SEO is the driving force behind most of the traffic reaches to a website via search engines. SEO has evolved a lot since it first arrived as a traffic generation tool. As a whole it helped marketers grow their website visibility and generate revenue. Activities that then emerged as game changers are now obsolete or spam. SEO is now beyond links and content syndication. It’s now having numerous advanced strategies on board to decode the game of search algorithms.
Top SEO Trends 2021 to Watch Out for:--
It’s estimated that a brand that appears in first position on SERP receives a CTR (click-through-rate) of 34.36%. It’s also reported that 61% of digital marketers and brands use SEO as a top tool to get their websites on the forefront for maximum visibility.
I am listing here few important SEO trends for 2021 that will surely skyrocket your online business growth and give your website maximum visibility.
1. AI (Artificial Intelligence) in Search
Search giant Google lately adopted machine language in its search algorithm. Google introduced AI powered BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations Transformers) in 2018. It’s a neural network-based technique for NLP (natural language processing) that assists Google unearth the context of words in a search query. If experts are to be believed AI will have a decisive impact on SEO.
Marketers can use AI to produce powerful content, do more meaningful keyword research and create authority backlink opportunities. Many keyword research tools are already using AI to empowering keyword discovery on their platform.
2. Improved UX
User experience is no more an underrated element of a website. It’s crucial for eCommerce site. If an ecommerce website fails to provide its users seamless shopping experience, customers won’t return for repeat purchase. It’s estimated that a massive percentage of businesses fail miserably just because the bad user experience on their respective websites.
There are several things that decide the level of user experience on a website. Website should have fast loading speed with easy to navigate user interface. Make good use of user-friendly URLs and sitemap.
3. Mobile Friendliness
Webfx, in one of its reports said that half of the website traffic is generated from mobile phones. Similarly, approximately 61% of consumers tend to buy products and services from mobile websites and mobile apps. With around 3.5 billion smartphone users using their mobile phones for shopping worldwide, it’s evident that only mobile friendly devices can tap into these potential customers.
In order to become effective in mobile driven world it’s important that you focus on prioritizing the website speed. It’s recommended to scan your website through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing tool to find suggestions about your website’s mobile friendliness.
4. Long Tail Keywords
Reports say that long tail keywords contribute to 75% of all web searches conducted online. Using long tail keywords can help you rank your content and offer better conversion rate. It’s estimated that that marketers that use long-tail keyword in their content can achieve 36% more conversion rate than standard search queries.
To get the best converting long tail keywords for your content you can use tools like Google suggestions. You may also take assistance from Google related searches. ‘How to’ question and topics from eHow, Wikipedia, and various Q&A sites can be a great help too.
5. Content Quality
In all its forms, content is always a king. Quality content whether it is text, animation or video-audio engages audience at scale. Now new content formats such as Infographics are also generating massive amount of traffic. A report published in a tech journal stated that 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to create better audience outreach.
A good and effective content marketing strategy is one that focuses on creating consistent, relevant, and value driven content piece for audiences. While producing content for readers keep a few points in mind for brilliant results. Write original content that’s free from any kind of plagiarism. To make the content engaging, include visual elements into it.
Every content piece written has a purpose to serve. Make sure that it provides actionable tips to help address user’s pain points. And last but not the least- include facts and figures from trustworthy resources to support your content.
6. Local SEO
Like always local search optimization will be an important SEO element. It’s an immensely important strategy for markets looking for local customers for their products and customers. Reports suggest that in past two years near me searches increased by 900% and approximately 46% of all searches on Google are local.
If you haven’t yet cashed on Google SEO, be ready for that. Start by creating your Google My Business Account and optimize your business listing for mobile devices and voice search. Utilize local keywords and rely more on online business directories. In order to target your local customers create location-specific content.
7. Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness
In SEO terminology the above terms are collectively known as EAT. Google has also mentioned these major ranking factors in its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines by Google.
According to Google these guidelines are outlined by Google appointed third-party Search Quality Raters. They provide Google feedback about search quality to help the search giant understand which changes make Search more useful.
Marketers are required to produce content that’s aligned with EAT guidelines. To ensure the compliance you should write documents that brilliantly portray your industry / niche. Put honest efforts to acquire authority backlinks from high quality authoritative domains. Keep your content fresh, engaging and up to date.
8. Structured Data
Structured data helps search engines to understand the website content and its organization better. Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool lets you test your website for structured data. Using this tool you can apply structured data for your website and landing pages.
A website that’s optimized for structured data gets more visible with rich results on SERPs. It helps your website gain more visibility and trust and improves click through rate tremendously.
Conclusion:
SEO is evolving and has a long way to go. We have seen several updates in past that changed the way marketers thought of ranking and traffic. The post includes some important SEO trends that will stay in 2021 and give marketers a way to improve their search marketing strategies further.
Tarun Gupta, CEO of Brainpulse Technologies, is a prolific author and digital marketing specialist. His insightful writings span SEO, content marketing, social media strategy, and email campaigns, offering invaluable expertise to businesses worldwide. Tarun’s contributions continue to shape the digital marketing landscape, guiding success in multiple niches.