As the years pass by, people try to make predictions about how search engine optimization is going to change. There are always changes in the algorithms that are going to affect the way that people are able to rank on the search engines. Algorithms typically target things such as content, the number of links that you have pointing to your website, and a host of other factors. However, there are certain predictions that are made that often come true. Here is what you need to know about predictions for the SEO industry and its growth in the coming years.

Why Do The Search Engine Algorithms Constantly Change?

If you would like to know the secret to why the search engine algorithms are constantly changing, there are a couple of solid theories. First of all, Google, in particular, does not like to have anyone understand why or how it is ranking content. If that was ever released, savvy marketers could create hundreds or thousands of websites, allowing them to reach the pinnacle of the search engines and generate millions of dollars in revenue. The other reason that they may want to keep this a secret is that it allows a diverse number of people, from different backgrounds to all compete together in order to reach the top. Regardless of why they do this, it is important to know what they are looking for with each passing year. In 2017, there seems to be a heavy emphasis on complexity. Let’s look at this idea in depth to show you what you need to do in order to achieve top rankings.

An Emphasis On Extensive Content

When you are creating engaging content for your website, it’s always good to include as much content as possible. In the past, articles that were 300 words were considered permissible, which later grew to 500 words as a standard. Today, many articles are over a thousand words each, and the thinking behind this strategy is that it is more likely that content that is longer is going to be well written. This will give the reader more information, plus if there are outbound links to authority sites, this is going to also help with ranking any website that you make. The prediction is that this may actually be much longer than 1000 words for articles, and this may also relate to interlinking the pages that you have on your website.

More Extensive Interlinking

It has been very common for people to link different articles together by simply connecting those that have similar keywords or tags. Today, many people are thinking about using multiple links, interconnecting multiple pages for an assortment of keywords. Essentially, this is an extension of outbound links to authority sites, yet it is all within the context of the website you are creating. Only an authority website could do this properly, and therefore they will be forcing people to create larger websites that have more quality content if they ever have a hope of ranking.

Multiple Videos And Images

Following this trend of creating larger websites, it is likely that they will also require you to add more images and videos. If you think about any website that you have gone to, one that you were able to gather a lot of information from, it is likely there were many different images and videos that you could access. Every page that you create needs to be as comprehensive as possible. They should not simply be based on one keyword and one topic. Again, thinking from the perspective of the search engine algorithms, the more comprehensive that your website is, the more likely it is that it will be indexed.

Create Longer Videos

One final marketing strategy that you should use is to actually create longer videos. However, there is a drawback to this marketing strategy. “People have a very short attention span, especially if they have never seen your videos before, and therefore shorter videos would seem to make more sense” says Director of Broadcast SEO (found here). From an indexing point of view, it seems that longer videos, those that are two minutes or longer, seem to be able to reach higher places in the search engine rankings. By adding this to your repertoire of strategies, it is likely that you will be able to use all of them together to get the highest rankings possible.

Search engine optimization strategies are always going to change. However, the only thing that is consistent is their desire to provide more quality content for people using the search engines. This started with eliminating thin websites with the Panda update and then eliminating the possibility of generating thousands of links using the Penguin update, and now we are looking at the necessity of complex and diverse authority sites becoming the norm. As long as you are able to do this, it is possible that you will have the ability to build and rank as many sites as you want by simply creating extensive websites that have quality content and interlinking.