SEO Trends: Semalt Tells How To Promote Your Website 



Regular updates of the ranking algorithms impose more and more stringent requirements on the sites. In SEO, the trends do not appear spontaneously but generally coincide with the general trends in the internet marketing.

In this article, we will try to figure out what should be emphasized in order to bring your site to the TOP of the search results.

Optimization for mobile devices

In the summer of 2019, the sites' owners began to receive notifications from Google that their sites were moved to Mobile first index. This means that Google now evaluates the quality of the sites and ranks the websites basing on the mobile version. Moreover, the display of your site on the mobile devices will not only affect the mobile results, but also the desktop ones.

The share of the mobile traffic on the websites is constantly growing, and most of the purchases are made from the smart phones. Therefore, the present adaptation of the sites for the mobile devices is not just a trend, but a necessary component of any business.

What to look for:
  • A website with a responsive design from a SEO point of view is preferable to a mobile version on a separate domain. Thanks to the Mobile first index, the mobile version of the site can get into the desktop search results, which will lead to a large number of refusals, deterioration of the behavioral factors and as result, to a decrease in the site ranking.
  • The site should not only "look normal" on the mobile devices, but also work correctly and without errors. You can find out how well your website is optimized for the mobile devices using the Mobile-friendly Test in Google Search Console.
  • Ensure optimal website loading speed. No one will wait forever for your site to load, especially the mobile users. And to make it easier for you, we have reviewed the best services for checking your site speed.

Voice search

People are increasingly communicating with their devices, and the gadgets like the smart speakers for many have become almost family members.

According to Google statistics, in 2019, 20% of the mobile searches were asked by voice. So far, most of the voice queries are informational - however, the share of the commercial queries is constantly growing.

Over the past years, according to Yandex Wordstat, the number of the georeferenced requests: "nearby", "near me", etc. increased by 50%. The presence of such phrases in the search queries indicates that it was set by voice. In the text queries, there is usually a georeference associated with the name of the city.

What to look for:
  • Focus on the content quality. To get into the results of a voice search, it must be useful to the user and rank well in the search results. Most often, Google takes the responses of the voice queries from the sites that are in the first three positions in the search results.
  • The text should contain both question and answer, so FAQ sections on the sites are the best suited for the voice searches.
  • Use fewer exact occurrences of the keys. A voice search is fundamentally different from a text search. A voice query is often much longer and more detailed than a text query. Keep this in mind when you are creating a content, use more words' variations and synonyms.

Site security

The increase in the number of the online purchases leads to the fact that the users pay more and more attention to the security of their personal data.

After receiving a browser warning that the connection is not secure, the user will most likely leave your site and go to your competitors. As a result, the bounce rate will grow, and the site's position in the search results will deteriorate.

The Search engines are always on the side of the users, so the websites with a low degree of security will never be offered in the search results.

What to look for:
  • Issue an SSL security certificate for the site. It encrypts data between the users and the site and prevents the third parties from accessing it. It is especially important to have an SSL certificate for those sites where the users enter confidential information (for example, passport or bank information).
  • Make sure your site is not transmitting data to the third party sources. An exception may be the web analytics services that collect depersonalized data.
  • Close those sections of the site that involve entering personal data (for example, a personal account or a basket) from the search robots indexing task.

Local SEO

We have already mentioned above that the mobile device users often search for the places and the services near them. This leads to the next trend - site optimization for local search.

According to statistics, more than 80% of the users who have found information about a company through a local search turn to the offline offices and the points of sale during the day. And 50% of the clicks in the search are not referrals at all. The users either receive information about the company directly on the search results page, or go to the search engines services, for example, to the maps.

What to look for:
  • Set the site region in Yandex.Webmaster and Google Search Console. Register your company in Google My Business and Yandex.Directory. Try to fill out the cards of your company in these referenced systems in as much details as possible.
  • One of the biggest ranking factors in maps is reviews. Feel free to ask your customers for feedback on the services you have provided.
  • Your rankings will be influenced not only by the number and the frequency of the reviews, but also by how quickly you respond to them. It is important to handle not only negative but also positive comments. The companies that respond to all the reviews rank higher than those which ignore it.

Quick replies

The Search engines increasingly monopolize the search results. Sorcerers, local pack, quick replies - all this aimed at keeping the users on the SERP for as long as possible.

This has already resulted in almost half of Google search sessions ending without clicks. And if it is convenient for the user to immediately receive an answer to his question without taking additional actions, then for business owners who rely on organic traffic, many difficulties arise.

