It is no longer news that as a business, you need to continuously improve on your SEO skills. Every year, new trends emerge to help businesses better manage their online presence and increase sales through SEO best practices.

Voice, video, user experience, authority it’s all changing when it comes to how Google ranks your website. SEO is always a changing landscape, and Google is ever-evolving and changing it’s ranking algorithm to make the user experience even better.

So, to start seeing positive results from your SEO campaign, you need to think what little surprises Google has in store for us for 2021.

We will also look at some of the SEO trends and strategies that most businesses are taking advantage of in 2020, and the best tips and advice going into 2021.

• How to Create The Best SEO Strategy For 2021?
• What Are The Top 4 SEO Trends in 2020
• The Best SEO Tips And Advice For 2021

How to Create The Best SEO Strategy For 2021?

Your customers and target audience leverage the web in their everyday life and they use their computer, mobile device and in-home smart devices (Alexa, Google Home, etc.) to assist in making decisions that range from where to live, what to eat, what to wear, which car to drive, how to entertain themselves, and so on.

Regardless of the business you’re in, you can benefit from a solid search engine optimization strategy.

Read Also: How to Estimate SEO ROI From Content Marketing

If you’re not at a point where you’re ready to outsource your search engine optimization to an SEO company, here are some simple steps to create a your own SEO strategy that will help you make the most of basic SEO best practices for your business.

Learn the basics of SEO

Learning the basics of optimization in terms of layout, content structure, keyword research, and keyword optimization are vital. Perhaps your website needs a few tweaks to help it function better as a lead generation tool. Or, maybe it’s time to give it a complete overhaul.

If you hope to achieve anything, your website needs to be accessible and friendly to search engine bots. They will crawl each page and determine how to index it—or where to rank it.

They consider many factors in their crawling efforts, including metadata, backlink profile and domain authority. They also consider what your visitors do on the page once they arrive, such as bounce rate, pages per session and time on page.

User experience and engagement is equally important to the more technical aspects of optimizing your website. You want that traffic to convert to a lead, a buyer, or to opt in to your email list so that you have an opportunity to market to them in the future.

And the search engines consider what their traffic does upon arrival in determining whether or not to send you more of the same sort of traffic.

Always check your Google Analytics and make sure everything’s tracking properly, spam filters are added and the website traffic looks accurate.

Check in on your analytics each week and start comparing month over month, even year over year, to find trends and insights on where users might be getting stuck or where you could spend more time optimizing, such as a blog post that continues to see visits five years after it was published.

Define your objective and audience

The goal is to get found by your target customers. And after they find you, you want to then convert leads into sales. But, how are you going to achieve all of this?

Whether you sell something from a website, provide a home service, or simply want people to be able to step foot inside your brick and mortar shop, defining your objective and your audience will help you formulate an effective SEO strategy.

What types of problems do they need help with? What questions would they be asking themselves, or Google? How can you be their go-to resource or solution?

Do some research. Define your goals and a strategy, then implement it, and then assess results continuously so you can determine what to tweak, what to replicate, and where to spend your time and efforts.

And, beyond getting found by your audience, we also want to ensure your company appears to be the best resource for your niche or industry. Paying attention to SEO isn’t just about your business.

Competitive analysis is a big part of this so be sure you not only know what your customers want, but also what your competitors are doing (and are not doing) to meet their needs

Take a Closer at Your Website

What sort of website do you have? What sort of website do your biggest local competitors have? Your goal is to get to the top of the rankings wherever possible and to illustrate why your company should be considered the best option by potential customers who will do some comparison shopping.

Things like quick load times, ease of purchasing products, simple site navigation, and an obvious call to action are all important aspects of good web design.

Run through a few scenarios of what your customers might be looking for when they land on your website.

Even better, set up a UX test through one of many sites online or host a focus group and ask them to run through scenarios and collect realtime feedback from people who aren’t familiar with your website or offerings.

CRO (conversion rate optimization) can be beneficial if the site and basic information is there, but you need some guidance on where to place things and what to add.

