What SEO strategies , SEO Trends and tactics will work and help you dominate in the SERPs after 2020?
In 2019, the year alone saw several Google algorithm updates. It shows that SEO is constantly changing and in 2020, SEOs need to be on the alert.
Here are the top trends you need to know in 2021, according to our experts
1. Mobile friendly is a major factor for higher rankings
Surprised to see mobile friendly as a major factor? Don’t be.
Back in 2015, Google revealed that more people were using mobile search than desktop search in 10 countries, including the US and Japan.
In 2018, more than half of website traffic in India was coming from mobile devices. Last year consumers spent three and a half hours a day on their mobile devices. Now mobile is leading the way. Google is already ranking websites on the basis of their mobile version.
Starting July 1, 2019, mobile-first indexing was enabled for all websites:
“Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. Since the majority of users now access Google Search with a mobile device, Googlebot primarily crawls and indexes pages with the smartphone agent going forward.”
To survive after 2020, your entire SEO strategy should be mobile-driven. Build sites for mobile-first, then make them compatible for desktop. That way those sites don’t have to be optimized for speed after launch.
If your site serves dynamic content based on the user’s device or has different URLs for desktop and mobile, then you need to change your strategy to make your site mobile-friendly.
2. Voice Search optimized websites will dominate
Before the existence of innovative smartphones, people searched by plugging words into search engine boxes on their desktop computers. Keywords were born from this behavior. With the growing use of mobile devices, voice searches are becoming a popular trend among internet users. These searches are not only done on phones but they can also be performed on home voice assistants such as the Amazon Echo, Samsung Smart TV, Voice Pod, etc.
– 41% of adults perform at least one voice search every day
– Voice searches performed in Google are up 35x since 2008
– 20% of all searches on mobile are voice searchesKnowing that, smart SEOs are starting to optimize some of their content for voice search and Voice Search optimized websites will dominate in SERPs.
3. Videos will become more crucial
Just as voice searches are becoming much more popular, videos on the internet are also exponentially on the rise. Studies from Google and other organizations show that 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television.
How do videos affect SEO?
96% of people agreed that watching videos helped them learn more about a product or service. Hence, incorporating videos into your SEO strategy is a great way to improve brand engagement.To reach more people with your videos you need to optimize it for search users. To do this, use appropriate keywords in the description and headline of your video which will guarantee that the video reaches the largest number of people who are interested in that subject.
4. High-quality content is a must
Users want content that is relevant, helpful, and timely—and that is what Google tends to reward with higher search engine rankings.
What people want is educational content delivered to them in easy-to-digest forms, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.
To succeed in 2021, you will have to write something that is relevant and valuable. Take a hard look at the quality of your content – and optimize that content for users rather than search engines.
5. E-A-T content will be an advantage
At the end of 2019, Google launched the BERT update which is getting better and better at understanding the context between words. BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers and is an update to the core search algorithm that comprehends the intent of the searcher behind a search query. This means that great content that focuses on the E.A.T. principle will rank higher:
– Expertise: the page needs to have quality content written by an expert writer
– Authority: the site itself needs to have some authority on the subject
– Trustworthiness: the site needs to have other authoritative links pointing to it from trusted sites
You can’t optimize for E-A-T because it isn’t an algorithm, but you can implement changes to make sure your site sends the right kind of quality signals to Google.
Conclusion:
SEO is moving fast — As time moves on Google’s ranking methodology changes as well as the SEO strategies. Those people who were fast to “get it” found themselves ahead of slower-moving competitors.
If you’re already familiar with these trends, then that’s great—it’s time to double down on them so you can generate more targeted traffic from Google. But if you still have questions and need help with SEO services, speak to one of our SEO experts today. Click here.