We are always looking out for the next big thing surrounding us! And with SEO, every single day can fill our platters with something new. Is it the voice search or artificial intelligence or the rapidly changing Google algorithms that will make their mark? Here we will look at the next big thing in SEO. But first, let us understand the importance of SEO a little better.
An Introduction to SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is a way of increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to your website through search engine results, organically. SEO is a process to make your site rank higher in Google. The higher your site ranks, the more the visibility of your brand. According to statistics, Google processes over 3.5 billion searches in a day.
SEO will always help in a website’s overall searchability and visibility. But, can it be more valuable to a business?
SEO is important for every business
SEO has the power to take any business, big or small to the next level and increase your brand’s credibility. As marketers, we know that Google holds a major portion of search engine market share, worldwide, at 91.86% in comparison to other search engines. A majority of people accessing the internet will visit Google at least once a day in search of some information.
1. SEO influences the organic search results.
With SEO optimization, if your brand is more visible for being a trusted source by Google and other search engines, it will always work in your favor. As per data, 53% of trackable website traffic comes from organic search. A high-quality SEO and a good quality website will attract huge volumes of traffic, organically.
2. SEO adds to credibility and trust
We know that a majority of the world has access to the internet. They visit Google seeking some information. Your brand’s visibility as a trusted resource by Google and other search engines will always work in your favor. If your website features on the top of the search results, you have positioned your brand as credible and trustworthy.
3. Increased traffic, engagement and conversions
With SEO, a brand can showcase itself in front of its audience. A more targeted SEO will attract the right traffic to your website. A good strategy will enable your brand to reach your customers at every stage of the buying funnel. This way you can engage better with your potential customers and ensure sales conversions as well.
SEO in the buyers’ awareness stage will have questions that people normally would look out for. In the interest stage, where people make a decision, you can showcase comparisons or case studies to push your content. And in the final stage where the action takes place, you can promote your brand with sales-oriented content or coupons or some offers, etc.
4. Seo is cost-effective for a business
SEO is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing on digital platforms. Businesses can drive qualified traffic to their site without having to pay for it.
5. Good SEO helps in a good user experience
User experience has always been the top priority for every marketer. Every business wants to stay on top, wants a higher organic ranking and high visibility. And a good user experience is the only road to get there.
Google has its ways to understand this user experience as being good or bad. The experience can be in terms of core algorithmic updates, new features, products, or any changes in the SERP format. A positive user experience will make way for your website’s success. Good quality SEO will result in a happy user experience. Thereby favoring your brand.
6. SEO is quantifiable.
Many aspects of SEO can be measured with the help of analytics. The key lies in understanding the correlation between the factors affecting the growth or performance of a brand. A good SEO will look out for improving the same. The success of SEO can only be determined with the data available to us.
The consumer shall always be on the lookout for something. And SEO will assist with the same. With SEO, your business can rank high on results pages. This will attract more traffic and generate more clicks. SEO will help improve the user experience. This will give rise to more repeat customers. And SEO is definitely cost-effective.
What’s next?
We can say that SEO will stay with us for years to come and that it is constantly evolving too. The best practices of search engine optimization and the algorithms keep changing regularly. One has to monitor and keep a track of all the latest trends that can bring about a potential impact on your business or brand. A business investing in SEO will definitely stay.
Amidst several ongoing and upcoming trends, at CrayonPanda Digital Studio, we feel these trends will be the next big thing in SEO.
1. Mobile SEO
The mobile device user experience will be the big focus for SEO. Factors like site design, page speed, and site structure will be important to ensure a quality experience is delivered to the consumer. Experts will continue to ensure that a brand’s website performs well for mobile devices. We feel that Google might eventually lay complete focus on mobile sites to determine the rankings.
So, focusing on mobile SEO is essential and will only be of more importance with time.
2. Zero-click searches
Zero-click searches are search outcomes that appear on the initial search engine result page. This basically allows the users to have their queries answered right at the top of the page without further clicks. It satisfies the search intent in one go. You can optimize your keywords to ensure that your page offers this solution right at the top of the SERP.
The feature of zero-click on can drive in higher traffic and increase your brand’s credibility.
3. Core web vitals
In the year 2020, Google came up with its new set of metrics, called Core Web Vitals. These metrics were to be put to use for measuring the user experience. These included loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. All these SEO metrics aim at improving the page load speed, how stable the page is while loading, and how soon it becomes interactive.
The basic idea is to ensure that people visiting a particular website shouldn’t exit the page due to poor page experience.
4. Voice search
In this new era of digital marketing, users want quick responses to their searches. With voice search and personal assistant features, the landscape of digital marketing is evolving rapidly. Voice search is all set to change the way users interact with search engines. This also calls for a change in the SEO strategies. Your keywords selection will also change according to the voice searches done by the users.
Voice search will certainly be the next big thing in SEO, for its efficiency, ease, or convenience to use. It might even replace the traditional ways of written search.
5. Video content
Your SEO strategy should have a video component, for videos continue to be a preferred form of content. To rank high on search engines,
- Create compelling videos that convey a message.
- Embed videos on your site.
- Include videos from other channels.
- Promote the videos through several channels to attract high view time and more links to your videos.
Whenever we make a search, Google sometimes shows a video thumbnail next to the search result. This makes it a rich snippet, as users are more likely to click on the video content. And we know that rich snippets are more clicked upon.
6. User Behavior and Search Intent
Apart from all the technical aspects linked with SEO, understanding user behavior and search intent will also be the next big thing in SEO. A brand should understand what the consumers are looking for and provide them with the exact solution. Only then will a brand benefit from it. Brands should take note of the preferred content type. They should analyze the search data of all their organic leads.
This will help them refine their content journey to find what they are exactly searching for, with ease.
7. High-quality backlinks
Backlinks are links from one website to a page on another website. It is very important for SEO. In simple terms, having high-quality backlinks will signal Google that your content is deemed valuable by other resources to be linked in. So, with this, the websites draw an inference that your content is valuable and worth the rank on SERPs.
Backlinks are votes for a particular page by other websites. More the votes, higher the rank on Google and other search engines.
Conclusion
One thing to take note of is that technology keeps changing every day, only to get better. It is imperative to stay updated with the latest trends and adapt to the same. There may be several upcoming SEO trends to keep track of in the years to come, but these key points will certainly help up your SEO game.