Looking to 2020: What Will Your SEO Look Like in the New Year

Your current initiatives for optimizing your business on Search may not cut it in January. With algorithm changes and an emphasis on a fast mobile website: the pressure is on.

2020 will require a new level of sophistication and your current marketing efforts may not be up to par.

What can you do? The first step is educating yourself on where the big SEO trends are being forecasted in 2020. Here are some ways your current SEO marketing efforts could be disrupted.

Voice & Video

An algorithm change like BERT is one instance of Google emphasizing the importance of voice search. How we speak and converse will continue to impact how users find information on Google.

While voice assistants like Alexa, Siri and of course Google Assistant lead a wave of change on how we find information, users’ preferences for certain forms of content are also evolving. Video content and how it fits into SEO will impact how the written word is being evaluated, too.

You’ll need to also know how to be discovered by online users who dictate messages on their smartphones and looks at YouTube tutorial, while still showing up for someone who would prefer to read the printed manual.

What You’ll Need

Knowing how to optimize your website for voice search in 2020 will be more important than ever. Having a strong digital team behind you will allow you to understand and implement ways to find a chatty search user.

Appropriate video titles, headlines, descriptions and even providing transcriptions of your video content will all be factors that will impact the visibility of your video content, in 2020.

Your Efforts Amounting to Zero

Google continues to push changes that ensure most users can find exactly what they need on the first page. Now, this also means providing users information without needing to click through to the website, by providing answers via rich snippets and other similar means. The result? Come 2020, you might experience fewer clickthroughs to your website than ever before.

What You’ll Need

Structured data and schema markups can no longer be a “strong recommendation” to your website and your business.

Generating and embedding code on your website that provides product details, customer reviews, hours of operation and other vital details about your organization will be crucial. Ensuring all the data you need and want your customers to see shows up on the search results page will be the minimum requirement to remain relevant.

Grow The Relationship Between SEO & PPC

SEO protects you from the volatility of PPC auctions, and pursuing organic traffic can reduce your PPC spend overtime. That said, PPC is important when your organic rankings drop or are low, to begin with. Finding a way to balance these marketing efforts together will only be more important in 2020.

What You’ll Need

If you’re not already using your Google Ads data to find out which demographics, regions and keywords are pushing lead generation, that’s a problem. But also, if you’re not using that data to then inform your SEO, that’s something that will need to change in 2020.

The harmony of your organic and paid digital efforts will be critical in the new year. A strategic SEO audit could help you find where the opportunities lie and could be the perfect way to start the new year strong when it comes to your digital strategy.

Attention to Your User Data

Speaking of data, how does your clickthrough rate look compared to the average time users spend on certain pages? How are users bouncing from certain website content pages over others? Intent on finding the secret SEO formula, some marketers fail to see the forest through the trees and neglect many other golden nuggets sitting in their website analytics. This won’t change in the new year but only become more relevant.

What You’ll Need

Look at your website for clues/answers that may be detrimental to conversion and hindering your traffic growth.

Data related to how existing users are interacting with your website will continue to remain a valuable component to your SEO discoverability. Knowing how to use this data can be confusing but, by working with experts, they will be able to guide and assist you with actionable business changes.

Educate Your User, Get Noticed

55% of decision-makers say thought leadership is an important consideration when they vet new business. By focusing too much on paid channels for lead generation, organizations fail to serve content to their potential customers that would demonstrate their expertise in the field.

In 2020, investing in content marketing won’t go out of style, but only grow stronger for your organization.

What You’ll Need

Create content with the sole intention of informing and educating your user, as well as displaying the prowess of your business. Rather than creating content with the sole intent of boosting your SEO footprint, you’ll see that genuine high-quality content helps you find your audience and convert them when it shows a level of earnestness.

January is just around the corner, and doing something good for your business shouldn’t require a new year’s resolution. Start 2020 right by starting a conversation with us today.