This Article Will Help You With SEO Strategy Success in 2020
SEO is just as important today as it was a decade ago. Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is vital digital marketing. If you know what SEO is and you already have a strategy, you might think you don’t need to read this article – wrong.
SEO algorithms have changed a lot in the last couple of years. Mobile sites have priority. Voice search has impacted how sites rank. Some factors are not so important anymore. Elements are always changing around the algorithms that dominate what makes good optimization.
When SEO works, it gets more eyes on you. More visibility for your website. More leads. More conversions, if you set your content strategies right. You build brand awareness and position your website to maximize its potential. Here is what you need to be successful in SEO in 2020.
What is SEO?
SEO is the practice of optimizing a website for search engines. SEO helps a website rank on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.
When someone searches a phrase that’s relevant to your brand, you want your name to come up. The closer you are to the first result on the first page, the better. To get there, you need SEO. Popular SEO strategies include keyword, content, off-page SEO, and local SEO.
How many SEO search engines are there?
Google is not the only search engine. Its market share has actually been on the decrease, lowering from 91.7 percent in 2012 to 87.9 percent in 2019. Here are some other search engines SEO can help you rank on.
Bing. This is a Microsoft search engine. It is the default search engine in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge.
Maps. Maps is a Google search engine. It is on every Android smartphone and used frequently by mobile users.
Yahoo. The Yahoo search engine has been less popular in recent years but still holds significant global market share.
Baidu. Baidu is China’s biggest search engine. Baidu has over 80 percent of the market share on all mobile searches in China.
Yandex. Yandex is the most popular Russian search engine in the world. Much like Baidu for China, if you are appealing to this demographic, this is the search engine to use.
DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo promotes itself as a search engine that doesn’t track users, unlike Google and Bing. The search engine generates over 1 billion searches worldwide every month.
Amazon. Amazon uses a keyword-based search. It is one of the largest search engines worldwide. If you sell on Amazon, focus on strong keyword use.
YouTube. YouTube is a Google-owned search engine with more than 2 billion users. YouTube’s a keyword-based search. Use keywords in tags, titles, and descriptions.
What is the best SEO keyword strategy?
Keywords still matter. They’re crucial to SEO success. Keywords should be researched, carefully chosen, and used at a rate of 1-2% in your content.
Keywords can be words or phrases. When a person types in the keyword into Google to find content, the search engine provides sites using said keywords.
How to search for SEO keywords varies in strategy. Look for high search rates and those with low competition. You want to select keywords from three different categories.
1. Short-tail keywords, such as ‘marketing’.
2. Long-tail keywords, such as ‘marketing experts in SEO’.
3. Local keywords, such as ‘marketing experts in Toronto’.
Once you have selected your keywords, you have to use them. It’s not enough to just include them in content. Use them in URLs, titles, and elsewhere on your website.
What is the best SEO content to use to achieve results?
You can’t have a healthy SEO strategy without content. It counts for everything. Publishing content, any time someone wants to know about your topic, they find you.
Content can’t be like a sales pitch. Content should contribute value. It must be relevant, engaging, and shareable. Here are a few forms of content to use in your SEO strategy.
Blogs.
Videos.
Infographics.
Podcasts.
Social media posts.
What is Off-Page SEO?
Around the keywords and content, you include on your website, there’s also off-page SEO. This is optimization off-site. The main way to do this is through backlinks.
Backlinks are links on other websites that direct back to you. High-quality backlinks say to SEO crawlers that your site is of value. This helps build authority and helps you rank.
The best off-page SEO backlink building strategies are guest blogging, shareable infographics, and connecting with influencers.
Should I use local SEO?
More people are using smartphones to search. A lot of those searches have local intent. If you operate in a strict geographic region, use local SEO. These strategies will tap into these local searches.
Local SEO uses local keywords, such as ‘marketing in Toronto’, ‘marketing in the GTA’, and ‘marketing in Ontario’.
Another way to emphasize local SEO is to register your business in local business directories. Creating location-based landing pages on your site is also strongly recommended. Register yourself on Google Maps and Google My Business listings.
Why is SEO important for new small businesses?
SEO increases visibility. It makes it easier for people to find you. More than 25 percent of people click on the first search result and nothing past. That’s advertising you can’t buy.
SEO boosts web traffic. More leads. If you have your web design right, this means more conversions. What you want to aim for is to rank in the first five positions on Google. This is where 75 percent of all search engine clicks happen.
SEO contributes to authority. This can mean a lot. It lets users know you’re the real deal. You’re trustworthy. You have something to offer. A high search engine ranking suggests quality and excellence.
An added benefit of SEO is improved user experience. Site usability improves. Customer experiences are more positive. Mobile visitors will have a usable site to work with.
What can hurt your SEO?
SEO algorithms aren’t perfect. They can make mistakes in assessing content. Unfortunately, it’s your website that will suffer if there’s a bad strategy involved. Here are some areas that search engine crawlers struggle with.
1. A site should have a proper link structure. When it doesn’t, some pages may not be included in a search engine crawl. When this happens, your rank lowers.
2. Minimize coding errors. If you are lazy with your website design, you can sabotage your SEO strategy. Ensure your web coding skills are up to par.
3. Duplicate pages. Repeating the same content over and over is cheating. That’s how search engines see it. Your website will be penalized if you have multiple pages using identical content.
4. Forms. Search engine crawlers struggle to read the content included in forms. This is why we avoid them unless they’re necessary.
5. Images, audio files, flash graphics, and video. Content that’s not text is not easily read by search engine crawlers. Use meta-data and write descriptions. This will tell crawlers what an image or video is meant to represent.
SEO Trends in 2020
Before we close the book on what is successful SEO in 2020, there are a few trends dominating how SEO is being done this year. Here are what they are and how to use them.
Google has implemented BERT, a natural language processing model. It analyzes the context and intent behind a query. You can’t optimize for BERT but you can for your audience.
Visual search is more common. Google Lens, Pinterest, Instagram, and other sites are platforms on which to search for images. Content should incorporate more relevant high-resolution images, optimized with titles, descriptions, and alt-text.
Voice search. Over half of all online searches this year will be made through a voice assistant. Target long-tail keywords, question-and-answer content types, structured data, and featured snippets.
It’s 2020. Times have changed. Adapt your SEO. The algorithms are waiting to make you a star. Whether you’re targeting locally or the world, Unlimited Exposure can help you. Talk with an SEO expert today.
