Let us address the obvious. The pandemic has impacted billions of us worldwide and I’m sure that like me, you will personally know business owners who have seen all their hard work count for very little in the face of COVID-19. However, we remain optimistic that we can get through this together and be stronger for it.
SEO is a marketing necessity in 2020, albeit hard to conceptualise for many business owners with some tactics being too complex and the returning results on investment often being slow. Adding an additional component to the SEO equation, Google and other search engines are regularly updating their algorithms; what this means is that to reach a first page position, companies need to continually adjust SEO tactics based on which part of the equation a search engine weighs more. And it is usually not the same for each search engine.
This is why SEO should always be long term! Your business can go from position one to the third page overnight without a powerful, forward thinking SEO campaign. SEO is an ever evolving field, not intended for one-time use. While website changes, content creation, and link building will always help, regular reviews must be conducted to ensure your website will be highly regarded and display authoritativeness when Google “crawls” the web. Here is how that can be done in 2020.
Understand what your audience is looking for and how they are looking for it. Search engines have evolved and progressed over time, so it only makes sense that users have changed the way they search the web. And as such, SEO must evolve as well.
Users don’t simply put in precise keyword phrasing as much anymore, and because of search engine advancements, users will often ask a question instead. It is important to understand what your target audience is asking and how to adequately answer those questions.
It is also important to understand what format to answer those questions in – text, audio, video, visuals. Communicating with your target audience in a manner that matches their preferences is more likely to raise your search engine ranking and create new business for your company.
Lastly, it is no longer true that most search engine users search on desktops. With a society that’s constantly moving, people often search from tablets, cell phones and laptops. Creating a website that is user friendly and ranks well across multiple platforms will greatly benefit your search engine performance. Keywords are still an important aspect to SEO. However, in 2020, it is more important to answer the questions of search engine users.
Unique, informative and grammatically correct content still reigns supreme. SEO has always been, and for the foreseeable future will always be, primarily about content. Search engines reward websites that help users find answers to their questions.
With each algorithm change, content’s importance has increased. It is now not only crucial to have a sufficient amount of content, but the content must also be of the highest quality. This means randomly placing keywords where they do not really fit, or make absolutely no sense, now hinders SEO instead of helping it. It is more important to connect with your audience than to keyword phrasing.
Well developed content also generates backlinks to your website. If your website provides informative and authoritative content, other websites will link to it. This is a sign to Google that your website is trustworthy and relevant.
Strive to rank as a “featured snippet.” A featured snippet is the first thing that pops up on the page after a Google search is run, above organic search results. It provides the user with a succinct response to their inquiry – a snippet from your website – that sees even higher website traffic than an organic position of one. Visit here to see how to increase online visibility.
Because snippets do not appear for remotely close to a majority of searches, there is a vast opportunity to capitalise on this exposure. As this is the first thing people will see as a result of their search and provides an answer to their query instead of simply a link. It is certainly ideal to rank here or make it an area of interest.
Continued focus on technical SEO in a changing web development world, technical SEO has become more complex. Yet, more important, the web design and development industry has also grown in complexity. Technical aspects of advanced websites can seriously help or hinder SEO. A basic, fast loading website will benefit from SEO more than an impressively complex site that is slow to load. The reason for this is simple; Google rewards speed. With that in mind, a focus on technical SEO is crucial.
SEO will forever be a changing industry of content, backlinks and technical components. For your business to stay atop of search engine results, it is important to stay abreast of changing algorithms and SEO tactics. Achieving the top spot is hard enough; maintaining it will be impossible without continued effort.
For more information on how we can help with your SEO and PPC, get in touch with the team at Essex SEO
