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You have a website but have noticed that there isn’t quite as much engagement on it as before. Then this is a must-read. To generate traffic to a website, you need to be on the first page of the SERP (search engine results page). However, it’s important to know that SEO (search engine optimization) is an ongoing, ever-evolving tool used to drive an audience to your website. To stay on top of current trends, here are 9 current SEO trends you should know about!
1. User Plus Search Intent
Although this is not a new concept, it may be one that needs to be given more attention. Ask yourself, why do people go to Google or any other search engine? They have a question or want to know more about a particular subject. This means honing your skill to provide the right SERP. People want answers fast and they don’t want to have to dig through your website to find the answer. It’s important to cater to the consumer. Learn what your audience is searching specifically and make it easy for them to access what they are searching. People don’t want to sign up, subscribe or enter their personal details to obtain information. Make it easily attainable or they will simply use the back arrow and go to the next site.
2. Optimizing Your Entire Digital Presence
Digital presence is not just your website. It is anything and everything related to your “brand”. That means YouTube videos, Facebook images, anything on the web that belongs to you. These days that means that understanding the SERP API is ever more important. All aspects of your online showcase must tell a good story and coincide with each other on the SERP. There are tools like FullSession that allow you to understand how customers interact with your website to see if your current website is converting sales as it should. Targeting keywords is important (as we will discuss next), but more important is focusing on topics and utilizing SEO tools that provide NLP analysis. Search engines continue to grow smarter, so this is a trend that needs attention. There are multiple SERP APIs available and can be a valuable tool to incorporate.
3. Keyword Ranking
It’s important to pinpoint specific terms that are frequently searched. Naturally, there are some words, brand-related, that will be a given in searching. But it’s also very valuable to learn and customize what people are searching for. This will create more traffic on your site, which will drive more sales. The goal is to complete the engagement with the consumer, achieving a complete sale. You want a complete organic session with the public, rather than a click on your site and then a click to move on. You can track high-ranking keywords with programs such as SEMRush. Keyword ranking is a key component for SEO success.
4. Mobile SEO
It’s a fact, everyone is on some type of mobile device. People are constantly searching where to shop, what to eat or what’s the weather. So, if you are only doing SEO for desktops, you could be missing a huge market. Your SEO ranking might be fantastic for desktop, however, for mobile, it could be almost nonexistent. Ask yourself how easy it is for a user on a mobile device to access information on your website? Mobile devices aren’t going away so this is a point that cannot be neglected. As the use of mobile continues to increase, it’s important to jump on this trend sooner rather than later.
5. Alexa, What Is My SEO Ranking?
That’s right, whether it is Alexa or Siri voice search is on the rise and only continuing to grow. Voice search is enabling people to access searches in a quicker and more efficient way every day. That means that you must stay on top of maximizing this outlet by literally almost knowing what the user is going to be searching for before they even finish saying it. It is possible to check your website’s ranking in browser search results with different SERP API tools that can scrape a number of search engines including Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, and most importantly, Google to know your website’s SERP ranking.
6. Video Content
As previously mentioned regarding optimizing your entire digital presence, you want your SEO strategy to incorporate videos. This means including keywords within the vocals of the video that would be optimized during searches. Another idea is to embed a video link on the landing page that targets the same keyword on which you to increase the click-through rate through your video content. Google recently announced the launch of Key Moments for videos that appear on SERPs.
7. Content, Length and Authenticity
This is a point where the odd adage of less is more doesn’t apply. In 2020, blogs that contained content over 2000 words dramatically outperformed those containing 1000 words or less. This trend has continued during 2021 and shows no sign of getting any smaller. Remember too that Google wants original content. What will set your article or content apart from all the rest? If an article is simply a regurgitation of what has already been stated on another site, why would yours gain a high ranking? Not only will this increase search optimization to your site, but it will also increase your value to Google and to the consumer.
8. Featured Snippets
You know, the little box that appears at the top of the SERP with answers or directions to what a person is searching. It is usually the first thing that a person searching stops to read. Not only is it beneficial to the searcher, but many times it also has a result in a click to your site. It’s not an exact science as to how to be featured in these valuable snippets, but to better your chances, answering a specific question about a topic in a structured format helps, i.e., numbering steps to be taken or using bullet points.
9. Brand… Brand… Brand…
Did I mention branding? The more popular and known your brand is, the more it will be recognized in search engines, namely Google. So, make your brand known. Have news articles published, such as press releases, specifying details about your business (your brand). The more it is mentioned, published, shared, the more popular your brand becomes.
Conclusion
The trends for SEO continue to expand and change. These trends will increase the traffic of people to your site and will ease adapting trends in the future. However, who knows what tomorrow will bring in the world of SEO!
About the Author
Vibhu Dhariwal is Co-Founder & Director of Marketing at Digital Gratified, a Digital Marketing & Web Development company. He likes sharing his experience in outreach marketing, link building, content marketing, and SEO with readers. To know more about him, you can connect with him on LinkedIn.
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