SEO Trends to Expect This Year

It’s become vital to keep up with the trends, or your website will be left behind with the SEO industry being so unpredictable and volatile.

You’ll need to listen to both the data and data-driven speculation if you want to control the ranking of your website. 

While trends from last year may repeat themselves, extrapolating data from then helps us become ready for this year’s trends (and even those for next year). Here’s what you need to know about this year’s trends. 

1. Passage Indexing

Google has launched a new algorithm called Passage Indexing. Google takes snippets or “passages” from your articles and exhibits them as part of the results for relevant search queries. Long-form content is now king. Long-form content covering all bases and most search engine queries will be most effective at ranking the top. 

Google focuses on ranking holistic content that offers an in-depth look at the topic and answers search questions from users. There is now an added importance of dividing content into multiple sections where each one tackles a subtopic because of the newly introduced Passage Indexing Ranking Algorithm.

2. Focus on User Behavior and Search Intent

There is a shift away from traditional SEO practices, which lessen in value as Google's algorithms grow stronger. Businesses must pay more attention to search intent or the audience's search queries and provide them with answers in their content. 

Google's algorithms better understand what users are searching for – expert advice. Content that has ticked off everything in the E.A.T. (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) ranks better. Businesses need to listen more to their audience and offer relevant solutions instead of just promoting and shoving products and services down their throats. 

Search intent and user behavior go hand in hand, so brands need to understand their customer's behavior more and provide solutions. Focusing on user behavior unlocks opportunities in creating content that keyword research would otherwise have overlooked. 

3. SEO Localization

Businesses need to concentrate their attention on creating authentic quality reviews on various platforms. Users' search results will vary depending on their location. That's because the ranking websites in one location are not necessarily valuable for another. 

Richard Perrin, the director of Paramark and an SEO expert sheds light on this and says, “Country-specific content has been seeing a rise in ranking over global ones in the past few months. And from what I’m seeing, it seems that Google is prioritizing highly localized search results and will continue to do so.” 

So if you're looking to target a local audience, be sure to include specific information on your location such as the city, state, country, and even geotags to rank higher on Google. Google will provide results helpful to users in a specific location. So it shows different search results for keywords depending on your location, whether in different cities, states, or countries. 

4. Better Snippets and More Structured Data

Major search engines, including Google, use Schema markup in gathering information for its data snippets in search results. These rich snippets help Google crawlers extract the specific content users search for and showcase it in the search results. 

This microdata vocabulary helps Google understand the content on websites relevant to user searches – including what that content means and how to serve rich results better. Numerous businesses are already utilizing and benefitting from schema markup. It’s placed them way ahead of their competitors regarding ranking and visibility. 

And with Google supporting new Schema markups every year, it’s only going to grow, with plans to include video schema and educational sites in its vocabulary. 

5. Streamlined Omnichannel Campaign

When you look at the average consumer today, they’re everywhere on social media. They’re on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more simultaneously, and even on a search engine like Google looking for answers. That’s why it’s essential to have an omnichannel strategy in place as a business. 

SMBs can strengthen their presence on different channels while keeping it streamlined to reflect their brand genuinely unified. Different branding for different pages can be confusing for your target audience. 

While an omnichannel strategy is vital for your business, it’s also equally important to streamline all of your channels to manifest a cohesive branding campaign.

Summing up

These are only five SEO tips offered in an ever-changing industry. So as algorithms grow more robust and more innovative in detecting search results, it’s necessary to stay up-to-date with the latest SEO trends. 

Blink, and you lose an update that could easily cost your website’s ranking. Always check the data in front of you and listen to speculations from exp[erts in the industry to help you prepare your digital marketing campaign for the months to come.