If you’re pretty savvy with updating your own website or have someone on staff that can help implement the changes, you can request a CRO audit to gather the ideas and recommendations.

Continuously Work on Your SEO

Search engine optimization isn’t an exact science. There are so many factors to consider and they are ever-changing.

After you’ve optimized your website, continually check your conversion rates so that you can understand what sort of experience your visitors are having with the site.

• Are they being converted into buyers (if you’re an online business)?
• Do you have a high bounce rate (the traffic sources never dig deeper past the page they entered on)?
• Are you getting quote requests or leads from your website?
• If your business isn’t eCommerce, are rising website traffic levels equating to an increase of in-store purchases?

Off-page and on-page SEO

SEO is made up of many things, and implementing both an on-page and off-page strategy are important.

Off-page techniques, such as link building and business citations, that direct traffic your way from high authority websites will help your site appear relevant and this can drive qualified traffic to your website.

On-page SEO techniques such as content optimization  will help your content, including blog posts and main service pages, rank higher in search results.

While optimizing your website, you’re trying to make it easy for search engine spiders to crawl it, understand it, and you want to make it crystal clear that your site is relevant to your industry.

Not only does the content and link building improve your online visibility, but so will your mobile friendliness, user experience and pagespeed.

SEO takes time and is essentially a never-ending process as search engines continue to evolve. And, as soon as you start to make progress, a competitor may come along and nip at your heels.

Keyword optimization

The right keywords in the right places are important. Some keywords may feel impossible to gain traction with. There could also be low-hanging fruit that you’re able to capitalize on with great success.

On-page optimization

Keyword placement in the URL, page title, subheadings, image ALT tags and metadata is necessary along with building internal and external links with the keyword as the anchor text.

Also consider the length of your content and what gaps you may be missing out on compared to your organic competitors. SEMrush and Ahrefs offer tools to help you find what content you should consider adding to improve rankings.

Avoid keyword stuffing

Quality is more important than quantity in terms of keyword density. Every page of your website has the potential to draw in traffic and resulting business, but if the quality of the user’s experience is poor, not only will they leave without buying, but the high ‘bounce’ rate will force search engines to assess whether or not your site is worthy of traffic based on your target keywords.

Off-page SEO

Depending on your business type, an off-page SEO strategy could include content marketing, social marketing, video marketing, and more. Look at what your competition is doing, know your target audience, and read up on SEO strategies related to your niche for extra help.

Competitive analysis

What is your competition doing right? How do you stack up? What are they not doing that you could fill a gap for? If you don’t have a whole lot of local competition, have a look at other areas or national companies to help you devise a good SEO strategy.

Tip: Just because you don’t have a lot of competition today doesn’t mean that won’t eventually change. It’s important to continually assess rankings, conversion rate, and competition to ensure you not only do well with SEO and online marketing but that you continue to appeal to your customers for repeat business as well as target customers doing comparison shopping.

Other things to consider:

• What will people search based on in order to find you?  They aren’t all using a computer. Voice search terms as well as local identifiers are important, too.
• Which social media sites are your target customers most likely to use? Certain target audiences spend more time on Facebook, others on Instagram or Twitter. A solid social media strategy can augment your SEO efforts. Split test and measure results to determine if you’re on the right track.
• Beyond organic SEO, how can you get more traffic to your website? Some use paid ads. Others write more on-site content and leverage inbound marketing practices to drive traffic to their website. Email marketing or newsletter marketing can also help as can posts on social media sites about specials, discounts, new products.  In addition to SEO, search engine marketing and other paid advertising campaigns could pay off.
• Reviews / online reputation are paramount in certain businesses — restaurants and home services, for instance. Monitoring your online reputation is an important part of your SEO and online marketing strategy. Don’t just optimize for the word ‘Best’, work at gaining a reputation as being the best, too.

Analyze your competition, SEO, and analytics continuously

Read your website traffic reports religiously to see what’s going well, what needs improvement, and to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry as far as trends, competition, and SEO techniques go.

