SEO Tips: Use these 4 important tips before 2021
Use these SEO tips to rank better in Google
The ever-changing nature of SEO is both beautiful and frustrating all at once.
With so much information readily accessible about SEO, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with what you should and shouldn’t be doing. Another point of frustration is how easily you can commit to doing something before finding out it isn’t worth it. Even when you follow SEO best practices, it might be months before you see any tangible results.
While SEO trends can come and go, sometimes it’s clear that something is here to stay. Here are four SEO tips for trends that you can take action on right now that will continue to be huge as we move into the final quarter of 2020 and 2021.
SEO Tip 1: Create original research for E-A-T
E-A-T stands for:
- Expertise.
- Authoritativeness.
- Trustworthiness.
E-A-T has long been part of Google’s publicly available “Quality Rater Guidelines,” and is now a key ranking signal.
Where does your site’s content stack up against those measures? You should think about the following:
- If you’re not recognized as an expert in your field, you should consider hiring experts to write on your website. Google’s algorithm looks for content written by those identified as experts in their niche and favors this in its search results. That’s not to say you cannot establish yourself as an expert or authority figure in your industry over time!
- Your site’s authority is mostly determined off-site, by the volume of respected outlets that cite you or your work. This is where having original research can be a goldmine. If you create something that you own, people have to (or should!) credit you when they report it. If you end up with citations from existing high authority sites, this will build your site’s authority. You don’t even need a backlink! Another sign of authority is that all your site’s content falls within one topic or is organized into various topics within a clear structure.
- Is who you are evident from your website? As a measure of trustworthiness and transparency, you should ensure you have an “About Us” and “Contact” page and information about your authors on your website as a minimum.
SEO tip 2: If you can say something in a video, do it!
Sandvine’s 2019 Global Internet Phenomena Report highlighted that video content accounts for over 60% of all online traffic.
This isn’t just people consuming content on YouTube and Netflix. It’s people looking for high-value content who prefer watching a video guide to reading a blog. It’s people who want to be shown rather than told something.
If you can say something on video, do it! Proprietary video content featuring you or someone from your business is always best. However, even embedding video content from other sources in your blogs can increase engagement with your pages and lower your bounce rate.
When you create video content yourself, use captions to improve the user experience for anyone watching the video, and write transcriptions as a means of further optimizing your page. If a video is the main piece of content on your page, optimize your page titles and meta descriptions accordingly to make it clear what’s on your page.
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SEO tip 3: Optimize for featured snippets
The number of Google searches ending without a click passed 50% in 2019, and it’s only going to continue growing.
This isn’t because people aren’t finding the results they want, but because Google is answering queries via Featured Snippets. Why would someone click on a website if they can get the answer without doing anything?
As a site owner, this can be hugely frustrating and make you question why you bother to create content or optimize your site at all. However, it’s a reality that we all must live with. Therefore, you might as well do what you can to appear in Featured Snippets, get the “search result real estate,” and at least have your brand positioned there. Various studies have shown that, even if the Featured Snippet is not from the site ranked top for a query, the Featured Snippet still generates more clicks. As we were writing this article, Search Engine Land published a discussion between popular SEO professional Barry Schwartz and Google’s Martin Splitt that addressed this very issue.
Most Featured Snippets are between 40 and 60 words in length. Look to create blocks of content, such as answers to questions, of this length to improve your chances of earning a place in a Featured Snippet.
Tools like SEMRush can help you identify which keywords you rank for have Featured Snippets and other search features attached to their results.
SEO tips 4: Optimize your site for voice search
Voice search is now so widely used that “optimizing for voice search” is virtually the same as optimizing your site in general.
Over 75% of voice answers come from the top three results for the spoken query, while over 40% of voice search results are sourced from a Featured Snippet. Having your site featured in voice answers can sometimes be even better than having a Featured Snippet. People who read a Featured Snippet may not recognize it’s your brand, but if their Amazon Echo or Google Home device reads out your brand name as providing the answer, it might have a better chance of sticking in their mind.
A fantastic way to optimize for voice search is to have many questions and answers on your website, similarly to how you would optimize for Featured Snippets. Why not optimize for Featured Snippets and voice search as part of the same project?!
Take action now!
Each of these four factors and trends is here to stay. If you haven’t been acting on these SEO tips already, it’s time to get started!
