Do you want to know something shocking? Search Engine Land reports that 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
It is critical to optimize your website for search if you want people to experience and connect with your small business online.
With the advancement of technology and the refinement of algorithms, the search engine optimized techniques in 2015 may no longer be applicable now. Given certain search engine optimization (SEO) best practices remain unaltered, others continue to evolve and new ones are introduced into the mix. After all, internet years may be best thought of as in dog years. A year in human time is like seven years in internet time. Needless to say, the internet is fast, but time moves faster on it!
If you want to be found in Google searches and build your small business’s reputation and presence online, you must stay up with evolving SEO trends. Otherwise, you'll be left in the dust in the search engine results pages (SERPs), with your material getting old on Google's page 2. This is also known as where you hide the dead bodies.
According to a report by Matt Southern of Search Engine Journal, “Results on the second page of Google have a CTR of less than 1% for each position.”
Are you determined not to fall behind in the SEO game? If so, keep reading to learn about the top SEO trends of 2021 that will help your content stand out and rank higher in 2022.
1. It's All About E-A-T
Google's goal as a search engine is to provide users with search results that answer their questions, also called searcher intent. The better they become at this, the more likely they will continue to be the king of search engines and maintain their present market share. As of August 2021 in the United States, their market share sat at 87.91%, up from 79.3% in 2009.
As Google's algorithm continues to improve, it will be become better to interpret information almost as well as humans.
Therefore, Google is no longer only identifying keywords. It can now determine the authority and value of your content and your site.
While creating high-quality content has always been a good idea, but it is now more crucial than ever.
This is when E-A-T enters the picture.
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The concept comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater guidelines, and it became well known after the infamous Medic Update in August 2018. E-A-T is one factor that Google uses to evaluate the overall quality of a web page.
In other words, it refers to a set of Google search guidelines. If you produce material that checks all of these boxes, Google will most likely rank it higher than a competitor’s surface-level content that isn't authoritative or in-depth.
2. Having a Good Page Experience Is More Important Than Ever
Another long-standing ranking factor is page and user experience, which has only grown in importance with Google's release of Core Web Vitals.
Three metrics comprise the core web vitals: loading, interaction, and visual stability.
Here are some things you can do to improve the page experience:
- Page speed should be tested and increased
- Check how quickly pages load.
- Examine the time it takes for pages to become responsive.
- Examine the navigation and page usability.
- Optimize thoroughly for mobile users
When performing these tests and optimizations, be sure you aim for the best possible outcomes. Don't be satisfied with passing grades. Exceed these as far as practically possible.
Also, keep in mind that mobile optimization is no longer optional. Because mobile searches overtook desktop searches a few years ago for specific industries, excluding mobile in your SEO strategy is no longer genuine SEO.
3. Rise of the Voice Search
Voice search is exceptionally convenient, and its popularity is rising by the day. According to Google, “of the global online population is using voice search on mobile.”
This percentage is only expected to rise as voice assistants become more common and consumers become tired of typing out searches.
Furthermore, what is scary is that it means websites are not ready for this type of search traffic.
Many other SEO best practices, such as generating in-depth, relevant content and optimizing for local search, are intertwined with voice optimization.
However, there are several things you can do to target voice searches particularly. Voice searches are generally lengthier and more conversational, which is something you can cater to.
Long-tail keywords are ideal candidates for voice-centric SEO. The value of SEO for voice cannot be overstated. Therefore be sure to include it in your SEO plan or inquire with your SEO agency.
4. Bigger (Content) Is Better
There is an old hot-rodder saying, there is no substitute for cubic inches referring to the size of the engine and its ability to generate horsepower and torque. The same goes for our content. Long-form content creation has (literally) climbed to the top as Google strives to give users relevant, quality content.
In a post on Search Engine Journal, Ron Lieback, of ContentMender said that:
“Throughout 2020, I consistently witnessed blogs over 2,000 words dramatically outperform blogs of 1,000 words or less… expect this long-form content trend to continue in 2021, and as more and more websites follow this trend, the length will get larger – maybe even toward that 2,500-3,000 mark for a blog to rank well over others.”
5. Searcher Intent Is Playing a Key Role
As previously stated, Google's primary responsibility is to provide searchers with content that is relevant to their searches. To do this, Google is concentrating more on user or searcher intent.
This implies that your content must address the search query’s intent, not just the term or specific keyword.
For instance, say someone searches “Small Business Marketing Budget.” They probably want to learn about current marketing budgets for small businesses and the best practices surrounding them. Google will present content that is as similar to this as possible. It will not display content with the keyword (phrase) “marketing budget” scattered around but talks about Fortune 500 Businesses.
You must not dilute or miss-target with your content to ensure that it fits with searcher intent.
Here are two ways to optimize content to searcher intent:
- Promotion must be balanced with information
- Look up possible keywords to see what Google has to say about them
Other SEO and general design best practices are to limit popups and other elements that distract from the overall user experience. Eliminate anything that does not correspond with their search intent.
Google can now assess how irritating websites are, which benefits all aspects of search engine optimization, not just user intent.
6. Zero-Click Searches
According to Rand Fishkin of SparkToro and JumpShot , “We’ve passed a milestone in Google’s evolution from search engine to walled-garden. In June of 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google.com resulted in zero-clicks.”
Where is this coming from? This is thanks in part to Google’s featured snippets.
Although featured snippets may not always result in traffic, they guarantee placement at the top of page one. This increases brand recognition and trust. Furthermore, if a user is going to click to learn more, they will most likely click on your result.
The best way to ensure you show up in those feature snippets and zero-click searches is by crafting high-quality and authoritative content that answers searchers’ questions with good self-explanatory headers that Google can easily scrape for the snippet.
Top-Notch Content Writing Can Help You Meet These SEO Trends
There is no disputing SEO's significance. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you must stay up to date on the latest SEO trends.
While good site design is one method to do this and is truly but one part, creating professionally content that promotes your brand as an authority and ranks you in search results is one of the best things you can do to increase your ranking in the SERPs.
If you need help with your website, content generation, or overall online marketing strategy, then please contact us for a free consultation.