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SEO Trends You Need to Know About: Voice Search, Web Accessibility, and more…

By Gravity Forms Published September 9, 2020

Search engine optimization (SEO) is considered one of the most potent and indispensable marketing tactics available today. Over the years, the nature of consumer behavior has evolved dramatically, as has the SEO landscape.

With competition online becoming increasingly fierce, keeping up with the latest SEO trends can help brands design their sites optimally so they’ll rank higher in search engines like Google.

During 2020, Google’s BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) algorithm has continued to be widely discussed and analyzed. However, apart from BERT, other SEO trends can also impact online marketing efforts.

Below are some of the most current SEO trends, as well as some up and coming trends that you need to know about…

High-Quality and Organic Content Will Win

Time and again, Google has stated that the best way to ensure the BERT algorithm works in your favor is by providing top-notch content.

In a series of tweets, Google’s search liaison, Danny Sullivan stated “The fundamentals of us seeking to reward great content remain unchanged… BERT doesn’t change the fundamentals of what we’ve long said: write content for users.”

Therefore, it would be safe to assume that prioritizing the writing of high-quality content to boost your SEO rankings is a must for all brands and websites.

More Sites Will Optimize for Voice Search

Any discussion about Mobile SEO is deemed incomplete without tackling voice search. Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, revealed in a Google I/O keynote that 20% of mobile queries on Google are voice searches.

Also, BERT’s intent-based search algorithm, coupled with an impressive voice search adoption rate, should encourage more brands to optimize their websites for voice search.

Moving forwards, as voice search continues to pick up pace, try focusing on user intent, page speed, local SEO, featured snippets, and structured data to help optimize your site for voice search.

E-A-T Rating Will Continue to Matter

When it comes to SEO ranking, your website’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) score remains significant.

In the coming years, more attention will be given to websites that produce content that exhibits genuine credentials and expertise. More focus will also be given to weeding out inaccurate information.

Therefore, a convincing, authentic, and accurate online representation of your business will result in a favorable E-A-T score, helping to impact your SEO rankings.

Web Accessibility Helps SEO

Web accessibility and SEO have some direct areas of overlap, and it is hard to argue that accessible websites don’t have an advantage when it comes to SEO. Some specific aspects that improve both SEO and accessibility include…

• Page Titles
• Headings
• Anchor Text
• Alt Text
• Sitemaps

It is important to keep in mind that improved web accessibility leads to improved user experience, reducing bounce rates, keeping visitors on your site for longer periods of time, and boosting return numbers – these are all indicators that will help with SEO.

Featured Snippets Will Dominate the Search Results

Simply put, a featured snippet is a short summary of an answer to a search query. It is displayed at the top of the SERP results, above organic and paid ads. They have been around for years and have caused significant changes to Google’s search engine results page.

At least half of all searches result in no clicks since browsers get the answers they are looking for directly from SERPs. According to a study conducted by Ahrefs on 2 million featured snippets, they generate more traffic than the first organic search result.

More Brands Will Leverage Influencers for SEO

At least 17% of brands spend more than half of their marketing budget on influencers. This statistic clearly highlights the trust brands and companies have in influencers. This is especially true among those in beauty, travel, and lifestyle niches.

So, how can working with an influencer affect your SEO efforts? Working with an influencer can help amplify content reach, increase online visibility, and generate more traffic. And that’s just for starters.

For influencer marketing to work, you have to plan or execute your sponsored content accordingly. If it does not align with the needs of your audience, it will most likely fail. To get the most bang for your buck, choose influencers that are already engaged with your target audience.

Conclusion

When you think you know SEO like the back of your hand, algorithm updates happen. If anything, SEO is a holistic process that will require both online and offline strategies to work. Stay on top of the latest trends and invest in SEO as a long-term strategy so you do not get left behind.

What SEO strategies have worked for your business? Please share away in the comments below…

This article has been contributed by Shawn Byrne, founder and CEO of SEOPhoenix.net.

Shawn started his career in I.T. troubleshooting workstations, servers, and networks. He then went on to doing SEO as a side project and quickly found success in ranking websites.

It was easy for him to grasp not only the algorithms but also the technical side which most SEO strategists miss and neglect because of its complexities. SEO Phoenix then grew based on its own rankings and referrals.