New businesses are born every day, competition increases.
Google makes hundreds of changes to search algorithms every year. While most of the changes are minor, they may affect your search ranking.
These are some of the SEO trends we expect from 2020.
1. Voice Search: People search for how they speak
"Google, can you find the closest taco place to me?"
In 2017 alone, 33 million voice search queries were made. Data from March 2019 shows that 20% of mobile queries are voice searches.
As voice search becomes more and more popular, more and more people type their search queries the same way they speak.
Notice that most of these search queries are long and very specific? Users want an accurate location-based response.
So, optimize your website for local SEO.
2. Featured snippets will continue to dominate search results
A featured snippet or zero result is the first google result for that query. Google displays it at the top of the SERP result, above organic and paid ads.
They have been around for a few years now and have led to significant changes on the Google search engine results page. Almost half of all searches don't generate clicks because users get the answers they need directly from the SERPs. In fact, an Ahref study of 2 million featured snippets revealed that the featured snippet receives more traffic than the first organic search result.
3. More marketers will leverage influencers for SEO
The 17% of companies spent more than half of their entire influencer marketing budget. The statistics highlight the importance of influencer marketing for businesses, especially those in fashion, beauty, ecommerce, travel and lifestyle.
Online users are overwhelmed with advertisements. They are looking for authentic information they can trust. Most of the time, the source of that information is influencer reviews. They are more likely to trust information from an influencer than an ad.
So what is the relationship between influencer marketing and SEO? Working with an influencer helps you generate traffic, increase your online visibility and amplify the reach of your content.
Many businesses don't see the return on their investment in influencer marketing because they don't plan or execute their sponsored content properly. Your marketing fails if it doesn't align with your audience's needs.
To get the most out of your budget, partner with influencers in your niche who already engage with your target audience. The backlinks you earn from influencer sites also show authority to Google and improve your SEO efforts.
4. BERT is here to stay
BERT (bi-directional encoder representations from transformers) allows anyone to train their question answering system. This is the first major change that Google has made to its search algorithm since RankBrain in 2014.
BERT will impact one in ten queries. SEO marketers who apply BERT models increase their chances of first page rankings for featured snippets in Google SERPs.
Just to clarify, it is not possible to optimize for BERT. Google uses BERT to improve its understanding of natural language.
Before writing, analyze the ranking of the top ten content on the first page of the SERP for that specific keyword. Is the result informative, transactional or navigational? Create content that matches the user's intent based on your analytics.
5. People will want digital experiences
The 44% of companies took a digital approach to improve the customer experience. Whereas, the CEO's 56% said the improvements led to revenue growth.
Page load speed is an important ranking factor. Great content means nothing if your webpage doesn't load quickly or if you have a complex user interface.
Focus your user experience on helping customers find the information they need. Help visitors easily move on to the next step.
Lack of clarity in messages also increases your bounce rate and negatively affects your site's SEO.
6. Video will be the new king of content
Google loves videos. It is a crucial part of your SEO strategy and digital marketing efforts. According to research by Forrester, video is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of the SERP than a plain text web page. In addition, the 62% of Google's universal searches includes videos.
Create useful YouTube videos that support existing content on your website. It's no guarantee for first page results, but you'll enjoy higher traffic when Google indexes your video.
Embed videos on your website to get more traffic. Remember to optimize the video based on the width of your blog.
7. The length of the content will determine the search rankings
Only high-quality content can help you beat the competition on page 1 rankings. But you'll also need to consider quantity along with quality.
There are many arguments about the ideal length of a blog post. Research shows that the average length of the top 10 results is at least 2,000 words. This is because web pages with long-form, high-quality content enjoy greater visibility.
However, the content must fully answer the question posed by the user and the questions related to the main search query.
Long articles increase the dwell time, which tells Google that users like your content.
8. Mobile search will continue to grow
The 87% of internet users use mobile phones and the 40% of transactions takes place on mobile devices. Google switched to mobile-first indexing on July 1, 2019 to improve the mobile search experience.
You can't go far on search engine results if you're not mobile optimized. Think beyond responsive designs to rich snippets.
If you've optimized for voice search, you've also optimized for mobile devices. In addition to incorporating long tail keywords for on-page SEO, it modifies the structure and representation of the content for technical SEO.
Conclusion
Just when you think you fully understand SEO, algorithm updates occur. SEO today is a holistic process that requires offline and online marketing strategies to be successful. Invest in SEO as a long-term lead generation strategy and stay on top of the latest SEO trends to avoid falling behind.
