Search engine optimization is an element of marketing that needs attention. In 2021, developing and improving SEO is still relevant to boosting your online presence. As each new decade comes around, many businesses are looking to what changes will be made within the digital world. It’s an ever-developing landscape that needs constant attention.
So what practices are worth knowing about when it comes to SEO? Here are five SEO trends that every marketer should know about when growing a successful business.
1. Quality When It Comes To Content Remains Important
The phrase ‘content is king’ continues into 2021, perhaps influenced somewhat by the increase in remote working across the world. According to Forbes, global content consumption doubled in 2020 due to so many individuals working from home.
However, the quality of content that you produce as a marketer is significant. The sheer amount of content that is shared every day makes it harder to get your site noticed above all the other noise of your competitors.
With that being said, it’s important to consider what your audience are looking for and need when it comes to information. A content marketing strategy is therefore essential for 2021. Here are a few objectives to incorporate into this strategy.
Buyer Personas
Creating buyer personas is an important one because by understanding your target audience, you can tailor the content accordingly. Build a buyer persona where you assess their needs and any pain points they may have.
Hire Or Outsource Copywriters
Quality shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg but if you’re wanting quality content, then you need to be flexible with your budget. Hiring experienced copywriters or outsourcing to a marketing agency can be beneficial. What they create will likely be more tailored to your brand’s style and tone of voice, rather than someone with very little knowledge of content writing.
Ideally, you want to hire copywriters who specialize in your industry or business niche.
Research Search Terms
How do you know what your customers want if you’re not looking at what they’re searching for in the first place? Luckily there are plenty of platforms and tools that you can use to see what customers are searching for and that can enable you to tailor the content around that phrase or term.
Not only is it important to do this, it’s also good practice to create content that is in a format your users will engage with. Whether that’s visuals like video or infographics to case studies and long-form content.
According to Impact, 61% of marketers have mentioned improving SEO and growing organic presence is at the top when it comes to inbound marketing priorities. Content can contribute to this growth.
2. Focus On UX
Businesses across many industries that operate online are focusing more on user experience or UX as it’s known for short. By improving the user experience of the interactions it has with the business, the more likely they’re going to return again and again.
The user experience can be impacted at any stage, whether they’re hitting your website for the first time or they’re taking a look for updates on certain web pages. Did you know that 39% of your audience is likely to stop engaging with the content when images don’t load, or the loading time takes too long?
They may seem like small inconveniences but they’re enough to negatively change the experience that the user has. Marketers are therefore looking at ways to improve UX. Here are a few suggestions that can improve the user experience for your customers.
Testing and monitoring
A useful approach to improving user experience is by testing and monitoring certain parts of the site. There are some great capture tools that you can use in order to see the activity on your site like Hotjar for example.
Hotjar can be a great tool to observe how your visitors are navigating the site and to help spot any problems that may be impacting the user experience.
On the subject of testing and monitoring, it’s important to ensure marketers are working alongside the developers and designers of the site. This collaborative effort will help provide more insight when creating and testing new features.
Tracking what’s doing well and what isn’t
Not everything you feature on your site is going to do well, so it’s necessary to look at both the strengths and weaknesses that you have on the platform. Offering the best user experience is providing them with something they need and can benefit from.
Heat map tools are helpful to see exactly where the hot points are on your site. This usually gives you a good indication of what’s being clicked on and engaged with, and what isn’t.
Implementing Responsive Web Design
A responsive web design is certainly a great way of retaining an excellent UX because there’s nothing worse than a lack of functionality. It’s also worth thinking about your target audience and what improvements may benefit them when it comes to navigating the site easily.
Again, this is where a strong, internal collaboration process is needed between departments. The web designers need insight from the marketing team about what would benefit the customer and developers rely on designers too.
Make data entry simple
Forms are good to have on your site but avoid overwhelming them with too much data entry. Keeping it simple is going to help them remain engaged on the site instead of simply clicking off too soon.
3. Master local SEO
Local SEO has become very important for those users who are looking for local results for their needs. Even though it’s important to focus on SEO in general, there’s a lot of benefit from mastering local SEO as a marketer too.
Don’t believe local SEO is relevant? Well, the statistics prove otherwise, with “where to buy” and “near me” mobile queries growing upwards of 200% over the past few years.
There are some simple ways that you can master your local SEO and for some businesses, it starts with creating a Google My Business Account. Other tips include:
- Utilize local keywords.
- Get yourself on online business directories.
- Develop content based on local information and location-specific places.
- Optimize for mobile devices and voice search.
4. Cater To mobile
A frequency in mobile usage when it comes to browsing the web has certainly developed over the past few years. As mobile phones have improved substantially in engineering and technology, many online users have a preference for their mobile device as opposed to other devices.
In fact, mobile accounts make up half of the web traffic worldwide. Therefore, when it comes to SEO, mobile-friendliness is critical. Marketers can benefit from making all the necessary improvements to ensure the client or company’s website is functioning at the best of its ability.
So what changes can be implemented? Perhaps start with these:
Improve website speed
The faster your web pages load, the less likely the visitor will click off. Bounce rates are useful to look out when it comes to seeing just how many jump off the site and a higher percentage can indicate poor website speed. It’s good to compress any visuals on your site to help with web page speed and to assess any plugins you may have on your site that may be slowing things down.
Make The website Responsive On Mobile
The web design and functionalities that you have implemented on the site should operate the same way on every device, including mobile. Working with the developers of your web design can help make any necessary tweaks and changes to improve responsiveness.
Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool
Finally, Google has a mobile-friendly test tool that you can take advantage of for free to find the problem areas on your site. That way, you have clear objectives to set for those responsible to make the changes.
5. Video Continues To Be Popular
As far as visual content goes, video continues to be popular. With platforms like YouTube and Instagram being as prominent as ever, there’s certainly a need for a video marketing strategy. Tiktok is another platform that generates video content so there are plenty of platforms that are benefiting from it.
Your website can benefit from visual content like video, which can also influence SEO. A few tips for your video marketing strategy are mentioned below.
- Create tutorial and how-to videos that are easy to watch.
- Focus on the intros of your videos.
- Optimize your videos with SEO content.
- Implement call-to-actions.
Again, like all other content, the video content created should be high-quality and provide value to those who engage with it. Always think about what your audience is after and cater to that need.
Trends come and go, so it’s always good to keep your finger on the pulse as a marketer because in a year or two, it may all change again. Make use of these current trends in 2021 to positively impact the SEO of your site.
