SEO Trends 2021 - What You Need To Know
SEO Trends 2021 - Each year, new technologies shape and define how we access and interact with content. You may have used the same proven strategies as before, but you need new approaches to keeping your site and content accessible and relevant. Or perhaps you're lost in a sea of bigger competitors who drive traffic while you sit on the sidelines.
SEO is constantly evolving, and we must constantly adapt to increase our visibility. Even if the basics have remained the same for years, what are the new SEO trends 2021 and criteria to know in 2021?
SEO is constantly evolving, and we must constantly adapt to increase our visibility. Even if the basics have remained the same for years, what are the new SEO trends 2021 and criteria to know in 2021?
Important preliminary remark: SEO trends are not necessarily the criteria to apply first. If we take the first that we will mention (mobile and loading time), it has less importance on the positioning of a site than powerful links and good content.
MOBILE FIRST AND SPEED
THE IMPORTANCE OF MOBILE
The mobile compatibility of your site is becoming more and more important every year. Google will indeed switch to a 100% mobile index in the years to come. In other words, if the search engine doesn't consider the content on your site to be mobile-friendly, you risk not appearing in the results over time.
Today, 70% of sites are already in this index. It is therefore important in 2021 to be part of it. Moreover, it is not negligible for visibility, but it is even more so for the user experience (and therefore to increase your sales).
Be careful though , keep in mind that Google only thinks in terms of URLs. Your home page may be deemed mobile compliant but an article may not. It is the same for the loading time.
RESPONSIVE DESIGN ADAPTED
The minimum to set up is to be mobile compatible, but it can be done intelligently. This involves two concepts:
- A “mobile first” responsive design: this means designing your site for mobile first, and enriching it as the screen size increases. The phones will therefore load only the files and rules that they need;
- Optimized loading time because the latter is even longer on a mobile device: it will be necessary to optimize the total loading time, the weight and the number of files present in each content and in particular pay attention to the TTFB.
WHAT IS TTFB?
For those who do not know what it is, the TTFB (Time To First Byte) is the time that your site will take to transmit the first data, ie the HTML content. The shorter this period, the easier it will be for Google to crawl and index your content.
METHODOLOGY
How to do?
- Have all the URLs of your site in responsive design;
- Design your site with a responsive mobile first design;
- Maximize loading time.
For the first two points, many tutorials exist on the web (for developers). On WordPress, this will require a theme that includes this standard.
For speed, there are also technical articles on the subject. The easiest and fastest rule to set up, especially on a CMS, is to have a caching system (eg. WP Rocket).
How to test?
For the mobile part:
- The official mobile URL testing tool;
- The menu dedicated to this aspect in your Google Search Console account;
- Manually on your phone;
- By resizing your browser on your computer;
- With tools like BrowserStack.
For the charging time:
- Free tools, like the excellent GtMetrix (the “Timings” tab during a test will give you the TTFB in particular);
- By testing for yourself on phone and on your computer;
- With the dedicated menu in your Google Search Console account.
RESEARCH INTENT
THE INTEREST OF UNDERSTANDING THE NEED
Understanding the user's need has always been the basis of marketing and web marketing, and it has always been so for SEO. A better understanding of what an Internet user is looking for is essential since it allows:
- To better respond to its demand, and therefore to better convert (sales, registrations, subscriptions, etc.);
- To differentiate yourself from the competition;
- To communicate more effectively;
- To "understand" what Google wants.
When we dig into natural SEO, we realize that year after year, Google personalizes more and more the type of result according to the query and the search intention:
- Transaction: I want to buy (eg “purchase lawn mower”);
- Navigation: I want to go to a specific site or move around (“Leroy Merlin”, “Lawnmower store”, etc.);
- Information: I want advice or information ("How to mow your lawn");
- The mix of these intentions , in particular the reviews ("Which lawn mower to buy", "Best mower 2021", etc.).
SEO in 2021, this must necessarily lead you to three essential questions:
- What are the Internet user's needs when doing this research?
