In the past decade, SEO trends have continuously changed. These changes have always been driven by different changes, like the evolution of mobile devices, voice searches, and artificial intelligence. Search engines like Google have also played a vital role in the ever-changing SEO trends.
For every website owner and marketer to stay relevant, they need to understand the new trends for SEO services London. The rate the changes occur has made digital marketing quite complicated for many persons, so you most likely need a professional, knowledgeable in current SEO techniques to understand what to expect in 2021.
These 2021 SEO trends are what every website owner and digital marker should know to rank better in 2021. Some actions are available to help you reach your target audience, gain more traffic and have a higher ranking.
SEO trends
User experience (UX) will be a priority
The quality of information or help users get on your site is important. Good user experience has been a ranking factor that would prefer Google and other search engine rankings.
Google now factors several UX signals to ranks sites which include the new Core Web Vitals. This new ranking algorithm factors things like interactivity, load time, and stability of the content while the page loads. This means that Google is looking out for sites that are easy to use, accessible with mobile devices, and generally make it easy for users to get what they need.
- How to improve UX
You can get a Core Web Vital report through the Google Search Console to know how your page is faring when it comes to UX. The tools should compare your site against all Google’s UX ranking signals and give you suggestions to improve your site.
Check for your site’s loading speed on different mobile devices and desktop, pop-ups that make UX frustration and experiences that do not translate properly on mobile devices. Ensure you prioritise your content to give value to your users and improve your business metrics.
Poor UX not only reduces your audience but also affects your ranking on SERPs. So ensure your site has the following qualities.
Fast- The sites need to fast to enable reduced interactivity that users will not notice
Responsive in all devices and mobile-friendly – This should include laptops, tablets, desktop computers, iOS, Windows and android
Pop-up free – Most sites need pop-up features like lead generators, and building list to expand their reach, but most users find them annoying.
More semantic search
The way people search for things on the internet will detect most trends in 2021. Semantic search will take more precedence in 2021 because search engines like Google now use several data to show the result of a search based on user intent. This means that users likely get the most relevant results to what they search for and not just the specific search query.
Google’s algorithm for ranking keeps getting better with every update. Staying relevant on the result pages comes down to giving the users the answers they need, so the search engine will always display your site for searches in your niche.
The semantic search focuses on giving users the best and most relevant result to their search in simple language search terms.
- How to focus on semantic search
You need to dedicate your time to improve your site’s value for semantic searches, but some principle would guide you in updating your content to accommodate semantic searches.
You have to answer how your users search for things and their intent and what they will likely search for. You can increase your site’s value for semantic search by doing the following.
Develop content to answer your target audience’s questions- You can create your content using the question and answer format while providing the answer to the question users may likely ask at the top of your page.
Create content for people, not the bug- Ensure you develop content that will cater to the audience not only for search engine bots to crawl your site. Use easy-to-understand and concise sentences. Make your content easy to skim through by using bullets and listing formats, and write naturally.
Use relevant structures data- Bots are more likely to crawl your page and understand it if you have ratings, question, products or review schema.
Use relevant internal linking- Internal linking should not only be about having links to related topics. If you do this strategically, you will have a well-structured map of your related articles in a particular niche or topic. You can use tools like InLinks to automate your internal linking process and implementing schema.
Perform optimisation for topics, not keywords- You could create clusters of quality content for a topic. A topic cluster will help in your optimisation because you get to have long and short-tail keywords that can give you a higher ranking.
Search intents will be a priority over keywords
Google introduced an algorithm in 2019 that detects user intent. Google has now become conversational as the search engine can interpret the users intent. The introduction of voice searches and voice assistants has now made long search queries common because people speak naturally when searching for things
Google has also included more AI algorithm which caters to its ever-growing conversational audience.
- How to focus on search intent
Since Google now focuses on user intent to give result, short-tail keywords may no longer be sufficient to give you a high ranking. People now search to get a particular website, get information, buy something, or compare shops or products.
In creating your content, make your audience’s intent the focal point, and you can do this by searching top keywords you would like to rank for or your audience search for and the needs that the searches solve.
Research about your target audience, then, do the following.
Write aligning content- The content has to be clear, and easy to read with natural language people use often.
Develop FAQs for the queries- Use schema for the FAQs to ensure Google sees your site as an authoritative one. It is best to have several FAQs and rephrase them to match natural queries.
Research the content your users search- You can check SERPs for the type of content your users search for based on intent.
Take advantage of Google My Business for local SEO
Ensure your Google My business is updated with the right information about your business because it helps in local SEO. Your engagement from GMB listing helps give a higher ranking signal on Google.
Local searches are common, with more than one billion people using their Google Map during searches every month, so Google always releases new business owners’ features. The features make it easy for people to search for menus, phone numbers, addresses, services, company website, reviews and ratings.
