Last year alone saw several Google algorithm updates including site diversity update, January 2020 core update, BERT update, etc. If you are wondering what SEO strategies and tactics will work and help you dominate in the SERPs and earn more revenue in 2021, there is much more to dig into.
As Google recently announced updates to page experience ranking algorithms, which will be released sometime in 2021, in order to get a page ranking at the top, you will need to go beyond traditional SEO ranking methods and ensure that you are keeping up the pace with the latest trends & updates.
“According to a recent report, the first-page results on Google’s search engine enjoy a CTR of nearly 34.36%. Furthermore, 61% of marketers consider SEO to be the key to online success.”
This shows the importance of staying on top of search results! However, for most of us, staying on top of the SEO trends and implementing them is where you struggle to strike a chord, isn’t it? And thus, to help you make an informed decision, here are some top SEO trends you must know.
- Search intent is taking prominence
Search intent is the reason behind the user’s query. It is associated with what the user wants to learn, find, or purchase. Though Google strives to provide the most relevant result to user queries, the latest algorithm updates like BERT and technologies like NLP are already growing and improving themselves over the period of time.
While working on SEO, you must keep in mind that the future of search is going to be highly influenced by user intent or search intent. In order to win at SEO in 2021, you’ll need to do stellar work in providing relevant information to users.
“According to a study conducted by Ahrefs, optimizing search content accounted for a 677% increase in organic traffic in a span of just 6 months for one of their core landing pages.”
Now imagine how much the search intent matters!
Every subsequent year it’s important to refocus because of searcher intent, especially after 2020 when the user behavior changed rapidly due to the pandemic. If you are able to understand the nature of why people search and help them with content that provides the answers they are looking for, it is then your business will be benefited the most.
“Now that Google is focusing more on satisfying user intent, it is more crucial than ever to focus on understanding & learning what a user is looking for.”
This implies that SEO professionals will need to transition away from traditional on-page & off-page SEO practices that will hold less value as the algorithms get stronger and focus more on understanding the searcher intent.
2. Voice Search impacting the search queries
With innovations like Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, and Amazon’s Alexa, voice search technology has already come a long way. In fact, it is predicted that the percentage of households to own a smart speaker by 2022 will be 55%. This shifts your attention to optimize for voice search, right?
To optimize for voice search, you must first consider your keywords. As voice searches tend to do better with longer & conversational phrasing, you should identify longer phrases that people use in everyday conversation.
For example, When people type, they tend to abbreviate like “best internet marketing tools in 2021” on the other hand, a person might voice search, “What are the latest internet marketing tools for 2021?”
Here are some tips for optimizing your content & making it voice search-friendly:
- Use conversational tone or natural language in your content, fed with concise answers, that typically satisfy the users’ voice search query.
- Keeping in mind that voice search queries are usually longer than typed ones, include long-tail keywords, and focus on writing long-form content.
To rank on “near me” searches, include the correct address or location for your local listings with the correct structured data.
3. Mobile-Friendliness Will Impact Search Rankings
Not so long ago in 2019, Google rolled out mobile-first indexing, by which the search engine looks primarily at the mobile version of a website, considering this the “primary” version instead of the desktop version. This means that Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. This change makes sense, as the study reveals that by 2025, nearly 73% of internet users will access the internet solely via mobile devices.
Giving a look at the statistics, there is another report published by Web FX that highlights that:
- 52.2% of all website traffic is generated from mobile phones
- 61% of consumers are most likely to purchase from mobile-friendly sites.
- Over 96% of people use Google when they search on mobile.
Ensuring your website or content performs well on mobile devices should be a focal point for any business, keeping in mind that this is where the majority of searches are being taken place. Google will essentially be not prioritizing your desktop site and so your mobile site will determine your rankings.
Setting the mobile-first approach, 2021 is the year to shift your focus to improving the experience for your users on mobile devices. To do so, it’s probably the best time to:
- Closely review your pages
- make your pages intuitive for users,
- Do not hide valuable content and images on mobile devices
- Prioritize website speed
- Make website responsive
- Keep web designs simple and easy to navigate
- Make use of Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing tools
You can check how effective your mobile site is with Google’s free mobile-friendly test and check the “mobile usability” report in Google Search Console.
4. Local search listings playing an important role in SEO Strategies
Though the internet is known for its global nature, the fact is, most people use search engines to find localized goods and services. For eg, they might be hunting for a neighborhood restaurant or the nearest brand showroom. This implies that Local SEO is important and it’s evolving more than ever. This evolution is also because of the rise of “zero-click searches”
“Research shows that around 88% of consumers who do a local search on their mobile devices visit or call the respective store within a day. In fact, as close to as 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information.”
