It seems like only yesterday when many entrepreneurs running a website for their business typically balked at the idea of spending for search engine optimization.
That is clearly no longer the case today, as SEO has become indispensable for websites with hopes of topping search results and becoming more visible to more Internet users. Webmasters and optimization specialists alike are continually refining their SEO strategy, and are always on the lookout for the latest SEO trends that can give them a leg up on the competition.
A number of SEO trends have already reared their heads for 2020. Some are carryovers from 2019, while others are new ones that have yet to be proven. In any case, let’s take a look at some SEO trends for 2020 that you need to know.
Content is king, but video will be king of content (if it isn’t already)
We’ve already seen the way Google favors videos, as they seem to be more likely to appear on Page 1 of search results than web pages containing nothing more than plain text. And with video expected to make up 82% of all web traffic by 2022, there is no doubt that the profile of video will continue to rise in 2020 and beyond.
To capitalize on the ever-growing popularity of video, you can create and publish explainer videos about your products and services. If you can create YouTube videos that go well with your website’s current content, then go ahead and do it. While videos do not necessarily guarantee that your page will land on the first page of the SERPs, the fact that Google will eventually index your videos increases your site’s chances for higher traffic.
Longer, high-quality content
Just because video is dominating the Internet doesn’t mean you can set the written word aside.
Videos may be easier to digest and are more engaging than articles, but people on the Internet still like to read such pieces, especially when they’re well-written, helpful, and relevant to your niche.
And if several studies are to be believed, 2,000-word articles or longer are going to make more of an SEO impact in 2020, since they tend to be more visible than shorter write-ups and make people stay longer within your site.
For high-quality content, you might want to consider publishing more of:
- Authoritative blog posts
- How-to articles
- List posts
- Infographics
Voice search will continue to rise
In 2019, voice search was quite popular among adult users. Forty percent opted to use voice search at least once a day last year.
For 2020, experts predict that adult voice search users will increase to 50%, giving voice search equal footing with the traditional typed-in search.
With this scenario, SEO practitioners will have to work hard to come up with matching voice search strings to optimize, so they have a much better chance of ranking well in voice search results. SEOs will have to be able to think and speak the way their target audiences do.
The use of other search engines will grow
Google may be the biggest and most widely-used search engine of the last couple of decades or so, but other smaller search engines have carved their own space and got their share of users just the same.
In 2020, many predict that search engines apart from Google are going to be used by more people. There will be more Bing, YouTube, and Amazon users. Even a relatively newer search engine like DuckDuckGo is bound to get its fair share of new users, who will likely find its efforts to make search engine use a bit more private quite appealing.
Google is still THE search engine to optimize for, but it would definitely pay to increase your SEO efforts for Bing et al. as well. It would be a mistake to forgo the rankings, organic traffic, leads, and conversions these non-Google search engines can provide, even on a slightly smaller scale.
More businesses will leverage influencers for SEO
Ads have been with us since time immemorial, but these days, people are less likely to believe and trust whatever message they bring than the reviews a popular influencer makes about a certain product or service.
It probably boils down to authenticity, which influencers are perceived to have plenty of when delivering their views on certain things. Whether or not that is 100% accurate is still up in the air, but there is no doubt that influencers do have tremendous sway among their followers, with whom they continuously engage.
Entrepreneurs who run websites recognize that influence, and that will make more of them leverage influencers for SEO in 2020. This makes a lot of sense, since popular influencers can, with one review or even mention on their channel, help generate traffic, backlinks, and even authority for their websites.
Mobile search will continue to dominate
This is actually a no-brainer, considering how decisively mobile has dominated the digital world since 2016. In 2019, smartphones and tablets were the devices of choice for 80% of users for surfing the Internet. To drive that point home, especially among entrepreneurs, about half of those users used their mobile devices to do business online.
With the continued dominance of mobile, it’s only logical for SEOs to make optimizing for mobile a priority in 2020 and beyond. Failure to do so will make them miss out on the benefits of doing well on mobile search.
SEO trends come and go, and it’s a certainty that some of the trends mentioned above will either stick around for years or fade away immediately.
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt to make adjustments to your SEO strategy using these trends as a basis. After all, SEO has always been and will always be an evolving field. It’s entirely possible that everything we know that works today may no longer do so tomorrow.
So keep up with these trends, and see for yourself which ones will work wonders for your website.
