Search engine optimization increases a website’s traffic by making it more search engine friendly. Knowing what people are searching for and how they’re searching for it can help elevate a business and its online presence. But keeping up with the changing needs of the internet and its users can be tricky, so we’ve compiled a list of the SEO trends that will help your business grow.
Voice search
Optimizing your website for voice search is one of the best ways to increase traffic to the site. An Adobe survey conducted in 2019 found that 48% of consumers use voice assistants for general web searches. Particularly with the growth of smart speakers, which are predicted to be in more than half of all U.S. households by next year, it’s becoming increasingly important to have a voice search friendly website. Voice search is not only increasing in popularity, it also is shown to improve a website’s SEO. The average voice search result page loads in 4.6 seconds. That’s 52% faster than the average page. With that kind of advantage, optimizing for voice search can have a serious impact on your website and your SEO strategy.As far as how to optimize for voice search, there are a few simple strategies. It’s important to be concise – the average answer for voice search is 29 words. As always, using search-friendly keywords helps your content rank higher and when it comes to voice search, the higher a page ranks for a keyword, the more likely Google will select that page as the voice search result. Finally, the faster your website loads, the more traffic it’ll get when it comes to voice search.
Images will play a bigger role in search
Images are an often overlooked aspect of SEO. They’re important and can help increase your website’s traffic in two main ways: by ranking higher on Google Images and improving the website’s speed and visibility. A higher ranking on Google Image Search helps add channels that will draw traffic to your site – but the images need to be chosen carefully. One of the main causes of slow web pages is poorly optimized images. To make images the most SEO friendly, make sure they’re high quality. Be mindful of the size of the image, too – curate the size to fit the website’s own dimensions, and be sure it’s mobile friendly. The name of the image matters too – it allows Google to know the subject matter of the image and increases the SEO value.
Include videos
Video is quickly becoming an important aspect of improving SEO. The most important strategy for your website is to increase traffic – by incorporating videos effectively, you can increase traffic in the long-term. A well-created video can generate an impressive amount of links for your website, which can help attract visitors naturally and sustain that traffic long-term.To implement videos and maximize SEO, it’s important to have high quality content that viewers see quickly. When people click on your website, you have a few seconds to attract and maintain their attention. Having a high quality video well-positioned on the landing page can increase the amount of time viewers spend on your site and can help increase conversions to paying customers.Google provides a straightforward guide to help implement video on your website and make it the most SEO-friendly. Some of the main tips are: making sure your videos can be indexed, using a supported video file type and ensuring the video’s URL is stable so it can attract visitors long-term.
Be mobile-friendly
The final SEO trend to consider is being mobile-friendly. More than half of all Google searches are done on a mobile device, so making sure your website is easy to navigate and mobile-friendly is important. Now more than ever, it’s crucial to have a mobile version of your website that curates to the needs of mobile users. That means it’s easy to navigate and it’s designed to be responsive to the device being used. Implementing Responsive Design is easy and allows your site to adjust depending on the device it’s loading on, helping to ensure traffic and maintain viewers’ attention. Google recommends it. Mobile indexing is also important when it comes to making sure your site is mobile-friendly and SEO. As of 2020, 70% of all sites had shifted to mobile indexing, according to Google. That means that the index Google uses will be centered around the mobile version of a site – so rankings of searches and content will be based on the mobile version. An easy way to optimize your website then is to ensure your site is mobile-friendly and has a responsive web design.
Key Takeaways
Optimizing your website to be on top of SEO trends can help increase traffic to your site, conversions from viewers to paying customers and help establish your site long-term. It’s important to know what strategies are at the forefront right now to make sure your site stays relevant and ranks as high as possible.
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