What to look for:
  • Collect the key queries in interrogative form and use it as the subheadings in the text. The first paragraph following the subheading should contain a short answer to the asked question. This paragraph should not exceed 370 characters.
  • Create longreads in which you can answer a large number of questions.
  • Use tables, lists and videos in the text.
  • Optimize the Meta Description tag on the promoted page. Indicate on it what questions you will answer on this page.

Understanding the intent of a search query

The intent is what the user means when he enters a query into the search bar. It often happens that the same key phrases entered by the different users have completely different meanings.

In order to determine the intent, the search engines use several parameters:
  • available statistics on the phrase;
  • additional words from the request;
  • device used;
  • the context of the search profile of the authorized user;
  • geolocation.
For example, if you enter the query "Napoleon" into the search box, the different users will see different results. Someone will be shown cake recipes, and someone will be shown the biography of Napoleon Bonaparte.

What to look for:
  • Analyze what types of intents are the key phrases included in the semantic core of your site. Also the knowledge of which category a keyword belongs to will make it easier to satisfy your user intent.
  • Determine what is the user problem on your site should solve and filter the semantic core. Then you will not promote commercial pages for information requests, and vice versa.
  • Create content that accurately matches the user intents. You can also repackage old articles that ranked well in the past for the new search intents.

Link building based on brand image

A website promotion through a bulk link buying is a thing of the past, but the backlinks still play a big role in search engines optimization. However, the link building is presently based on your brand reputation.

If your brand inspires trust with the users, then they will happily share your content, thereby increasing the natural link mass of your site.

What to look for:
  • Be an expert in your field. Participate in themed events and conferences.
  • Do not entrust the writing of the site's texts to the random copywriters. But choose highly specialized writers who are well versed in your subject's matter.
  • Do not neglect guest publications on thematic portals. Do not forget to correctly enter links to your site in the texts of articles. The more often you are cited by authoritative sources, the better your site will rank in the search.
  • Ask your partners to post the links to your site and get feedback from the opinion leaders with a link to you.

Google BERT algorithm

In the fall of 2019, Google introduced the BERT algorithm, which is designed to improve the relevance of the search results by analyzing not the key phrases, but the entire sentences.

Previously, Google analyzed each request as a set of the key phrases and selected relevant pages based on the presence of the searched words on that pages. With the help of BERT, the search engines will understand the context of the query due to the fact that, now not only the key phrases are analyzed, but also the auxiliary words in the query.

What to look for:
  • Structured the information on the site and then the search engines will understand not only what is on the page, but also how each element of the page relates to the other elements as well as to the other pages of the site.
  • Analyze the search queries for which the traffic was attracted to the site and add the relevant phrases to the content, expand the semantic core by using synonyms.
  • Pay attention to the search suggestions. So, you can get the low-frequency phrases that are not found in the other sources.

Increasing the value of visual search

Over a billion visual searches were performed through Google Lens in 2019. In 2020, the number of such requests will only increase.

Visual search matters primarily for ecommerce. Google is able to find a huge number of products just by its images, so a large number of the online stores do not only optimize its images for the global visual search, but also use the similar technologies for the internal site search.

What to look for:
  • Name your image files correctly. The titles should contain the keywords for which it will rank. Use the transliteration in the file name, separate words with hyphens, not spaces.
  • Add alt and title attributes to the images. The alt attribute contains a short description of the image and allows the search engines to index it, while the title serves as the title of the image. Both of these tags appear in the search results.
  • Optimize the image size. Also the heavy images slow down your site's loading speed, which also affects your site's search rankings.

Video for SEO

According to forecasts of Cisco experts, by 2021 video will receive about 80% of all global traffic. And 43% of the users say that they don't have enough video content.

The users are ready to watch videos not only on the video hosting sites, but also on the regular sites, and the search engines meet them halfway by offering extended video snippets in the search results.

What to look for:
  • Create and develop your Youtube channel. Place the links to your site under the video and redirect traffic to it.
  • The search engines use title, description and tags to identify what the video is about. Remember to use the keywords when you are filling out these parameters.
  • Add subtitles to your video. It will help the search engines to better recognize the content of the video.
We examined the main trends in the search engines' website promotion in 2020. We hope that our recommendations will help you to win the battle for the TOP positions in the search results. Or you can entrust the search engines' promotion of your website to Semalt.com.