- What is Google showing on this query?
- How can I respond optimally?
METHODOLOGY
To answer the previous questions, the following good practices must be implemented:
Have a marketing vision:
- do market research;
- question your customers;
- look at what internet users are looking for in your internal search engine;
- ask your salespeople and colleagues how they feel and what are the recurring issues and questions among customers and prospects;
- Type the query in Google and look in detail at the results chosen by Google;
- Do a real keyword audit.
BUILD TRUST
EAT CRITERIA
The more the years pass, the more important it becomes to establish the credibility of a site. It is important for the Internet user, but it is becoming more and more important for the search engines. We then speak of the EAT criteria (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness):
1. Expertise - You are competent in your field
2. Authority - You are recognized as a credible and known source
3. Reliability - Your content is considered reliable in this topic.
The updates of 2020 and then the premieres of 2021 have shown it: the authority of a site, especially in certain themes, can make all the difference (the famous “Medic Update” which had notably impacted on health, credit or finance).
There is no such thing as an “EAT score” in SEO: think of it as a mindset on how to design your site and write your content.
METHODOLOGY
How to do?
Obey the law with:
- A complete legal notice page;
- A GDPR banner.
Make it easier to make contact:
- with a visible phone number;
- a functional and complete contact page.
By clearly showing who you are:
- with an “About” page;
- with a clear and unequivocal identification:
- the owner of the site;
- of the author of each content;
- With your contact details at the bottom of the page.
By having a real marketing and communication strategy:
- you have to build your brand;
- Get talked about on other sites and on social networks;
- Etc.
How to test?
Simply navigate your site and put yourself in the user's shoes. Ask yourself if it is easy for him to answer these questions:
- Who owns this site?
- Who wrote this content?
- Is the publication credible?
- Can I easily contact them?
INDEXING AND TECHNICAL BRAKES
SEPARATE THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF
Today as before, indexing is the necessary prerequisite for successful natural SEO: you have to succeed in indexing all the content that is relevant.
Google must absorb an ever increasing volume of content year after year. Unfortunately, the resources of the search engine are not exponential. Indexing and crawling all of the content on the global web requires ever greater resources.
Search Engine and Indexing
Added to this is the fact that more and more criteria are taken into account throughout the algorithm, which again requires additional resources to analyze them. We now know that Google will notably take into account to a greater or lesser extent mobile compatibility, HTTPS, loading time or even schema.org markup (be careful, however, everything that has just been cited n does not necessarily have a real impact on positioning).
The objective is therefore to concentrate on the indexing and crawling of your relevant content, while ensuring to reduce or even remove all content and elements of little relevance to the search engine. An article by Oseox speaks about it very well, I strongly advise you to read it: indexing, towards a new paradigm.
If you are on WordPress, know that on SEO KEY, this is precisely our goal: to clean up your unnecessary content and tell you how to optimize the relevant ones.
METHODOLOGY
How to do?
The best advice we can give you on this topic is to be wary of what your site is going to do, even if you think the content is correct and relevant.
You must therefore use different means to detect content that is of no interest, items in error, and those that do not rank in the search engine. Clean up!
How to test?
We therefore strongly advise you to train yourself and use the following tools:
- log analysis, to find out exactly what Google is doing on your site;
- Google Search Console data will give you a more or less detailed list of relevant and irrelevant URLs on your site;
- a crawl tool to simulate Google's journey from the home page of your site (Screaming Frog Spider SEO for example).
TRACK GOOGLE CHANGES
LISTEN, BUT DON'T ALWAYS APPLY
Search engines are constantly evolving. They will thus change their algorithms, modify filters, change their display, bring new features and much more. With the improvement of technologies and the use of "artificial intelligence" and Machine Learning, the pace of change has accelerated.
In 2021 more than ever, you need to stay on top of all the search engine developments. Be careful, this does not mean that the new recommendations must be systematically applied , but at the very least you must keep abreast of them. In the last few months alone, Google has implemented or changed several things:
- a new display for natural results and for desktop and mobile ads (with quite a bit of testing and changes underway);
- highlighting FAQs;
- new user experience criteria ( Core Web Vitals );
- changes to schema.org markup taken into account;
- etc.
