SEO Trends for 2020: Navigating the Ever-Changing Landscape of Search Engine Optimization

With 2020 starting it’s important to not only evaluate your current marketing strategy but also lookout for new trends. Each year brings something new to the industry. It’s vital for your business to stay on top and get ahead of the competition.

As online competition continues to increase day by day and new websites are being launched, it’s time to rethink your content marketing strategy and invest in quality SEO. Websites must meet specific requirements set by search engines like Google, and this is where SEO strategy becomes very important.

You must know what SEO trends are on the horizon so that you can update your website accordingly and ensure that more prospects and customers find you in the search engine results.

So, In this article, we have gathered the most important trends in marketing for this year.

1. Shoot for the featured snippet

Featured Snippets usually appear above the number 1# organic result, commonly referred to as “Position 0”

They are like a super search listing, a gold mine for your search engine optimization strategy. You work hard to get your pages ranked, feature snippets are bonus rewards you want to earn.

To take the most of this feature and drive more clicks to your website, you need to provide clear answers to commonly asked questions on your website. Featured Snippets are evaluated and boosted to the top depending on their quality, and determined by Google.

Featured Snippets represent a great opportunity for content creators since it gives you the ability to generate more organic traffic even if you’re not ranking at the top number #1 position.

If you want to find out more about Organic and Paid Traffic, read our article here.

2. Users Demand Excellent Digital Experiences

No matter how good your content is, none of that matters if your web page doesn’t load quickly or if it has a complex user interface. Most importantly it has to open well on all kinds of devices and not just your laptop.

Did I mention that online – shoppers hate long loading time?

If your site is plagued with speed issues, there’s no doubt that you’re losing tons and tons of potential customers on your website and thus many sales.

Once you boost your page speed, you also must focus on the user’s experience. Navigation should be logical and easy to understand. Don’t use words or jargon that are unfamiliar to your audience. While you may think something is creative or clever, you have to put yourself in your viewer’s shoes. Would your site visitors understand what you mean in a split-second? if not, they bounce from your web page and return to SERP. High bounces rates will negatively impact your search rankings.

3.CTR and Dwell Time Will Become Important Ranking Factors

As people become more accustomed to lighting – fast internet connections and information at their fingertips, website and email click-through rates (CTR ) and Dwell time (the amount of time that a person will spend on your site before bouncing out) will matter even more to the success of your SEO efforts in 2020.

Both metrics are important as they show great insight into the satisfaction of the web searcher. The length of time that someone lingers on a page or other links the person clicks on can accidentally tell you, the marketer, how interested they are in your content and if they are finding the information they need.

The more time spent on a page generally indicates how satisfied a person is in finding what they are looking for. We expect search engines to place greater value on dwell time in 2020.

4.Content-Length Matters

Web pages that contain longer high-quality content usually get more visibility. However, SEO is changing.

Early on, search engine algorithms were very keyword-centric. However, people don’t use a search engine because they want to visit a keyword-stuffed page.

Instead, they’re looking for a page that meets their needs.

In addition to this, the more time website users will spend on a web page, the more likely Google will reward that page with more organic traffic.

Ideally, you should aim to publish high-quality content consistently so that your website will always stay active and fresh in the eyes of Google and its ranking algorithm.  Having a good routine of preparing and scheduling your content will become beneficial and result in more traffic. Make it your goal to have the best content on the web for your topic, or at least an important subset of your topic. By doing so, you will be future-Google-proofing your business.

To help you out with your content, we thrive to increase your business’s credibility, brand, and revenue through effective social media channels. Social Media Marketing is an extremely powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. Get help on your content and dominate social media marketing in 2020.

5. Websites Optimize for Voice Search

As voice recognition technology becomes more accurate and versatile, users are beginning to realize more of the benefits of using voice commands for search.

Most of us remember when Siri first came out back in 2011.

Not many people predicted it would become a major digital trend of the future

Before the existence of innovative smartphones, people searched by plugging words into search engine boxes on their desktop computers. That’s how keywords were born. With the growing use of mobile devices, voice searches are becoming a popular trend among internet users. Now there are a variety of voice-activated technologies on the market (e.g., Samsung Smart TV, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant).

Almost everyone can ask a question out loud faster than they can type it, especially when using a mobile device.

People already use voice assistants a lot more than they used to, mostly for commands (e.g., set an alarm, Call the last contact). But there’s still a lot of growth potential for search marketing as well.

When using voice searches the search engine must do a lot more work to get the relevant information that the user is looking for at that moment, making short choppy keywords not so important anymore. Therefore, your content should adapt to this new trend to stand out in the current search engines.

