SEO Trends 2020: How to Stay Competitive

Staying relevant and driving organic traffic to the website is not a matter of joke. More so because search engines, like Google, are consistently updating their algorithms to enhance user experience. That’s why it’s crucial to avoid misleading SEO practices recommended by self-proclaimed “experts” and adopt the right SEO strategies.

Today, we will discuss some SEO trends that you will witness in 2020. This will help you to modify your existing strategies and stay up-to-date.

1. BERT Algorithm

With the incorporation of BERT into the ranking algorithm, Google has taken a major leap towards making search more about intent matching rather than simple string matching.

BERT is a neural network-based technique that helps Google understand the context of words in a search query. Google has offered several instances of how BERT’s application may impact search results.

For example, earlier, a query like “math practice books for adults” used to display books for Grades 6-8 at the first few organic results. Now, with BERT applied, Google displays a book titled “Math refresher for adults”.

Though the books for Grades 6-8 are not entirely vanished from the SERP (Search Engine Result Page), the books especially aimed for adults are ranking above it because these are better aligned with the searcher’s intent.

This shift of search engines from keywords to intent matching is sure to persist in and after 2020. So, it’s important for the practitioners to direct their efforts in fulfilling the user needs.

At a glance: By consistently updating its algorithm Google is trying to enhance the user experience. Instead of optimizing for a specific algorithm, the experts at any top SEO agency suggest focusing on delivering user-centric content and stay relevant all-the-time.

This leads us to the following point.

2. High Quality Content

From the site structure to link building strategy – content is central to everything in SEO.

2020 is the time to take a pause and move away from the obsession with keywords. Instead of targeting multiple keywords in an average content, one long-tail keyword in an informative content can drive higher traffic. (FYI, according to Search Engine Journal, 70% of all search queries are long-tail searches. So, it’s high time to leverage such a wide audience).

Instead of solely focusing on keyword research tools, it’s important to prioritize suggested queries as the source of content creation. Therefore, writing and optimizing engaging content for users rather than search engines should be the ideal approach.

A valuable and relevant content can help to build your site authority and produce a positive impact in enhancing ROI (Return on Investment). Check out our blog to learn how to increase conversions through content marketing.

At a Glance: Developing a methodically organized and informative content that delivers a comprehensive idea and satisfies user query should be the ultimate objective.

3. E-A-T in SEO

In 2020, Google will continue to measure the overall reputation of a website or brand with the parameters of E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, and Trust). Google seeks to deliver the best possible experience to its users, so it ranks the website that it fully trusts.

Therefore, it will be extremely important to focus on the trust value of the company. Businesses that struggle with customer service issues or poor reputation will have a difficult time competing. These trust issues can manifest themselves as feedback and reviews about your brand and can make or break it.

Put simply, the offline is influencing online. All the offline events or business deals that Google cannot see directly, suddenly get enormous importance. This may appear to have no direct connection to SEO strategy, but credibility produces a huge impact in boosting your rank.

At a Glance: Draining your entire effort and resources in online SEO strategy is not enough anymore. It’s equally important to improve your customer services so as to obtain generous feedback and earn Google’s trust.

4. Impact of Technical SEO on User Experience

By User Experience (UX), we mean the overall experience of the users ranging from initial interaction on the SERP to the landing page experience, and also the impression after the traffic leaves your site.

Technical SEO, like optimizing website and page speed plays a crucial role in improving UX. In fact, 40% of the users usually abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load (source: BitCatcha).

Other than helping to generate site speed reports through Google Search Console, Google has also announced to add “slow warning badges” to the under-performing websites. It underlines the importance of enhancing page speed.

The SEO experts expect to witness a dynamic shift to a more technical SEO ecosystem, equipped with JavaScript frameworks usage, PWA (Progressive Web App), and SEO automation. So, you better be prepared to win these.

At a Glance: Importance of technical SEO may demand you to reignite conversation with the developers for a complete redesign of page templates. It’s equally important for the SEO practitioners to strengthen their technical foundation by incorporating advanced features.

If you are overwhelmed about how to maintain a balance between SEO and creative website design, our blog is a must-read.

5. Mobile SEO

According to a study by Quora Creative, 80% of the users access websites from mobile devices. So, if you don’t have a mobile-optimized and mobile-friendly website, it’s high time to take action immediately.

A better strategy is to develop sites for mobile-first, then enhance their compatibility for desktop. That way, these sites don’t have to be optimized for speed after launching.

At a Glance: Optimizing the website for mobile devices is crucial to drive higher visibility and traffic.

6. Structured Data

Structuring the data will help the search engines to understand how each element on a page relates to other elements, and how a page relates to other pages within the site.

Done right, structured data will allow you to publish any content for any device, search engine, chatbot or voice assistant more methodically.

Also, smart SEOs can leverage the structured data to analyse which part of their content is driving better results and use this data to influence the content strategy, product features, marketing strategies, and more.

Due to its immense importance, the SEO professionals advise to manually monitor the data structuring instead of solely relying on some random plugins to structure the data correctly.

Follow these pro tips while structuring data:

• Make sure to write a descriptive and catchy title tag that instantly draws the attention of the viewers and also justifies your content. A 60 characters long title tag is ideal. If you are inserting keywords into the title, ensure that it occurs naturally.
• The meta description can affect CTR (Click Through Rate), so you better produce a catchy one revealing the theme of your content or USP of your services. It should be within 160 characters limit.

At a Glance: We have already discussed the relevance of high-quality content. But structuring the data is equally important if you want algorithms to crawl, index, and rank your site.

Conclusion

Learning these SEO trends 2020 will only come to the benefit if you implement these changes to improve your site. If you develop the website for humans, not for search engines; obtaining a higher rank on SERP is only a matter of time.

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