SEO Trends for 2020 That You Need To Know

Originally Written for Hearst Bay Area By Prateek Keshari

In the world of Search Engine Optimization, things change in the blink of an eye.

With Google’s ever-increasing effort to make the “world’s information more accessible” and new search input types (voice) coming up, the SEO landscape in 2020 seems ripe for disruption.

Or so it may seem.

Does SEO still matter?

Some posit that the search algorithm overlords have reached such a level of maturity that it makes little to no sense to try to intervene in the automated process. Just create high-quality content, and the search engines would do the rest.

While great content will absolutely build trust and credibility for your website, it likely won’t be discovered just because you wrote something and published it. Even the best content is useless if nobody sees it, and that’s where SEO comes in.

So yes, in 2020, SEO still matters and is an essential factor to be considered in your overall digital marketing strategy for 2020.

And in this blog, we explore what’s moving and shaking in SEO in the year 2020 and beyond.

Top 8 Search Engine Optimization Trends for 2020

Trend 1: The BERT Update

One of the most critical Search Engine Optimization Trends in 2020 is the transition from keyword stuffing to a more intent-based optimization. And the BERT update Google launched in October 2019 is a step in that direction.

BERT, which stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, will affect 1 in 10 all web searches. It values user-focused optimization, clean website UX/architecture, and content delivery over just peppering your content with keywords.

With the artificial intelligence-powered BERT update, computers can understand the human language a bit more like humans do and thus come up with better and more relevant results (like the one in the image above).

You can’t optimize for BERT, but what you can do is keep writing more content and work on improving the UX of your website.

Let Google do the rest!

Trend 2: Zero Click Searches

Users are increasingly accessing more dynamic content from search. To that end, Google is improving its user experience by having users access information from the search results page without having to click on a link. They can get the answer they need without having ever to leave the search results page.

As part of SEO, you now have to optimize your content for such enhanced search results as well. According to a recent report, 34.4% of all desktop searches result in zero-click searches. On top of that, 62.5% of mobile users never even click the search results!

Featured snippets are one way that such enhanced search results are displayed. They are often displayed for long-tail keywords that answer a specific question. Add questions or keywords as a sub-header in your content, if you want to be in the running for a featured snippet.

Better yet, use a tool like this one from Merkle to create schema markup that you can embed in your articles. Structured data helps Google understand your content better.

Adding it to each of your pages is a significant first step in obtaining those highly sought after rich results.

Trend 3: Voice Search

With the influx of all the Alexa’s and Google Home’s in people’s living room, voice search has now not only become mainstream and accessible but also all-pervasive. Moreover, 20% of all mobile searches are now voice searches.

People search the way they talk, which means it is often a question and very specific.

Most voice searches are local, which means optimizing your website for local SEO is an excellent strategy to rank higher in voice search results. Bullet lists help you rank higher as well.

30% of all browsing sessions will have a voice search element to them by 2020, according to Gartner. While smart speakers are driving adoption, voice search is more mobile than ever.

Voice search is increasingly being used for local and hyperlocal searches as well.

Trend 4: Mobile SEO

Mobile pages are becoming very popular in 2020.

A website that does not have a mobile version will lose its users. With better network infrastructure and cheaper smartphones, mobile devices now have a far reach and are more often than not the very first computing internet devices for most people.

Mobile searches are now 88%, whereas computer and tablet searches combined account for 84%. Your mobile UX will determine your SEO performance.

A clean and well laid out UX which surfaces relevant content front and center, and a responsive design will easily trump a mobile website that has a clunky UI and poorly structured content.

Similarly, if your content is AMP optimized, the likelihood of your website ranking higher is even better. Purchase decisions are increasingly being made on mobile as well, which makes it critical that your e-commerce website and product catalog are mobile optimized.

Trend 5: E-A-T is now the authority

E-A-T or Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness is an important factor by which Google weighs the credibility of your website.

In 2020, Google will continue to look at E-A-T, and also the people who share content on behalf of that website/company. Companies with a poor reputation and a high friction customer service experience will find it much harder to position their websites in front of users.

Google is serious about combating fake news. Combine that with increasing amounts of fact-checking, only credible information will now see the light of day. Pull all your offline awards, events, and recognitions to the online world to help Google assess your E-A-T better.