COVID-19 has also made more people search for business and services open within their location due to the lockdown restrictions.
- How to get Google My Business Listing
First, sign up then claim your business and verify it through Google My Business service. This usually takes a few weeks, and then you would receive the final verification step by mail. After you establish a location and verify your business, you can go through the GMB listing to update your listing.
The process is a simple one, and Google would guide you through your profile to see your listing’s completeness. When you have a complete listing, you can do the following:
- Answer FAQs about your services or products
- Share regular business posts and weekly photos
- Create a website using GMB website builder
Content quality
Different new SEO trends will surface in 2021, but your quality content remains a vital trend. The EAT (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) principle remains key when it comes to content for your money, your life (YMYL) businesses like health.
Experts believe that Google’s Core Update in 2020 emphasised more on quality content than domain authority.
- How to create quality content
You can create quality content by doing the following.
Create buyer personas- You have to understand your buyers, what they want, their objectives, and needs, so you can create content specifically to suit them.
Conduct search intent research- Your target audience’s search intent should be the focal point when creating content. Know what your audience search for and create great content that aligns with their need.
Create content in the format your users love- Know the type of content your audience would relate with more and create that type of content. It may be videos, quick vlog, or white papers.
Hire qualified content and copywriters- Having only the right keywords is not enough, you need to have writers who will create content to suit your brand and understand your buyers to create engaging content
Videos results will be more on SERPs
In 2018, Google introduced video carousel, and since then, videos have become more popular on the result page. YouTube now has billions of users because more people are conducting video searches, so Google algorithm is continuously changing to suit the growing base of video searchers.
- What you should do about videos
The increase in people searching for video content has made video content creation and video optimisation vital for businesses. However, some marketers find video creation and optimisation expensive, but the following tips will help you create videos and optimise them without overspending.
Make the top 10 – 20 high traffic content to your site video-based- If you have long content form, you could highlight the different parts in different videos, which you upload separately.
Perform interviews with customers, staff, or leaders- This will give your audience more value, and you can also interview your customers for case studies and testimonials.
Repurpose or publish your webinar replays- You can do this on your website, YouTube channel or both platforms.
Make shorter videos from podcasts- You could do this for specific topics by taking the audio from an interview and placing it over motion, illustrated, or graphical videos.
Optimise your video content for YouTube- Do this for your thumbnails, titles, and metadata. Ensure your video loading time is short, so it does not affect your ranking.
Use live videos from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter- You can organise weekly live sessions with key people in your industry.
Increased zero-click search results
In zero-click searches, people get the information they need on the SERP without clicking on any website. Google intends to provide users with authoritative information at a glance. The number of zero-click searches is rapidly increasing, and Google has several features that support this like the featured snippet, video carousel, knowledge graph and several others.
Presently, eCommerce carousels allow people to compare a product from different retailers without clinking on the site.
- What to do about zero-click search results
You can take advantage of the various Google tools available like Google My Business and Google Search to optimise your business page, use schema to create features that Google looks out for like FAQs, events and location info to increase your visibility for zero-click searches.
Your visibility for zero-click searches improves your SEO and SEO performance, but, it makes clicking your website unnecessary, so try to optimise your site and content to drive more conversions and traffic.
The effect of COVID-19 would last long
COVID-19 brought some changes in Google algorithm like stopping the Google reviews for a short time and released the Core Update in May 2020, which favoured more authoritative websites.
- How you should handle SEO post COVID-19
There are still many uncertainties surrounding COVID-19, but the pandemic has revealed many things, so, the following SEO tips will help online businesses and marketers.
Develop a strategy for crisis communication- Have a corporate communication team for this and be innovative in getting useful and timely content for your audience.
Prepare to make updates quickly- People would always need information during a crisis about the impact of the current situation on your service or products, and changes in your business, so you need to update your site with this information before losing most of your target audience.
Think about new ways to help- This may be in the form of complementary products or services to certain people.
SEO in the new decade
The new year has several SEO trends to look out for, but they all revolve around making user experience better. Search Engines like Google continuously make updates to improve user experience, creating several SEO speculations for digital marketers, so, you need the best SEO services London to stay relevant on search engine result pages.
Although you need to consider different trends, the quality of your content always matters. Ensure your content aligns with what your customers’ and their search intent. Invest in staying updated to the changes, and align your optimisation with the current data. Your SEO strategy should revolve around better UX, good content and copywriters, your user’s search intent and buyer personas.
At DubSEO, you will get digital marketing experts experienced in SEO to help implement the latest SEO trends to enable your website to rank high on SERPs, generate more traffic, and increase conversions.
Feel free to contact our SEO company now on 020 7183 2266 for your search engine optimisation.
