The most valuable marketing channel at every internal and agency team’s disposal is by far search engine optimization (SEO). Previously, many have claimed that SEO is dying and not worth the long-term investment, but recent years have shown the complete opposite. In fact, SEO is growing and here to stay around for quite some time. With marketers and doubters back to the drawing board, here are some major trends in SEO for the current year of 2021.
User Experience & User-Focused Strategy
The best marketing strategies involve putting yourself in your target audience’s shoes and understanding their needs or wants. A major part of SEO is making the user experience as easy as possible for them. Your digital presence should be one of the easiest things for a user to consume. What I mean by that is, your content needs to show value quickly, your website should be easy to use, and the brand should be able to easily gain the trust of the audience. Google wants to limit the number of poor user experiences as possible. To achieve the optimal ranking, you need to make your target audience and Google both happy.
Adapting Quickly
Google is constantly running tests and changing how to rank websites for their search result pages. More tests result in more and more ways to get a leg up on others in terms of improving your search ranking. SEO is not as simple as a few paid links and title tags anymore. It is important to keep an eye on changes that Google is making and acting quickly to stay ahead of your competitors. Chances are, if Google is implementing a specific practice, you should as well.
The Rise of Voice Search
With artificial intelligence (AI) and chat features finally having a foothold on main web domains, it is only right for voice search to be the new kid on the block. Technologic devices like Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Cortana, Siri, and Google Assistant are enhancing user experiences and open a new way to search the web. In line with an increase in mobile search users, voice search has seen massive growth in recent years. Take this into consideration when forming your digital SEO strategy. The focus on structured data and using natural language in your content is extremely important for achieving this.