Moreover, it is sometimes even advisable not to surf on news because in some cases it can be harmful. Take the example of Position 0 (the result displayed at the top of the page). Since its inception a few years ago, Wikipedia has lost 20% of its traffic.
Another example, Google has again been indicating for 2-3 years that loading time is important in SEO, but very recently, the American giant admitted that it was ultimately a criterion of very little importance.
METHODOLOGY
To keep up to date with Google's changes, there are different solutions. The first is to simply follow the official search engine accounts. They will give you information on current or future technical developments:
- Google's official blog for webmasters;
- The Search Liaison Twitter account.
We repeat, do not take what they say at face value since certain elements sometimes have much more or less impact than what they advertise.
Then, do a real relevant watch on the reference sites that summarize or aggregate SEO news:
- Abundance;
- SearchEngineLand;
- WebRankInfo;
- Secrets2Motor;
- Etc...
Do the same with SEOs who more or less frequently publish tips, analyzes and real good practices to put in place on their blogs or on Twitter accounts.
And last but not least: by testing everything you are told to do for yourself . Nothing is better for a SEO than to test in real conditions.
WHAT ALWAYS WORKS
We have seen the new SEO trends 2021 (or the ones that are gaining importance). But keep in mind that the best practices always remain the same!
THE LINKS
Let's face it: this article has so far highlighted recent developments and trends in natural SEO. But the basics of good SEO are always the same, starting with links.
Today, the popularity of a site is still one of the major positioning criteria. We can (unfortunately or fortunately) have a well positioned site, even if it is not responsive, even if it has shoddy content and if it has no credibility: with good links, anything is possible.
So always keep in mind that getting people talking about you remains essential, and that the implementation of real netlinking campaigns will allow you to progress.
A SOUND TECHNICAL BASIS
Again, this is a basic. You need a technically clean site:
- no errors in the code;
- no unnecessary links;
- no duplicate content;
- no unnecessary content (goodbye your “Happy New Year 2021” article and goodbye WordPress labels );
- good loading time;
- responsive design;
- HTTPS;
- etc.
The goal is very simple: not to slow down the search engine when it browses and then indexes the different pages of your website.
GOOD CONTENT
And finally, good content is also the basis of good SEO: take care of your publications so that they meet the user's needs and that they are pleasant to read. This will allow you to better convert, build loyalty, and also and above all to better position you!
SEO principles are gradually changing as search engines implement new algorithms and new tools for website promotion appear. In this article, we've highlighted the top SEO trends 2021 that will help publishers work more efficiently on optimization. At the same time, we cannot but note that some of the "trends" may already be familiar to you, since they were relevant this year and will not lose their importance in SEO in the near future.
Quality Content is King Of SEO
Quality content is a decisive ranking factor that we put first. The better the content you create, the higher user engagement and site returns. This path can be long and thorny, but in the end all the work done will be appreciated.
Google doesn't like poorly written texts and will not recommend you to users if the information on the site does not match the keywords used.
The worst thing you can do to promote your website is to write short texts and optimize them with a lot of keywords. This is such an outdated promotion method that it is no longer even accepted to speak out loud.
It is much more important that the article solves the user's problem. Search engines find content that is read to the end and shared as worthwhile. As far as keywords are concerned, their number should be moderate. Now it is a tool for finding your audience, and not a means of fetching useless traffic.
In addition to the useful content, you should also take care of a pleasant interface of the website and gradually improve it.
Conversion Is More Important Than Traffic
A lot of views is a good indicator that speaks about the work done to attract an audience to the site. However, the effectiveness of a site is not always determined by the number of visitors. In pursuit of traffic, one should not forget about the target action that must be performed by any person who enters the resource.
