Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a highly effective online marketing tool. SEO techniques are continually updating and evolving. Last year, Google rolled out several updates and changed the way its search algorithm works. The BERT update is the latest update from Google that came out in October 2019.
The point here is – if you want to maximize traffic to your website, you have to stay updated with the SEO trends. I have seen quite a few SEO best practices of past years rendered meaningless, while others have gained more prominence in Google algorithms. So it makes perfect sense to revisit what is working in SEO in 2020.
Why is SEO so important for a brand’s fortunes online?
In case you are a small or medium business owner, the SEO techniques allow you to level the competition with big brands. Whenever an internet user searches for a query, be it a product or services, your website can only appear in search results if it has a robust internet presence.
Keep in mind that 93% of online experiences begin online. It means if your website gets ranked higher, then the majority of people can find your business quickly.
Do you want your business to get more traffic, leads, and conversions? If yes, then have a think about these 10 SEO trends in 2020.
1 – Conversational and interactive marketing
Most of the commonly used digital and traditional marketing techniques don’t have any personal touch of the brand. Often, people click on ads that appear intriguing and then, quickly forget about it by moving onto the next one. If you want your potential customers to engage and interact with your brand upon seeing the ad, then conversational marketing is the key.
There are various ways to perform interactive marketing. You can offer a quick quiz instead of a plain ad, and insert videos in the mail, etc. Such conversational marketing makes your brand more credible. You would be surprised that personalized subject lines on e-mails can crease the open rate by 50%. It makes customers feel more valued, and thus, they tend to interact with such businesses.
I have seen it across countless campaigns – user engagement plays a crucial part in marketing. Chatbots, live customer support, and e-mail marketing offer a perfect opportunity to engage customers. Consider this; by adding a video to e-mail; you can boost the click rates to 300%. And interactive content improves the click-to-open rates by 73%.
2 – Building brand image and brand reputation
Branding is exceptionally important in SEO. When the search engine knows that your brand exists and deals with particular products or services, then it promotes you in search results more often. If you get noticed by Google or Bing search engine, then it can drastically improve your search engine ranking.
If your brand gets recognized by more people and people talk about your brand online, then the search engine is more likely to promote such a brand. You can grow your brand image by putting out unique content that represents your brand. Be it blogs, videos or social media profiles, whatever content you put should align with your brand’s core values.
Your brand reputation is vital too. You can develop the reputation and trust among people by being consistent across all channels. Over 81% of consumers reported that they are more likely to purchase from the brand they trust. So, I would suggest making brand image and reputation your priority in 2020.
3 – E-A-T content can rank higher
The Google search engine is now more capable of comprehending the relationship among words. BERT is short for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. This update to the search algorithm of Google aims to understand the intention of internet users and their search queries. So, if your content matches E-A-T standards, then your ranking can shoot up.
E-A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of your company. Your website needs to meet all three criteria. And if you succeed, then the search engine automatically boosts your ranking.
Expertise: It means you should have high-quality content on your website. It should get written by a knowledgeable and expert person.
Authoritativeness: Your website should have authority on the subject you are putting out. So, avoid uploading irrelevant content and focus more on the things that your business does.
Trustworthiness: When the reasonable number of sites on the internet backlinks your site, then you come across as a credible business.
I recommend clients to let content adhere to E-A-T standards. This way, their website ranks better and their business gets more traffic.
4 – Optimizing your website for voice searches
Smartphone usage is increasing across the globe, and so is the use of smart home devices. While smart home devices are trending nowadays, Alexa and Google assistant are two of the biggest players. These devices have led to a surge in the voice searches, which offer you a great opportunity for SEO.
With time, people will get more used to with smart home assistant devices, and the voice queries will increase too. So, if you optimize your website for voice searches, then you are more likely to appear in the results. You should note that keywords for voice searches are going to be different from the typical ones.
Since people are speaking and not typing like they usually do, the keywords are likely to sound more natural. While using smart devices, people are more likely to ask questions instead of a typical query. It means content in the answer format is likely to get promoted in top results. And keep in mind to avoid the use of keywords that sound unnatural.
5 – Influencer marketing
People buy the word from an expert instead of trusting a random ad. And if you get an influencer to advertise your product or service, then you can attract a vast majority of customers.
You must know that eight out of ten people go about buying the products after receiving a recommendation from the influencer.
You can turn social media influencers into an excellent marketing asset. People trust influencers, and you can use it to benefit your business. Influencers marketing tactics include shout-outs and collaboration with your brand. You can also invite the experts over a podcast or a video, etc. That way, people can build trust with your content as well.