If you are planning to do your own SEO, you’ll need to allocate time to it on an ongoing basis. At some stage, it might also be advantageous to hand it over to someone else.

As for beginners to digital marketing, new and small businesses, and entrepreneurs, learning the basics of search engine optimization will serve you well and there are many SEO learning resources out there to help you.

What Are The Top 4 SEO Trends in 2020

Mobile and Voice Search

We don’t yet know how big voice search is, but we do know that mobile search is going strong, and we have many sources to confirm that, including:

• Back in 2015, Google revealed that more people were using mobile search than desktop search in 10 countries, including the US and Japan
• In 2018, more than half of website traffic in the US was coming from mobile devices
• Last year consumers spent three and a half hours a day on their mobile devices

Consequently, Google has switched its priorities by introducing Mobile-First Index, which means that Google predominantly uses the mobile version of a page for indexing and ranking.

In other words, if your page doesn’t look good on a mobile device, or if the mobile version has less content, you may lose rankings in both mobile and desktop search results.

Given that mobile device users often use voice search to find answers while on the go, it is safe to assume that voice search is getting popular, and these two trends are very well connected:

• Both mobile and voice users are likely to be looking for answers while in the middle of the task (so they need clear, concise answers right away)
• In both of the cases, the top result (which is often the featured snippet) is really what matters. So we are competing for the top result now, versus top 5 positions as we did a few years ago

How to Optimize Your Site for Mobile and Voice Search

• The first step is to make your site mobile-friendly and fast because page speed is important.
• Adapt your content strategy to catch those featured snippet opportunities to outrank your competitors. Mobile users seldom have time to scroll, and with voice search there’s only one result being read to the user. This makes featured snippet optimization incredibly essential for your online visibilit — you are either there or nowhere.

There’s a lot to featured snippet optimization, but below are some of the main points:

• Researching current featured snippets for your important queries (and learning from them)
• Structuring your content with H2-H3 subheadings that address questions behind queries triggering featured snippets
• Providing quick, concise answers (no longer than 90 characters) below each subhead for Google to grab and feature.

If you include these steps in your writing guidelines for your content creators to use, you are halfway there:

• Use this writing checklist that includes both of the above (and more useful) guidelines
• Scale your content creation process using Narrato to build a team of content creators that do a good job following those guidelines. The beauty of this platform is that it matches you to the most suitable writers automatically and, after some time, you have a solid team that knows your requirements and creates content fast. In an era when you need a lot of content, and you need it fast, this is a life-saver:

Video is an Important Source of Information

Just as voice searches are becoming much more popular, videos on the internet are also exponentially on the rise. Studies from Google and other organizations show that 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television. In many ways, it seems that YouTube has now become the new TV.

Current internet users, especially millennials and younger, prefer to get information through online videos, either for academic purposes or just for entertainment.

That’s why implementing online video should be on the radar for most businesses. A quality video can attract many users if it is dynamic and doesn’t put viewers to sleep.

But how does this affect SEO?

To reach more people with your videos you need to optimize it for search users. To do this, use appropriate keywords in the description and headline of your video which will guarantee that the video reaches the largest number of people who are interested in that subject.

The Length of Your Content is Very Important

Web pages that contain longer high-quality content usually get more visibility today. But why is that? Well, the truth is that internet users prefer to get all the information they need from a single reliable source.

Studies have shown that pages that have articles of 2,000 or more words usually get more readers than an article with fewer words.

But high word count alone isn’t enough—the content must be comprehensive and rich enough to answer all the questions users have and be able to address closely-related questions.

In addition to this, the more time users spend on a web page, the more likely Google will reward that page with more organic traffic.

Ideally, you should publish high-quality content consistently so that your website will always stay active and fresh in the eyes of Google and its ranking algorithm.

High-quality Content is More Important Than Ever

Online ads still work for driving business, but we’ll see that they’ll get even more expensive in the coming years. And unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that customers will respond to your ads. 

