Let’s face it.
Search engine optimization is an excellent way of attracting customers to your website if you do it the right way. SEO keeps changing and evolving, which means you need to stay on the latest changes and updates.
However, the effort is worth it because 70% to 80% of customers focus on organic results and ignore paid results. That said, let’s look at the four trends you need to know about SEO in 2021.
1. Search Intent & Demand
Understanding searcher intent should form part of your SEO strategy because it will help you build a page or article that satisfies your visitors. If your page delivers the best match for the intent, your website will rank high in the search results.
But search intent changes with time. If the search intent changes in your niche, you need to change because Google usually adjusts their results to match every search intent. Changes in search intent show change in your customer’s behaviour. For instance, during the Coronavirus pandemic, we saw multiple verticals change over time.
Is there a way you can protect yourself against search intent change or a decrease in search volume? You can’t control searcher behaviour. You can monitor using tools search as SEMrush, Moz, or Ahrefs and adjust.
When you see more and more pages beginning to rank, that should tell you that Google is testing different search intent. If such a thing happens, all you can do is change your page.
2. Rise of Voice Search
Recent innovations such as Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri have become popular. 55% of households are predicted to have a smart speaker by 2022. If you want to optimize for voice search, ensure you have the right keywords.
Begin by identifying the long phrases which people use in everyday conversation. That’s because voice search does better in natural-sounding phrasing where people abbreviate. For instance, a person voice searching will say, “what are the 2 new SEO trends in 2021?” while a person typing will key in, “SEO trends in 2021”,
3.Mobile SEO Will Impact Search Rankings
Google came up with mobile-first indexing in 2019. What that meant is that search engines will look at the mobile version of a website instead of the desktop version first. Mobile SEO makes sense because 73% of users access the internet using their mobile devices.
If you have a website, you need to know how effective it is on mobile using Google’s free mobile-friendly test. The next step is to analyze the mobile usability report in Google search console. The third thing you need to do is make sure each page is user-friendly to make it easier for Google to crawl on your URLs.
4. Long-Form Content Will Help Boost SEO Rankings
State of Content Marketing reports that long content of 3,000-plus will receive three times more traffic and shares. The same content will also get 4 times backlinks than the content of 500 to 1,200 words.
That said, you’ll need to create quality content that answers the users’ query and keeps them engaged. But how do you do that? You have to break your content into different H2, H3, and make it scannable. Second, you have to link to relevant authoritative sources to back up your claims. Finally, make your content easy to share by including sharing buttons at the beginning, and at the end. That way, users will share the content quickly.