To find out more about the Voice Search, follow the link here to our article. Or alternatively, contact us through the Vindicta Digital website to schedule a meeting for optimizing your website with Voice Search for the year ahead!  

6.Videos as a Source of Information

Considering the right video can put a product on the map for the first time or reinvigorate a company that has long been stale, it’s important that marketers have a strong grasp on this.

Studies from Google and other organizations prove that 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television. In many ways, it seems that YouTube has now become the new TV.

Current internet users, especially millennials and younger, prefer to get information through online videos, either for academic purposes or just for entertainment. That’s why implementing online video should be on the radar for most businesses. Videos create a greater impact on your customers through interactive engagement. A quality video can attract many users if it is dynamic and doesn’t put viewers to sleep.

At Vindicta Digital we take a multi-channel approach and can help your business produce video content for social media to events & TV advertising.

But how does Video Production affect SEO?

To reach more people with your videos you need to optimize it for search users. To do this, use appropriate keywords in the description and headline of your video which will guarantee that the video reaches the largest number of people who are interested in that subject. More and more people nowadays, also prefer this type of marketing rather than old – fashioned ways. With this in mind, let’s explore another point – slightly linked to Videos.

7. Influencers Should Be Leveraged for SEO

People often feel inundated by intrusive ads and are looking for information they can trust and authentic reviews. This has led to a rise in influencer marketing. People are much more likely to engage with a respected and well-known person than they are with an ad.

The influencer marketing has been gaining tremendous interest over the past few years as marketers across all categories, sizes and regions are looking to increase brand awareness and ultimately drive more sales using this “new” tactic.

Influencer marketing is highly effective in today’s way of getting your organization’s name out. It is a type of marketing that takes word-of-mouth to the completely next level.

With the popularization of social media, any person can put out great content and build a following. Brands can then use their established influence to promote their products and capture the attention of their loyal following to the relevant audience.

In conclusion, hiring or partnering with an influencer can help you amplify your content reach and generate even more traffic to your website. They can also help you build valuable backlinks. As known, these are vital for Google’s evaluation of web – page rankings.

8. Secure Websites are a MUST

When it comes to your website and its users, security matters. Whilst it does not necessarily improve your SEO ranking directly, it has a vast power of affecting user experience on your web which then links to the improvement of the rankings. Google adds criteria to the rankings algorithm when it has proven to provide a better user experience.

If a user doesn’t feel safe visiting a web page then they’re most likely to leave quicker. Additionally, a “Not Secure” warning appearing, might scare off potential web users from ever engaging with your page. As a result, high bounce rates could affect the position of that page in the organic search listing.

It’s important to enable HTTPS protocol for your site. HTTPS is a way to encrypt information that you send between a browser and a web server. This protects your website’s users from “man-in-the-middle” attacks, where someone steals the information being sent to a website, like credit card information or logins.

Google wants to provide its users with a secure browsing experience, so those that implement HTTPS may experience a minor SEO boost.

With this in mind, we have a dedicated Liverpool SEO team for all of your businesses SEO needs.  Our team specializes in both website SEO and search engine optimization campaigns on a local to an international scale.

9. Use of Chatbots Will Continue to Increase

If you are using human personnel to monitor communication on your website, you no doubt find it expensive. It is also almost impossible for human attendants to capture every single prospect or lead because they can only talk to one person at a time. Additionally, it’s likely that you are losing a lot of leads whenever people are put on hold or if they must wait until office hours to be attended to. Chatbots take care of all these problems.

A lot of businesses now use chatbots on their websites. This is because they allow businesses to capitalize on all interactions, including those that happen after office hours. Not to mention, chatbots can attend to multiple people in real-time without needing to put them on hold. Initially, chatbots save time and they increase customer satisfaction levels by always being there to serve. Another key point is that they are always providing unbiased service.

It makes sense that a technology that provides such benefits will continue to gain even more relevance next year.

Again, it might not link to SEO directly but read the next point to find how it affects your rank.

10. Artificial Intelligence Will Be More Pervasive

Artificial intelligence refers to a machine’s ability to work as a human. Chatbots and virtual assistants such as Siri or Google assistants are all forms of AI.

One way that AI will impact business in 2020 is by using chatbots as discussed above.

Without delving into the cumbersome technical aspects, artificial intelligence has progressively learned the characteristics of what makes published articles valuable or not.

Then, AI ​​automatically classifies these web pages and determines their rankings- with very good precision. This is already a reality; companies like Google are applying these technologies right now.

If you’re already familiar with the above trends, then that’s great—it’s time to work away on them so you can generate more targeted traffic from Google.

However, if you still have questions and need help with SEO services, speak to one of our SEO experts today.

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