Ninety-one percent of total ad spend is viewed for less than a second; this led to a $38 billion in digital ad spend wasted in 2017.

That’s why creating high-quality content is an essential element of effective SEO strategies. Users want content that is relevant, helpful, and timely—and that is what Google tends to reward with higher search engine rankings.

People head to search engines with questions, and your web page needs to deliver answers. Content must be well researched and follow a logical structure that makes it easy to navigate and read.

Informative and quality articles are the only type of content that will grow a website’s popularity in 2020 and beyond. Online consumers are quick to detect and ignore web pages or blog articles that are too salesy.

According to the Economist Group’s “Missing the Mark” Report, “71% of readers say they were turned off by content that seems like a sales pitch.”

What people want is educational content delivered to them in easy to digest forms, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.

SEO is very important today for businesses irrespective of the industry. Although this doesn’t refer only to the use of keywords—it also entails optimizing content for users.

After all, Google is a search engine that processes information based on how search users behave and it’s getting more accurate, which means that each year new trends appear that change the way information is published on the internet.

This ensures that all users can get their questions answered in a matter of minutes (or even seconds).

The Best SEO Tips And Advice For 2021

Just 5 years ago it was so easy to rank a website on Google’s 1st page and to get visitors to a website. Those good old days are long gone due to the increase in competition.

It’s 2020 now and ranking a website in Google is not that easy. Google’s algorithm keeps on changing to give its users the best possible results.

So, if you are trying hard to rank your website, below we have listed a few SEO tips and advice to look out for in 2021 that will work as a wonder for your website.

1. Video Content

Did you know that video content has a six times higher conversion rate than non- video pages? If your website has informative video content that people will enjoy watching, then they are six times more likely to give you a call.

Video is a potent marketing tool, and Google will know how people are interacting with this on your site. The higher the engagement, the more you’re page will rank.

Consumers are obsessed with getting information, and if this can come to them via a short, snappy video then even better. They prefer to watch a quick video about a product or service than reading lots of information.

Pages with video content are 60 % more likely to rank on page one of Google. Videos don’t have to be lengthy. Short 1 minute videos are long enough to entice your audience and get them excited about your offering.

2. Voice Search

In 2019 over 25% of all searches conducted on Google were voice searches. So, what does this mean for your website and SEO campaign? It means that you have to integrate long-tail keywords.

For example, rather than optimising the words ‘rubbish removal Sydney’ you would be looking at a more conversational and relaxed approach to search queries such as: ‘who are the best rubbish removal companies in Bondi’. Which again takes us back to the importance of local search.

For SEO purposes, what you need to be doing is addressing all these types of search questions in your content. Targeted answers are to every conceivable item is impossible, but you should think about what consumers would ask for and write copy for this.

As mobile & Google’s technology becomes more sophisticated, we are predicting voice search to become a ranking prerequisite for 2021.

3. Google My Business Profile is Good For Business

Local search is more important than ever, and having an updated Google My Business profile is vital as customers look locally for products or services.

Roughly 80% of online searches are for local suppliers, and Google My Business plays a massive role in identifying your business as part of the local community.

Local businesses need to know about the benefits of an active Google My Business profile. It lets customers know your address, phone number, and more importantly, reviews from other local customers.

It elevates your standing as a local business and in turn, brings in the new business leads.

For 2021 Google My Business should be looked at as a powerful online platform that needs to be regularly maintained.

4. Great Website Content is Compulsory

Whether you’re writing articles, blogs, or just updating the content on your website, high-quality content will play a massive role in 2021 for your SEO rankings.

Google’s emphasis on publishing fantastic copy that’s informative, unique, user-centric and easy to read has been essential but moving forward content will be the focus of most SEO campaigns.

If you can satisfy the customer’s inquiry, then your page will rank above others. Other factors come into play, but the content you publish is an influential ranking factor.

Most people use Google to conduct searches for products or services, and Google will only prioritise sites that offer clear and concise answers to all questions.

