SEO Trends for 2021

Search Engine Optimisation is all about updating and steadily improving your site to enhance visibility for relevant queries on search engines, and the method by which this is done is constantly being updated by Google.

Every year, Google makes a lot of changes to their search algorithms and these changes invariably affect your search ranking. Recent SEO trends are beginning to take centre stage, making it harder to manipulate search algorithms for higher ranking.

Due to the market competition for user’s attention, optimising your content to increase your search ranking is very important. Here are some notable SEO trends that you should expect to see in 2021.

User Experience Metrics Will Influence Search Ranking

The first rule of user experience (UX) is improving the experience for people when they access your page. This is a key SEO element that aids in getting a higher ranking. What’s more? Google’s Core Web Vitals encompasses UX metrics into its ranking. Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics centred on the user that measure user experience by speed, interactivity and visual stability. This means that Google is highlighting the experience that websites give their users and rewarding those sites with higher visibility.

Compulsory Mobile-first Indexing

Previously, most websites were made in desktop only version, but with the increase in mobile phone users, Google started implementing mobile-first index for new websites and switching old ones to mobile version. Mobile-first indexing has to do with the optimisation of a website to its mobile version. The number of users searching for information on Google via mobile phones have soared in recent times; as a result, websites with mobile version are ranked higher than those with a desktop-only version.

How Marketers Can Optimise

It’s not a very difficult process to transit your website into a mobile version. It is more beneficial for you to optimise your website for mobile so that your page can be ranked higher in search results. One of the easiest ways to transit your website into a mobile version is by optimising for voice search. Check out Google’s mobile-first index list for more information on the transition.

Keywords Will Give Way for Search Intent

In 2019, Google’s BERT update showed us just how possible it is for artificial intelligence to not only answer queries but interpret the intent behind it. It was created by Google to improve understanding of natural or conversational language.
BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) can adequately solve lexical difficulties, identify stop words and provide search results attuned to the user’s search intent. This has allowed Google’s algorithm to become more user friendly and interactive.

How Digital Marketers Can Optimise

It is currently not possible to optimise for BERT, so your best option is to optimise your content in a way that matches the users’ search queries. This can be achieved by focusing your content on the readers need than on specific keyword placement. Use natural conversational language and answer FAQs consumers might have.

Structured Data

Structured data can be applied in various ways to enhance your ranking and search visibility. FAQ pop-ups and featured snippets are a great way to start. Google also provides different tools, page schemas and plugins to help implement structured data. If you have a business or company you want to promote using structured data, you can simply use local business schema to do so and improve your ranking and appearance in search results.

How Marketers Can Optimise

Web developers can optimise their structured data using various available tools on google. It is not as difficult as most persons assume, just ensure you keep up with Google’s SEO trends

Video Content Will Have More Preeminence

How Marketers Can Implement

Introducing video content to your website is the best way to optimise your website. The trend of users’ preference for video over text isn’t leaving anytime soon, so digital marketers should aim towards creating quality video content.

Conclusion