Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. So, if you would like to keep up to date in real time, be sure to follow us there!