YMYL or Your Money or Your Life pages have content that, if displayed incorrectly or inaccurately, can negatively impact the lives of readers. Google takes YMYL pages very seriously. If you are writing such type of content, make sure experts write it in a clear and easily understandable manner.

Trend 6: Using influencers for SEO

Influencer marketing is continuing to have an impact, especially for those in the fashion, beauty, e-commerce, lifestyle, and travel sectors. Users are looking for authentic information from trusted sources. They are more likely to trust information from an influencer than an ad.

Influencers with a targeted and niche audience, create content that is highly specific and highly valuable to a particular audience. Working with the right influencer can help you generate high-quality traffic and amplify your content’s reach on search results.

Getting the right influencer can diversify your content strategy. Moreover, if the influencer caters precisely to your audience, it can be a match made in heaven that increases your authority and credibility on Google.

You can also fine-tune your influencer marketing strategy by targeting micro and nano influencers that have a much lower follower count but have followers that are highly engaged and are highly trusted.

With over 17% of businesses now spending half their marketing budget on influencers, this is a trend you’d want to get on rather quickly!

Trend 7: Search Intent

Understanding search intent is vital if you want your website not only to rank higher but also generate valuable traffic.

Every keyword has a purpose behind it.

And matching your content with that search intent is critical in making SEO work for you.

Building better customer personas is one way to build a better search intent match. Re-optimizing your old content to target those high-intent keywords works too.

Google uses query context instead of exact keyword matching to estimate search intent. Google has gotten very good at understanding search intent, but have you?

Using semantic research tools like Text Optimizer is an excellent way to come up with ideas to expand upon your original copy.

It can even help you build sentences based on typical co-occurrence analysis.

Trend 8: Visual Search

Human beings are visual thinkers. Images make more sense and convey a lot more to us than text. According to MIT, 90% of information transmitted to the human brain is visual.

For example, when you are at your local grocery store, you are searching by ‘visual cues’ rather than textual sentences. In a much similar manner, visual search crosses the divide and comes to the online world.

Visual search uses images to search than text.

Artificial Intelligence parses through these images to make sense of what it is seeing and give you relevant search results.

Pinterest, Google, and Bing are the top visual search platforms.

These platforms put a premium on well-optimized visual content. Google Lens is Google’s straightforward point and search tool that can recognize almost anything that you point it to. Visual search optimized content can also result in better cross-selling and up-selling opportunities, especially in e-commerce.

You can optimize for visual search by adding alt-text to images. The alt-text can include keywords that help you rank higher. Optimize your image quality so that it is easier for search engines to recognize the image and optimize for image size so that your websites load quicker.

Submitting images to the sitemap also helps search engine crawlers to find your content. Similarly, use schema markup to help Google better comprehend the image and product details.

How Has SEO Changed Since 2019?

Search has come a long way since its inception, but it has changed more so over the last year. Google is now more contextually aware and wants to provide a frictionless experience to its users.

Building a brand is now more important than ever to add credibility and trustworthiness to your repertoire of SEO tools. Building a better brand means you’ll get more links, which is one of the most important ranking factors on Google. Inbound links and social shares count a lot towards building authority.

Moreover, a better brand will prime you to ride the voice search wave too.

While search algorithms will keep on changing, what will remain constant is the need to create high-quality content.

Content is still king!

SEO Trends: Concluding Thoughts

From changes in algorithms (BERT) to new forms of marketing invading SEO (influencer marketing), a lot is going on in the world of search.

Some of these evolving trends (like voice search) are in the early stages of going mainstream. Voice search is going to be big and will overtake text sooner or later. It is about time people start paying attention.

Here are a few key takeaways from this blog that you need to remember -

• Aim for Google’s featured snippets — Featured snippets make up 40% of all Google Home search results. Focus on long-tail keywords and make sure your headers and title tags ask the exact question.
• Optimize for mobile — Mobile UX and responsiveness is the easiest way to surface your website on top of the search results. You can use Google’s tool to check if your website is fully mobile optimized.
• E-A-T focus — concentrate on building high credibility content if you want people to find and consume your content. Using the influencer marketing approach is one way to create content that is trusted. The same goes for YMYL pages that are expertly written.
• Artificial Intelligence — from visual search to voice search, AI is playing a pivotal role in the next evolution of search technology. Be ready for more disruption caused by AI.

Originally published on the Hearst Bay Area blog. Read more here.