A strong local SEO strategy is key to driving more people to your store, whether you have one storefront or maybe hundreds of them. You should keep in mind that when the users are looking for a product or service similar to what your local business sells, they’re going online to find it.
“It is estimated that in 2021, mobile devices will influence over $1.4 trillion in local sales”
Now that you know the importance of local listings in SEO, here are some tips to start mastering your local SEO:
- Create a Google My Business Account
- Optimize for mobile devices and voice search
- Cash-in on local keywords
- Have a strong backlink profile
- Take advantage of online business directories
Create compelling content based on local events, news stories, and location-specific places
5. Content fulfilling Google EAT Principle is to rank higher
Google constantly makes changes in order to make search more useful. And so, it has reiterated that content quality is critical for ranking high. But most of us believe that we are developing quality content, isn’t it? But to understand what does “quality” means to Google, refer to the EAT principle: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Under section 3.0, the sub-section 3.2 of the general guidelines entitled ‘Overall Page Quality Rating’ is where you will find the EAT principle.
To ensure that the quality of your content is up to the mark, you should first create buyer personas, which let you understand what kind of content your clients value. Secondly, you must conduct search intent research, which helps you figure out the consumer journey. And lastly, you can use this information to create content that your users prefer.
While you craft content, keep the EAT principle in mind. Some tips to apply this concept are as follows:
- Produce contents with a professional approach with regards to your industry, market, trade, or niche
- Get links from high authority domains. Having authoritative sites link back to you is a great way to prove that you fulfill the EAT criteria.
- Link to reputable or credible sites, like “.edu” and “.gov” URLs.
- Back up your content claims with statistics and facts.
- Hire content writing experts and deliver rich content that is checked for accuracy
- Keep your content up to date
- Get more and more reviews from your customers
- Flash your credentials
- Get a Wikipedia page
6. Featured Snippets becoming more prominent
Rolled out in 2017, “Featured Snippets”, are a sort of shortcut to gaining prominence in Google search results. These are selected search results that are featured on top of the regular organic results below the ads in a box, separated by a line. Featured snippets aim at answering the user’s query right away by displaying the relevant information, without having them to click on the site.
“SEMRush and Brado studied 160 million keywords on desktop, and 46.1 million keywords on mobile, to find what percentage of keywords generate featured snippets.
Click here to read their astonishing findings.”
Being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results and above all, snippets can significantly steal traffic from your competitors. Featured snippets show a great deal of information, more like a Q&A or brief bullet-point, how-to guide. In order to create snippets, you must focus on question-based queries and adding relevant keywords.
7. Structured data becoming vital
Structure data is becoming increasingly vital, as it allows your content to be better understood by search engines. This has been a case for a while now that structured data is an important aspect of SEO as it makes it easier for Google to understand what your pages and your website are about.
Making use of structured data is like telling Google what your site is about, Which can help you boost your rankings. Google offers you a Structured Data Testing Tool that you can use to familiarize yourself with the concept and start applying structured data for your website and landing pages.
“In 2021, We are sure to see more and more structured data powered rich results pop up, and thus, it is crucial to keep an eye on this.”
Furthermore, structured data will change the way your search results will look like. It can help you show more information to your customer. This helps to deliver rich results from your website or landing pages to appear on SERPs, giving you more limelight and attention from users, while establishing you as an authority in your niche market. This also implies that your CTRs also increase tremendously that will eventually lead to even higher rankings.
8. Image Optimization playing a larger role in search
In the past few years, the visual image search has evolved drastically. Images today are used to purchase products, obtain information, and more. Google has been already long insisting on the optimization of images, and so it has been a part of their long-term plan.
Thus, if the images on your website aren’t optimized, there is a big possibility that you may lose your rankings.
As image optimization helps in improving your overall page load speed, boosts websites’ SEO ranking, and improves user experience, here are a few ways you can do it:
- Use high-quality, relevant images, and also make sure to customize the file name so that it’s relevant to the content on the corresponding page.
- Optimize the image title
- Pick up the right image format
- Use captions for a better user experience
- Use alt tags.
- Add images to your site map while making sure that they are easier to crawl.
So, What’s Next?
A great SEO strategy should start by putting yourself in the user’s shoes and asking it yourself if your content is truly valuable or not. But also keep in mind SEO is only going to get more complex, as the above list makes clear. Gone are the days of simply optimizing keywords and meta titles. When it comes to SEO, 2021 will be the year of challenges, stiff competition, and constant updates. Though it will be difficult for site owners to earn a significant share of organic traffic from Google or other search engines, you can still get an edge over the competition by staying up to date on the SEO trends mentioned above.
