Many businesses spring up in different industries today. And as businesses constantly heighten in the market, so does the competition for attention and online presence. Keeping yourself updated with all the latest SEO trends will help you meet all the specific requirements that [most] search engines use to rank websites.
Search engine optimization or SEO is a digital marketing technique used by many businesses today. It is the process of increasing both the quantity and quality of a website’s traffic by increasing the visibility of this website to users in a search engine. SEO significantly helps businesses establish a more substantial online presence and reach out to a larger audience.
However, search engines - especially Google - make hundreds of changes to its search algorithms practically every year. While most changes stay small and insignificant, these could still affect your overall search ranking. Therefore, one must keep in mind the different SEO trends to stay in line with competition, if not above.
Listed below are the top SEO trends you need to watch out for in 2020:
Voice Search
“Hey Google, find the nearest pizza shop near me.”
Voice search becomes increasingly popular each year. Many people are now starting to search queries the same way they speak. Notice that most of these search queries are long and specific. A lot of users today now want an even accurate answer to the exact same question they asked. These types of users are more likely known to convert than someone who plainly searches for general information.
Side note: Bullet lists also significantly increase your chances of ranking for voice queries, and most of these are considered local; hence, optimize your website for local SEO to get more traffic.
Featured Snippets
Another goal of optimizing your website for search is securing the top spot on the search engine results. However, according to Ahrefs, even the top spot on search engines is not safe from the powers of a featured snippet.
If you still did not know, featured snippets are short selections of text displayed at the top of a search engine’s results. These are often designed to answer a user’s query immediately. That being said, it robs you the opportunity to garner traffic for your website as these snippets are already often enough for most searchers. Here are several ways you can improve your content ranking without giving too much away on the featured snippet:
- Structure Your Content - Consider inserting FAQs, numbered lists, or bulleted points in your overall structure. This will increase the chances of your article being chosen as a featured snippet.
- Ask Questions - As opposed to just the keyword phrase, consider rephrasing these into questions. That way, you are helping answer the user’s query directly instead of just presenting general and broad information.
Content Calendars
Content calendars are important for every business, especially in today’s digital age. It helps editorial teams and all concerned to plan out content for a specific timeline instead of just publishing whichever pops into your mind. Planning the content of your website is crucial to both strategize and optimize the website for search engines.
On top of that, it also allows you to come up with new ideas, publish your content consistently, identify gaps, initiate better collaboration with your team, and balance out all your content ideas and topics. Here are a few tips to make your editorial calendar work best for your business:
- Know Your Target Customers - This one is pretty much self-explanatory. Know your target customers so you would also know to whom you’re addressing the content.
- Know What Type Of Content You Want To Produce - Keeping a comprehensive audit of record of your content will give you an idea of which content works and which ones do not. After going through this, make sure you update your content calendar regularly and know what type of content you want to produce.
An SEO company from the Philippines and many others are actually practicing this. Content calendars are indeed a staple when it comes to your overall SEO planning and efforts.
Influencer Involvement
Over 17% of businesses today spend a considerable amount of their marketing budget on influencers. This is because of an influencer’s importance for marketing companies, especially those in the industry of fashion, beauty, travel, lifestyle, and ecommerce.
Working with an influencer greatly enhances your website’s traffic, increase online visibility, and boost your content reach. And to get the most out of this, make sure you collaborate with influencers within your niche that already engage with your target audience. More than anything, the backlinks you get from this show authority to Google and further enhances all your SEO efforts.
Wrapping Up
These are just a few of the things you need to know about the top SEO trends in the year 2020. These techniques will not only help you get your brand’s name out there, but they can also ultimately help your customers come near you. Above all, make sure you revisit your SEO strategies every now and then and make small tweaks whenever new trends or other information is introduced and available. This will then help you cope with the changing environment and algorithm of most search engines, especially Google.
Edwin Deponte is a motivational writer who is also passionate about SEO, social media, and digital marketing.
