The trends of the SEO strategies of 2020

by Marsh Maxwell Web Digital Group

However, last year the Mountain View Company has modified its algorithm several times and in a substantial way, so as to trigger large movements in the SERPs every two weeks. Due to these constant updates and the fact that Google does not like to unbutton about the factors that influence the positioning of websites, it has become essential to try to decode the Big G algorithm.

2020 could be a crucial year and full of news for SEO. To keep up with Google you need to prepare for the changes that the New Year has for us in terms of organic traffic. In this article we reveal the 5 SEO trends that will be most important in 2020.

1) Voice search

Getting a site to the top is an art that consists of giving Google the right signals. A website, however, should never be optimized for search engines, but for users. Google, in fact, rewards those who write for the user. Not being able to know how the algorithm will change, acting in the user's interest is a good strategy to win the goodwill of Mountain View.

Millions of people are already using voice assistants and, according to estimates, the use of these devices is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. It doesn't matter if it's Siri, Alexa, Cortina, Google's unnamed assistant or some smart speaker whose name we will only know next year: vocal technology, in any form, will be one of the hottest SEO trends 2020. It is estimated that half of all Google search queries will be generated through voice commands by next year.

Voice commands are not free from critical issues. It is true that they save time, but because users pronounce search queries rather than typing them, the sentences become longer and more complex, therefore speech technology is not always able to answer exactly the questions. Today anyone who creates content must make sure that they contain scalable phrases for search engines that they are not too academic, too nerdy, but not intentionally wrong. Google understands linguistic variability and synonyms fairly well, so using phrases rather than keywords, the search engine will have more to work on.

But how is a voice assistant powered? In the case of Google, giving priority to the featured snippet, a text box designed to provide as soon as possible an answer to the user's query that Big highlights above the first result of the first page of the SERPs. In addition to the featured snippet, which is not always read, what Search users view in the knowledge graph assumes a fundamental value for voice searches?

From an SEO point of view, the most effective way to produce content capable of obtaining a featured snippet is to use bulleted tables and lists, because Google is able to read them very easily and often displays them in the highlighted snippets. This does not guarantee that you will get one, also because the results in the foreground are automatically extracted by Google, but it is a way to increase the chances of succeeding. In addition, you need to identify specific questions that could be of interest to your target audience and use long-tail keywords that, according to the studies, would activate most of the snippets.

2) Mobile First and Rich Snippet

In SEO, in addition to the featured snippets, rich snippets also play an important role which, as the name indicates, are small extracts of the content of a website "enriched" with further details, such as stars, prices, videos, events and so on. Street.

The importance of rich snippets is not limited to voice assistants, but also extends to people who use smart phones. With a few clicks, in fact, important information, such as opening hours, can be viewed on smaller mobile devices. Although Google has admitted that rich snippets are not a direct ranking factor, they are part of mobile optimization, which is essential for SEO services. After all, they make the link stand out more and attract more clicks. The important thing is to offer useful information to users, even before the search engine.

Optimizing for searches from mobile devices has been a must for years now, but with the move to mobile-first it has become a survival measure to be visible on the web. This means that if a site doesn't have an effective mobile version, Google will demote it. Take two pages that offer the same quality of content for a given topic, but only one of which has been optimized for mobile searches. In this case, the algorithm will ensure that the optimized page has an advantage in positioning.

Google therefore made mobile performance a decisive factor in the rankings; However, it is worth noting that Mister G. is not establishing a trend, but is simply following the attitude of users who have been preferring to access the internet for 2-3 years via Smartphone and tablet rather than desktop.

Mobile revenues are also expected to exceed those of the PC market. Despite the historic overtaking of mobile on the desktop dates back to 2017, 2020 will be the year of consecration for Mobile First in terms of SEO trend 2020.

3) High quality content

Another trend to watch out for in 2020 is videos. The popularity of online videos has grown rapidly in recent years, along with that of blogs, podcasts and artificial intelligence content: employees come into contact with businesses through video resumes and new employers are searched for through self-marketing videos. For any problem there are tutorials and not to think about bad weather you can watch a video on kittens. Videos are the new lifeblood of online communication, but, regardless of the content, they must first be available.

On the one hand it is necessary to adapt the content to users who make massive use of videos, who are tangentially young (the so-called millennial) and love fast and fun content, but who are not too clearly cut for a young audience. On the other, SEO must be thought of, using the video sitemap (in addition to the standard one) of popular platforms such as Youtube and Vimeo to communicate the most effective keywords and other relevant information in the metadata of your videos.

How to find out which keywords are currently effective? Using a specialized keyword research tool, such as Google Keyword Planner or Answer The Public.

4) User Experience and performance

How to make users have fun online, voluntarily disclose data and ultimately make pages interesting for search engines? Through a good user experience. The importance of UX is a component to always keep in mind when optimizing a website.

It should be clear by now that success on Google comes from users' reaction to the User Experience: a positive user experience makes users satisfied and ultimately translates into better positioning. There is a link between the ranking and the characteristics indicating a positive UX, such as the performance of a page and the speed at which the content is delivered. From an SEO and Digital marketing services perspective, even in 2020 it will be essential to design sites that are technically advanced and that load quickly, even if fiber optic technology or the 5G mobile network are gradually becoming the most requested navigation standard.

People cast their vote through shares on Facebook and by visiting websites. If you use Google Analytics, the Mountain View search engine can see all of this. A site that loads quickly, is easy to navigate, is clear and has excellent content always accompanies positive user metrics. These metrics help improve the ranking of a site. It is no coincidence that many spammy sites manage to rank in excellent positions in the SERP because their user metrics are exceptional. Google can recognize if a site does things well, and will never make people go back to the pages they like.

5) Artificial intelligence

Our future will be increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence so that the algorithms will help us make the algorithms work. Since 2015, Google too has been using an AI system, called "Rankbrain", to help you choose the ranking. Specifically, when this new algorithm is faced with words or phrases with which it is not familiar, it replaces them with others with similar meaning and filters the result accordingly, making it more effective to manage search queries that have never been done before.

In the next few years we will meet artificial intelligence practically everywhere, from service calls to the pedicure of the elderly. The need to collect and analyze user structured data for AI applications is and will remain on the Internet agenda. In his "letter to the founders", Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and today president of Alphabet, takes stock of the rise of AI with the following words: "The new source of artificial intelligence is the most significant development of the computer science in my life. "

In 2020, artificial intelligence will revolutionize SEO criteria, and it is therefore essential to familiarize yourself with it as soon as possible, experiencing its positioning benefits. In the near future, AI will allow Google to read texts even better, understand testimonials and take them into consideration when evaluating websites, in order to classify the most relevant pages for the request expressed by the user.