Pages that are well-ranked in a Google search end up getting massive traffic to a website. To achieve this, it is essential to use SEO techniques, especially related to content-strategy, which helps a page rank higher as per the Google ranking algorithm.
However, we must remember that these criteria are not permanent and Google keeps shaking things up now and again to update its parameters. Therefore, to have a good SEO strategy, one must be updated about the latest trends in the industry and how they can use new findings and research.
Here is our guide on some of the most important trends we see coming in 2021.
1.Artificial Intelligence Will Play a Larger Role in SEO
Google’s AI algorithm, called RankBrain, will play an essential role in the search engine results’ ranking factors. Google has pointed out RankBrain’s unique ability to learn, and that this ability will only improve with time.
So how does one go about optimizing SEO for RankBrain? We’re not yet sure, as Google has refused to share details. But experts believe that user experience signals are the primary factors that determine how RankBrain will learn. These factors could include how much time was spent on the page or the click-through rate. So make sure to keep your content organized, easy to read, understand and useful.
2.Voice Search Will Impact Search Queries
Google Express, is Google’s voice-activated shopping platform which can be accessed on a Google device or smartphone. Google has collaborated with Target to enable voice-activated shopping, and now users can purchase Target products via Google Express. Google plans to increase the usage of its voice assistant in collaboration with Target as well as Walmart.
Data from a Voicebot survey of U.S. adults showed that 52% of smartphone owners reported that they used voice assistants on their mobile devices (2018). Due to the increasing penetration of smart homes worldwide, the global voice-based smart speaker market could be worth $30 billion by 2024 (Global Market Insights Inc, 2018).
Google found that 55% of teens aged 13-18 use voice search every day, while 56 percent of adults said using voice search made them feel tech-savvy (Google and Northstar Research, 2014).
3.Mobile Friendliness Will Impact Search Rankings
As per WARC’s research published in September 2020, almost three quarters (72.6 percent) of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025, equivalent to nearly 3.7 billion people.
Further to this, TechCrunch published an article in 2018, which said that “mobile-friendly content will be used to index any new website’s pages, as well as to understand the site’s structured data and to show snippets from the site in Google’s search results, when relevant.” They also reported that “Several years ago, it also began to boost the rank of mobile-friendly web pages in search. Last year, it added a signal that uses page speed to help determine a page’s mobile search ranking. Starting in July 2018, slow-loading content became downranked.”
Data from a Voicebot survey of U.S. adults showed that 52% of smartphone owners reported that they used voice assistants on their mobile devices (2018). Due to the increasing penetration of smart homes worldwide, the global voice-based smart speaker market could be worth $30 billion by 2024 (Global Market Insights Inc, 2018).
Google found that 55% of teens aged 13-18 use voice search every day, while 56 percent of adults said using voice search made them feel tech-savvy (Google and Northstar Research, 2014).
4.Content That Fulfills the Google EAT Principle Will Rank Higher
As indicated by the State of Content Marketing Report (SEMRush, 2019), long-form content, 3,000 or more words gets multiple times more traffic and numerous times more shares. They also have 3.5 times more backlinks than articles of the average length of 1,200 words or so.
However, do remember to maintain the high-quality of your content along with this. The point is to give clients shareable data that keeps them locked in.
5.Featured Snippets Will Become More Prominent
We aren’t clear on how BERT is used to improve featured snippets, but it’s safe to assume that it’s bringing to the fore, more relevant results based on the context of the question or searched phrase.
“For featured snippets, we’re using a BERT model to improve featured snippets in the two dozen countries where this feature is available, and seeing significant improvements in languages like Korean, Hindi, and Portuguese,” says Google.
Data for a featured snippet may or may not be taken from another website. For generic questions like the one featured above, numeric calculations, etc., Google doesn’t need to pull data from another site. However, for more specific queries, Google relies on data and content from other trusted sources. See the example below.
In conclusion, a good marketer has nothing to worry about with this new update. However, the key takeaway remains that you need to optimize your web content for people instead of just machines, rankings, and algorithms.
Do some in-depth research on the people who you think would be visiting your site or would be on the lookout for the kind of information you meet out and put up content accordingly.
