SEO Trends to Watch For in 2021
The year 2020 has been chaotic for so many reasons, necessitating quick and drastic changes for industries across the board. Many of these changes have also impacted digital marketing. More and more companies, both large and small, are relying on ‘digital’ as a means of reaching out to customers and doing business. SEO has also seen new developments, algorithm updates, and shifting priorities.
Improving, or even maintaining, your website’s ranking in 2021 will take more than the same old strategies that worked in the past. SEO continues to be an evolving discipline and will only become more complex as the world adapts to a new normal and the digital space gets more competitive.
With each change and update, your rankings could be affected and continuing to achieve results will take great skill, adaptability, and versatility on the part of your digital marketing agency. High-value, cutting-edge SEO services will help your business prosper in the complex online landscape of the coming decade.
Top SEO Developments to Watch For in 2021
COVID-19 Will Leave an SEO Legacy
When COVID-19 hit, Google quickly responded with changes to some key SEO factors. For instance, they released a new core update in May 2020 that gave preference to high-authority websites that people could count on during this tumultuous time. Focusing on increasing the ‘authority’ of your website or page with high-value content and links became a priority.
This signifies that Google is willing to alter some of its ranking criteria in response to world issues. Investing in SEO services can help your business prepare for and adapt to these changes.
Content Quality Will Be Critical
Content is as important as ever, but not just any blog post or video will do. Google is increasingly prioritizing content that demonstrates:
- Expertise.
- Trustworthiness.
- Authoritativeness.
In other words, if you are going to publish a piece of content on a particular topic, you need to demonstrate that you know that topic inside and out. This will give your audience the confidence to trust you as an expert in your industry.
Semantic Search Will Play a Larger Role
Semantic searches account for context to interpret what the user means. It has become an increasingly important focal point in the evolution of search engines. As this new framework develops, specific keywords will matter much less than the information that a piece of content contains.
Search Intent Will Drive More Results
Google’s algorithms are now programmed with user intent in mind. There are four main things that users typically want to do when they search:
- Find information.
- Find a specific website.
- Do comparison shopping.
- Purchase a product or service.
The search engine now ranks the results for each search differently depending on what it believes the user wants to do.
Local SEO Will Hinge on Google My Business
Google knows users searching for restaurants, pet groomers, tea shops, and more are all hoping to find businesses in their immediate vicinity. That is why they pull data from Google My Business for companies that match a user’s geographical location. Without a complete and active profile, you may be missing out on a lot of local search traffic.
Results Will Now Depend on User Experience (UX) Signals
Google’s goal is to show users content that they will enjoy. Their recent updates, most notably the introduction of Core Web Vitals, have emphasized the importance of UX factors in search rankings. These include things like load times and mobile optimization. Sites that perform well and are easy to use will notice a significant SEO boost starting in 2021.
Zero-Click Results Will Keep Growing
Google has gotten increasingly good at giving users the information they need right on the search results page. This means that many searches are no longer yielding clicks at all, prompting a fundamental shift in SEO to address this. This also underscores the usage of structured data and markups that pass on accurate information to search engine crawlers about your content.
Videos Will Be More Popular Than Ever
Search engine results have been prioritizing videos lately, driven by high demand. It has been shown that 54% of users want to see more video marketing content from businesses. Because videos take only a few minutes to watch and are mobile-friendly, this trend is unlikely to slow down anytime soon.
Originally published at https://www.simplifytheinternet.com on December 17, 2020.
