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7 SEO Trends That Will Matter In 2020
People say the most constant thing in life is change. That’s also true for SEO. SEO strategies are constantly changing and the new techniques are influencing e-commerce. There was a time when keywords dominated SEO trends, keywording was so prominent that SEO marketers didn’t mind stuffing web articles with unnecessary words just to make sure the page ranks high on SERPs. And it used to work, but not anymore. You’re more likely to get your website flagged if you practice keyword stuffing now than you’re to get any positive SEO results.
The question is, what are the SEO trends to prepare for come 2020? Search engines such as Google, Bing and the rest often determine the new SEO trends but they are usually influenced by consumers’ wants when using the internet. Based on consumer’ expectations for the internet, these are the SEO trends that will rule 2020.
Voice search
SEO experts have been saying this for some years now, the truth is the time has come for voice search dominance. One of the reasons for voice search dominance is the reach and advancement of technology. More people own smartphones. Telecom companies are building network mast everywhere, even in rural areas. Internet of things are becoming more common, you could take up your tv remote control right now and ask a question that will be answered by the internet. And then there are AI assistants such as Echo, Siri, and the rest. People are saying their questions instead of typing them. The prediction is that voice search will account for more than 50% of the searches done on the internet by 2020.
Dwell Time
With the advance of technology – 5G network, smartphones, AI, etc, human beings have become even more impatient. Don’t forget that there’s competition everywhere, so if your website can’t convince a visitor to stay within a few seconds, they will be gone. Search engines have started considering dwell time as one of the criteria for ranking a website.
Click-through rate, bounce rate and dwell time are important now more than ever before, and they will certainly matter more in 2020 because as we said, technology is improving. So, make sure to enhance your website to make it fast, ensure that your webpage loading speed is fast. Also, always cut to the chase, so that when a new visitor comes to your website, their reason for coming is attended to. This means that your homepage should be clear, your navigation should simple, your landing pages should be relevant to the ad campaigns you are running, etc.
One second delay in your webpage load time can reduce your conversion rate by 7%. It can also reduce your ranking on SERPs.
Video SEO
Advanced technology is also responsible for this, it is easier to access videos on the internet now. We all know that reading can be demanding and boring. Videos, on the other hand, when done creatively can achieve more than written content. Not to mention that the internet seems to offer more interesting content than the tv, so six out of ten people prefer watching online videos to watching tv. This should be enough motivation for you to start creating video contents for your business, start a YouTube channel while at it. 2020 promises to be big on video contents, don’t lag behind.
Featured Snippet
When you enter a query on Google, there’s a section that will come up with the rest of the results, right above the first result on the page. This section is known as Number Zero and is also called the Featured Snippet. Already, featured snippet generates more than half of traffic clicks on Google standing at 54.68% in 2019. It is predicted that this number will increase by 2020. That means that if you want your website to thrive you have to start SEO practices that will enable your site for the featured snippet section on search engines.
To do this, you have to create precise and relevant answers to questions. You can use your FAQs page for this purpose, provide relevant answers to possible questions your target audience may have.
Mobile Responsiveness
If you have been paying attention in the last five years, then you must have heard how mobile device users are going to become the major consumers of internet content. Well, this is no longer a future prediction, it is happening already. Right now, four out of five consumers carry out a local search on search engines using their mobile devices. Smartphones account for 88% of the searches carried out on search engines, compared to the 84% of desktop and tablets combined. Nobody needs to you that the number will increase come 2020.
Google is one of the first search engines to bend for mobile users by changing its policy to mobile-first indexing. Google has started checking websites for its mobile device capabilities before considering how websites function on the desktop. As mentioned above, consumers influence search engines, and search engines determine which site will rank high on SERPs.
Multilingual SEO
It is no longer enough to focus solely on the English speaking audience for your web content. The world is more global, therefore if you want to get customers from different parts of the world, you have to start considering them in your SEO practices.
What this means is that your web content should be able to perfectly translate to other languages. Geolocation is not enough for this, there are tendencies for error in translation and frankly, that can annoy people who speak the language. It is advisable to make use of unique URLs for each major language you want to reach, hreflang and data markups are also effective for this purpose.
This also means that you have to create content for other search engines besides Google. For instance, Baidu is widely used in China, while Yandex is widely used in Russia. Both search engines have their unique criteria for proper SEO hence, creating content that will rank on either one requires you to have sufficient knowledge of how they operate.
Influencer Marketing
You may be doing everything right with your SEO practices and yet not see satisfying results because your website is competing with established brands that have already gained the trust of internet users. To put more clearly, when users enter queries on search engines, most of them are more likely to click on a website they know, even if that website is far below yours on SERPs. So, while it is good that your webpage is the number one number on SERPs, influencer marketing can help you achieve more. This is why influencer marketing has grown so much.
There are several influencers out there that you can hire to speak well on your product, service or brand. People are more likely to engage a brand if their favorite influencer endorses it. It is expected that influencer marketing will become more relevant in 2020, more businesses will use it to gain social trust.
Over To You
All you have to do to improve your SEO is to put consumers first, that’s what the search engines and big e-commerce brands are doing anyway. Besides, every e-commerce business’ looks towards internet users for traffic, engagement, sales and more. It will only be right to update yourself on what to do right to impress internet users – who are actually your customers.
