As 2021 unfolds, devising a perfect SEO strategy has never been more crucial. It has become a vital part of the digital marketing strategy to push your business’s website ranking further. It is a highly lucrative approach to bring quality traffic to your website and generate leads that convert. On the other side, with the rising online competition, there are also numerous challenges involved to stay ahead of the competition. You do not have to invest heavily in different marketing strategy thinking you will get a positive return on investment. In fact, it takes a considerable amount of research to understand the market and only then execute the strategy in the right way.
Last year was indeed challenging for the business sector around the globe. As door-to-door sales tactics vanished, businesses, regardless of their size, were left with an option to shift their operations digitally. This sudden paradigm shift from traditional brick-and-mortar to digital landscape increased the importance of SEO profoundly. However, with the availability of massive SEO consulting services, marketers can efficiently steer the business in the right direction.
Google is also upgrading its algorithm to provide a better search experience to its users and assist businesses for rankings. For that instance, marketers must also stay relevant to these trends to ensure their website’s higher rankings. With that said, let’s discuss eight critical SEO trends you must know.
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8 SEO Trends
User Search Intent
So far, the digital marketing trends revolve around optimizing the websites for the user search intent. Simply consider the user’s perspective that they will have before the search and what query or keywords they will search. Optimizing for these factors can elevate the standards of your website and rank higher on the search engine.
Since most people are confined to their homes, they either work, watch the news, or search for products and services online. Marketers must incorporate the user search intent strategy to increase website engagement and generate quality leads. For that instance, you can explore free SEO tools to find the relevant and lucrative keywords that your audience is searching for. Target the long-tail keywords with queries and create killer, long-form content. Only this way will you achieve higher organic traffic to your website.
User Experience On The Web
When discussing the top crucial SEO trends, the user experience is never an exception. Google is constantly updating the search engine with new regulations for algorithms as well as the interface. The main focus of these improvements is to enhance the user experience on the platform. For that instance, they rolled out three new metrics in 2020 known as the Core Web Vitals for its SEO. These three metrics include the web site’s loading, visual stability, and interactivity. Google addresses that the marketers should enhance these three factors to gain more value from the search engine for rankings.
Loading speeds are a severe issue that can hurt your business’s reputation online. It leads to bounce rates, which means all the content marketing strategies are lost with no gain on leads. Moreover, Google also concierge visual landing of the page and interactivity of the users on your website.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is also playing a significant role in SEO. Google’s new RankBrain algorithm significantly impacts and changes the way people interact with your website content. In today’s competitive digital business landscape, optimizing your website for the rank brain is even more crucial than before.
According to Google, the RankBrain is a machine learning program that sorts out the users’ relevant results, focusing on providing quality content. The new algorithm will collect all the trust signals either from the core web vitals performance, backlinks, or domain authority to rank your website higher in the search results. It means that your content should optimize for these all factors to stay relevant in 2021.
Mobile-first Index
Mobile-first index is the new norm of 2021 that will either hurt or improve your rankings. Now Google values mobile responsive website design to rank higher for the mobile users. Let’s have a look at statistics first, which states that more than 50% of web traffic comes from mobile phone devices. Moreover, 60% of the consumers feel comfortable purchasing via mobile phones if the website is user-friendly. These stats give clear insights into the importance of a mobile responsive design to ensure maximum leads and draw them towards the sales funnel.
Google uses crawler bots that search and crawl through the pages for their speed, responsiveness, and design. Implementing these factors can improve the SERPs for your website, giving it the boost to reach the target audience quickly.
Rise Of Local SEO
If there is one thing that every online business should consider, then that would be local SEO. Companies that existed physically that took the transition to leap from traditional to digital must optimize local SEO. During the lockdowns, “near me” was the most common keyword on the search engine. The pandemic restrictions enabled customers to find businesses online to avail themselves of the products and services without leaving their homes. However, if you are not targeting this audience with the local SEO, you miss out huge.
All you need to do is optimize your business website on the Google My Business listing and add all the information locally. The search engine will crawl and rank your business and website locally, thus bringing unique traffic.
Long-form Content
It might sound surprising, but long-form content tends to rank nine times higher than short blogs. Many business owners overlook this factor and scratch their heads on where they are missing. However, it is another Google’s plain and simple strategy to enhance the user experience and build the credibility of the businesses with quality content.
Video Marketing Strategy
Not just the content but video marketing is taking the SEO by storm. Every business is now competing for a higher ranking with the visual content. Visual content like infographics, tutorials, and whiteboard animation videos surpass the content consumption needs of the audience. Moreover, it delivers the value and sense of trust among the visitors to engage with your business and convert as paying customers.
Voice Search Optimization
The rising use of virtual assistants and voice search on mobile phones changes the ways marketers optimize content for SEO. Professionals recommend optimizing content for the long-tail keywords and writing conversational tone content to rank for both traditional and voice searches. As discussed earlier, understanding the user’s intent will help you define the keywords to help you reach the audience.
Final Words
Jumping into this bandwagon of new and most critical trends might sound overwhelming at the start. But starting from small and steady will pay dividends in the long run. On the other side, persistency and research are the tickets to maintain a solid online presence in the digital world.