You would be happy to know that you can get a return of $18 for a single dollar you invest. I can safely vouch for the fact that influencer marketing can get you higher returns than traditional marketing methods. So, why not benefit your business in 2020 using influencer marketing?
6 – Video marketing
Recently, video marketing has become popular with customers, and it also provides great ROI. Texts and images are the two powerful ways to influence users; videos have become an essential marketing tool too. You should know that 8 out of 10 people have bought a piece of software or business app after watching the brand’s video.
So, if you want more people to download your app and make purchases, then running a video advertisement is the best way to make it happen. Research says that people tend to trust video content more than plain texts and images. So, by creating a branded video, you can highlight your plus points and stand out among the competition.
You can post videos on social media platforms, and by clicking on them, people can land to your website. Also, note that an average internet user spends 88% more time on the site with video than plain sites with text. So, now you know the drill.
7 – Mobile-friendliness
A mobile compatible website has two significant benefits. Google gives a boost in the ranking to a mobile-friendly website. Secondly, it enhances the user experience for mobile users. And better user experience automatically leads to more conversions and more revenues for your business.
If your website is mobile-friendly, then it can turn your website visitors into your loyal customers. When people encounter a mobile-friendly website, then 74% of them are more likely to revisit it in the future. And if your site is not mobile-friendly, then you can end up losing 48% or more of your customers.
Those stats speak volume about the importance of the mobile-friendly website. Such a website can give you massive leads and conversions in the long term. But, instead of creating a different website for mobile and computer, instead, you can get a responsive website. Such a site runs smoothly across all channels, be it mobile devices, laptops, or tablets, etc.
8 – Website reviews
Trust is the most critical factor in online shopping. When people search the internet for a particular product or service, they are more likely to read reviews before purchasing them. A whopping 84% of the customers treat an online review as a personal recommendation from a friend or family.
People rely on reviews of the product or service to decide whether or not to go for it. Thus, you should provide your website visitors with reviews. If people don’t have any method to verify your product or service, then they are less likely to buy it. Therefore, you should offer your customers to share their opinions about your products or services.
Also, my last thoughts on this point – don’t worry if the reviews are negative or positive. When your website has a review system, it instantly becomes trustworthy. And search engines provide a better rankling to the site with reviews too. I believe those are enough reasons for you to have a review system on your website.
9 – Keyword research is the key
Over the years, Google has transformed from a search engine into more like an answer engine. Now, keywords don’t get used in websites the same way as earlier to increase relevance. However, keywords still act as a foundational base of your SEO strategy. You cannot ignore the fact that keywords are the necessary element for ranking algorithms, be it text or voice.
There are a great variety of tools to help you with keyword research. Google keyword planner, UberSuggest, and SEMrush are some of the popular and useful tools to research keywords. You can figure out the most commonly used keywords by using a combination of all such tools.
The best thing you should keep in mind is that don’t work on most-searched keywords. Instead, you should work on keywords that receive the most clicks. If your keyword research is strong, then you can indeed get more traffic to your website. So, foster your keyword research process in 2020 and start getting more clicks to your website.
10 – Social media marketing
Social media has become an integral part of people’s life. There are over 3.5 billion active social medial users worldwide. That’s nearly 50% of the entire population of the world. Also, people spend most of their time scrolling through social media. It offers you a great marketing opportunity, and you can attract social media users to your business.
There are lots of innovative ways to run a social media campaign for your brand. You can create a short video ad and run them in the stories of your targeted audience. You can create online contests for social media users where they can tag you with a branded hashtag or a picture. And the best among all is collaborating with social media influencers.
71% of your customers, who have had a positive experience with your brand on social media, will suggest your brand to their contacts. Therefore, you should have a social media team to serve social media users. Further, you can also create convenient backlinks to your website using posts and images, etc. Even a small investment in social media marketing can give you excellent returns.
To put it all together.
According to me, those were the ten SEO trends in 2020 you cannot afford to miss. I recommend strongly to integrate conversational marketing, influencers, video, and voice optimization in your SEO campaigns. These can really propel your online presence to the next level.
You should note that 75% of the people never go beyond the first page of the search engine. It means your website should appear on the first page of the search engine to get the maximum visibility. By practising the above trends, you can indeed accomplish the same.
So, tell us your marketing goals in the comments, and where do you see your website in 2020? Write in with your comments in the box below.