Makes sense really as people are time-poor and want to have the very best information at their fingertips. Most SEO companies used to rank link building as one of their most critical strategies to rank a website, but the tide is changing with more agencies shifting their focus to quality content.

5. Make Sure Your Website is Secure (SSL Certified)

There’s nothing new about having a secure website. Nothing is worse than having your site hacked. Users are becoming more suspicious or clicking on websites that don’t offer security, and the only way they can now see that a site is secure is by an SSL certificate.

They are cheap, easy to install, and your hosting or SEO company will be able to do this for you. So, in 2021 is of paramount importance to have a completely secure site so your browsing customers will feel confident when entering the site.

6. Mobile Optimisation

People conduct over 85% of internet searches on their mobile phone. This figures should prompt you to do something about the user experience for mobile users, because Google is indexing your mobile site first.

What this means that if your website has not been optimised for mobile phones, your rankings will suffer.

So, if you want to have better Google rankings for 2021, you must start to think about how people search. Yes, they are on their desktop at work or home, but the majority of your customer base is on their phone.

The advantage of having a mobile-friendly website is not only to make it easier for your customers but also for your Google rankings in 2021. It’s time to wake up and realise the massive benefits that Googe can deliver your business by merely making your website the best it can be on mobile.

In most cases, it’s a simple couple of tweaks that your web developer can implement. Why not experiment yourself and see what your website looks like on your phone. If you’re unhappy with the results, it’s time to make some much-needed amends.

Read Also: SEO Services As A Way To Earn Extra Income

Also, make sure your site loads quickly on the mobile as your customers are on the go and want instant gratification.

Delays and slow downloads will destroy the experience, and you end up losing what could be your next customer. Google will also note this and penalise your site if this is a common occurrence.

7. User Experience is Key

In 2021 it will be all about the user experience. What happens when people come to your website, how long do they spend there and do they delve deeper into the site exploring more pages?

Although traditional forms of SEO, such as link building and content marketing, will still play a prominent role, Google will now also incorporate user behaviour and user interaction with your website.

What you need to be doing is taking a close look at your Google analytics to see bounce rates and how long people are spending on each page. This type of data can help you fine-tune your website for better user experience and in-turn help with your Google rankings.

Optimising your website for your users requires some to/fro and what we call A/B testing. A/B testing involves tweaking landing pages throughout the site and continuously repeat this process based on the data you receive from analytics.

Having the perfect landing page doesn’t exist. What you can do is collect data, analyse this and tweak these pages till you see an improvement in rankings. 2021 will be the year that user optimisation dominates Googles ranking criteria.

8. Invest in Local SEO

Local search is one of the best ways to drive potential customers looking for a local product or service. Over 65% of online searches are for local businesses.

If your company has not been optimised for local search, you are going to miss out on business. As more businesses are starting to see the benefits of local search, the more competitive the online space will be for that niche industry.

For example, if you’re a plumber in Bondi and are looking for local customers, you can bet that other plumbers in the area are also looking for local business.

In 2021, people want quick, instant results whether they are looking for the local florist or the nearest Thai take away. And, Google will prioritise these businesses with a focus on local content and local offerings.

You can optimise your website for local search by:

• Updating your Google My Business Page and making sure all the details are correct. You can do this easily by login to your account and add or delete any information. If you haven’t created an account, it’s easy to do. Just follow this link: https://www.google.com.au/ business/sign-up/index.html

• Create local landing pages for local areas. Plumbers in Bandi might also be looking for work in areas nearby such as Bellevue Hill, Paddington and the Sydney CBD. All you need to do is write unique content for each local page. Simple as that!

Local SEO is not only for tradies but for any professional or company wanting to attract business locally. Remember, these people are close by and are ready to hop into the car or grab an Uber and pay a visit.

So for 2021 think local and attract a massive customer base willing and prepared to buy from you.

SEO is not rocket science, but it does take a lot of work and dedication to providing the best content, graphics and user experience to the public.

In 2021 this is the way to go, and if you’re not willing to put in the hard yards and effort, then you need someone who can