Imagine that your site has a million visits per month. If this was your goal, then congratulations - you are on the right track. But if an advertiser comes to you or you yourself want to sell a product or service, and only 2-3% of the entire audience will be interested in it, you have failed. What does this mean? You have attracted readers to your site, not buyers.
A site with lower traffic can convert more applications than a million-strong blog. And this is also an indicator of the quality of the resource.
By analyzing this SEO trend, we recommend that you choose the right website development goal. If you're selling something, then focus on conversions, not traffic. Based on this, you can build a reliable optimization strategy, choose the right sites for promotion, choose the right keywords and present products and services in a favorable light.
The EAT Principle is Still Valid
The EAT concept stands for Expertise, Authority, Trust. Previously, Google used it to assess the quality of content, but in May 2019 it changed this principle to a new one - Page quality, and EAT became part of it.
The EAT concept means that content in the public domain should be created by an expert in his niche: a medical article - a doctor or an author with honey. education, and instructions for assembling a computer by an engineer. Google reserves the right to request confirmation of the author's qualifications.
Why is It Important To Adhere To The EAT Principle?
Google is interested in ensuring that users receive up-to-date and reliable information on their queries. If the data on the site can harm the visitor, then the search network pessimizes its pages in the search results.
Factors That Contribute To an Increase In The Site's EAT Level:
- completed page "About me", where there is all information about - you and your activities;
- positive reviews on the site;
- positive reviews and high ratings on third-party Internet resources;
- Backlinks from reputable sources trusted by users.
Advice! If you receive a link from a suspicious or irrelevant site, remove it using Google Disavow. Also, don't forget to check the sites you link to yourself.
46% Of All Searches Are Local
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, local SEO has somewhat lost its position, as people stayed at home and could shop in online stores and buy services without being tied to their city. However, this does not mean that Google has stopped counting local data in search results for user queries. On the contrary, the search network is introducing new data filtering systems and customizing capabilities and restrictions for different types of business.
We recommend that you take some time to your Google Maps account and analyze its effectiveness. Also, don't forget to track your competitors and work with reviews, especially negative ones. Correct mistakes and improve service quality.
Adapt SEO To The New Reality
Experts predict an increase in the volume of the E-commerce market worldwide. In the US alone, sales are expected to surpass $ 740 billion by 2023. After all, if there is a choice, people would rather choose to purchase goods and receive services online than offline.
Fortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has shown that owners of almost any business can expand a business online or completely transfer it to the Internet space. Here are just a few options that can be used as "fallback":
1. Delivery. In the field of food sales, restaurant business, home delivery is the easiest to implement. You can distinguish yourself from competitors by a convenient and flexible system that will make your customers' lives more comfortable. In normal times, this type of activity will act as a related service, and during the quarantine period it will keep your income at the same level.
In SEO, this will give you a new audience that prefers shipping. Your core will be replenished with valuable keywords, and your business will gain a reputation for multitasking and progressive project.
Also, cooperation with delivery services is still relevant. It can be used for marketing purposes: advertising on the partner's website and social networks will definitely bring high-quality traffic and increase conversion.
2. Goods to go. This applies mainly to restaurants and grocery stores. To better organize the sales process, experts recommend creating a separate page for “food to go” on the website and allowing users to pay for purchases online. Then they will be able to come to the pick-up counter and pick up the order. For consultations and clarifications on the part of the client, you can create a chat bot, an online support window or a hotline.
3. Online consulting is a profitable solution for those who provide offline services. This will allow meetings to be held without being tied to the office. The business will expand its client base and popularity on the Internet, the site will replenish the core with new keywords. Also, the new type of activity will improve local SEO, as satisfied users will be able to leave feedback on consultations.
4. Video, photo tours. A great idea for real estate agencies, furniture stores, interior design agencies and others to visually showcase their products or services to clients. This can be realized in the form of a 3D gallery, video calls, a large number of photos - new content has a positive effect on SEO and brings new customers.
In the sequel, we'll talk about other SEO trends 2021 that are just gaining popularity and will peak in 2021. Follow the release of materials on our blog and page in Facebook...
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