Best practices of SEO marketing help in improving both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand, through non-paid (also known as “organic”) search engine results.
SEO has numerous benefits for online businesses, but only if you do it right. Search engine optimization is an ever-changing field, and you should know the new optimization methods or trends involved in practicing ideal SEO for your business website.
Here are some SEO trends that we believe will prove to be powerhouses in 2021.
1. Website UX (Core Web Vitals)
Google will focus more on the websites’ user experience, and to do so, it is rolling out a new ranking factor in May 2021. The new ranking factor is core web vitals, and it will solely monitor your website user experience.
It has three factors that will be focusing on different components of your website’s UX.
Largest Contentful Paint: How fast the largest piece of content on your webpage in the first fold loads. It should be less than 2.5 seconds. LCP promotes faster loading.
First Input Display: How long does it take your website to be ready for the first interaction of the user. It should be less than 100 ms. FID promotes better interactivity.
Cumulative Layout Shift: The amount of unexpected layout shifts on your webpage. It should be less than 0.1. CLS promotes visual stability.
You need to meet all these criteria to get the green light from this ranking factor. When you optimize your website according to these core web vitals, it will not only help you with the rankings, but better UX will increase your user engagement and conversions. Keep this SEO trend in the front of you mind when optimizing your website for search engine rankings.
2. Short Video Contents
Short video content has been booming since the emergence of TikTok. Short videos have better views and shares, and that’s why Google is prioritising pages that utilize short videos. Visual content is already the first preference of people, and short videos are the cherry on top.
Seeing the shift of Instagram to Reels, and YouTube to Shorts to serve the short video content, it’s beneficial if you promote your brand or product through short videos. You can use these giant platforms to share your video content and target all your prospects. Invest in short videos to have more audience exposure and fetch some profitable business results.
3. Zero Click Searches (Featured Snippets)
Most business owners are confused about optimizing their websites for featured snippets. Featured snippets have no clicks and searchers get their answers from SERP, however the fact is that Google is doubling down on featured snippets, and if your webpage is not appropriate for it, someone else’s will be. You may not get clicks with rich snippets, but there are some indirect benefits of these. Your authority increases when people see featured snippets from your brand, as Google shows your domain name and favicon with the rich snippet. People find you to be helpful, increasing the brand trust. Lastly, you can reach a larger audience of people that would have otherwise missed your content.
Rich snippets don’t need to have zero clicks always; sometimes, people click and visit your site to get the detailed answer.
So, consider featured snippet optimization in your business’ 2021 SEO, as they are here to stay.
4. Google Discover
Google discover shows their personalized mobile feed feature. It monitors your activities and shows your content according to your interests. Google stated in 2018 that 800 million people used Discover, so it simply cannot be ignored.
Review the Google discover content guidelines and secure your place in Google Discover to generate massive traffic through this medium.
5. Image Search
Image search is an evolving search method; people can now search what they see in reality with the Google Lens. Google Lens analyzes a picture you provide and shows you similar results. Whether it is an image or a real-life object, you can search for it with the Google lens.
Images searches have significant potential to drive high traffic, and you must optimize for it through the process of image optimization. There are no new guidelines; just follow the image optimization standards like file names and alt text to allow Google to easily find and display your image.
6. New Search Intent
People change, and so does their intent. What’s complicated is that user intent is not a logical thing that you can accurately measure with any tool. You need to understand your prospects’ needs and pain points to conclude the intent.
Furthermore, your target customers can have different personas, so it’s crucial you have a complete understanding of your customer’s intent. Whether it’s 2021 or any other year, you always need to monitor and prioritize the user intent to optimize your business best accordingly and generate fruitful results.
7. EAT (Expertise-Authority-Trustworthiness)
EAT is a way for Google to measure the quality of your content. Search engines want the best content for the searchers and to ensure it uses the EAT algorithm.
First, the Expertise focuses on the value you are passing to your users. It means your content should be from an expert in the niche. If your content is only rephrasing some other expert’s knowledge, then it does not provide sufficient value. You need to create unique expertise-packed content that has significant value to the users.
If your content has value, then people relating to your niche will share or quote your content. When people share your content, they will link to it, which will improve your ranking within this algorithm.
Moreover, you have to earn trustworthiness. You need to give clear means for easy user interaction with you. Reviews and comments help you increase your trust.
For more information, visit: Google EAT.
8. Voice Searches
Voice search volume continues to increase year after year. You can see the exponential growth of voice recognition-activated technologies like Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Google Home, and Cortana. Searches through these systems are most often related to directions, music, video searches, and information about nearby businesses. Voice search SEO is relevant to most businesses. You need to make your content more conversational to rank on the long voice search queries, which might not include the standard keywords.
Optimizing for voice search will make sure your 2021 SEO plan is up to date.
Source: Dialogtech
9. Long-Form Content
Content never goes off the SEO trend. Content fuels SEO, and long-form content does wonders. Many businesses and webmasters are using long-form content to drive significant traffic to their websites.
Long-form content covers all aspects of a broad topic and helps you get visibility on high search volume queries. Moreover, it satisfies different user intents; for example, an SEO guide will answer both users who want keyword research information and another who need link-building strategies.
Invest in long-form content and optimize it right to generate gigantic traffic for your website.
10. Mobile-Friendliness
People mostly surf the web on their mobile, and it’s crucial for your business to become mobile-compatible. When you have a mobile-compatible site, your mobile users will spend more time on your site, engaging with your content. This will show Google that your site gives mobile users what they are looking for.
Thanks to Google’s Mobile-First Indexing update, you can land impressive Google rankings if you just make your website optimal for mobile users. You should use highly responsive web design or AMP to make your website work perfectly on all screen sizes.
These are the top SEO trends in 2021 that you need to follow for your online business. All these will help you generate the best results organically.
SEO is an ongoing effort that will never really be complete. So, be patient and work consistently on it to have exceptional results.
We also suggest hiring an SEO agency to expedite the process and avoid any SEO mistakes that can get your business black-listed from Google.