Ever since Google announced it was going to start ranking websites on the basis of their mobile friendliness, SEO has been under a microscope. In this post we’ll take a look at what that means for you as an online marketer and how you can prepare for it.

What Search Engine Optimization is Today?

In my opinion, quality and relevance are the main ranking factors. We can say for sure that exact-match keywords are going obsolete.  When it comes to SEO, the focus is on keywords and how they are used in a website’s content. In other words, what search terms do people use when they’re looking for your product or service?

In previous decades, SEO has made some exciting improvements. Several of the strategies that were used even a year ago are now outdated. And it’s not a reach to believe that the methods we are practicing now will be out-of-date in the next year.

Ever concentrated on pleasing their users, search engines like Google and Bing are continually renewing their software to guarantee continued progress and market dominance.

Current updates have added the use of curated data to give:

• instant information,
• the segmentation of users based on their position and devices,
• and the prioritization of unique content (in a critical sea of unoriginal images, text, and video).

To begin, let’s sketch the shifts we see happening in the future of SEO. We expect several “shifts” or trends to influence SEO in the future. Of those, we’ve recognized the top six below.

Changes we expect in the Future

Change 1 – User Intent

New updates to search engine algorithms have become better at equaling search results based on our intention and common language patterns.

In simple words, if you were a travel agent 20 years ago, you might fill your content with terms like “flights” and “airplane”.

You would expect that, when someone ransacked one of these words, you would be one of the first to show up in their results page.

Now, though, based on your geographic location and your search history, these research terms will give you very unusual results as they consider a very distinctive intent.

For example, when I Google search the word “airplane” today, it thinks I don’t want anything to do with jet-powered flying machines. Instead, it populates my first results with information about the timeless 1980 satire film starring Leslie Neilson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Not sure what that tells about the way Google observes me, but it’s dead right on what I assume to see based on that search term.

That might look like a ridiculous example, but it’s symbolic of one of the most critical trends in SEO in recent years. Where SEO was once formulaic and anticipated, it is shifting increasingly more and more individual and serendipitous.

We foresee this trend to proceed in 2020 and beyond because a search engines’ primary focus is its users. In other words, Google’s top precedence isn’t improving your product or service (for free). They’re involved in the pleasure of the people using their search, and highly personalized results mean happy users.

If Google has billions of happy users who come back time and again, they can turn around and charge us to reach them in the form of ads.

This thought process has driven to what some are calling, albeit moderately ominously, the death of organic search, and the second shift we see in SEO.

Change 2 – High-Quality Content Is Crucial

Online advertisements still work for driving business, but we will see that they’ll get even more valuable in the coming years. And regrettably, there’s no guarantee that consumers will react to your ads. 

Do you know that Ninety-one percent of total ad spend is viewed for less than a second; this led to a $38 billion in digital advertising spend lost in 2018.

That’s why producing high-quality content is an imperative element of productive SEO strategies.

Users want content that is appropriate, effective, and up-to-date. And that is what Google tends to compensate for with higher search engine rankings.

People go to search engines with queries, and your web page needs to give answers.

Content must be well researched and develop a relevant structure that makes it effortless to search and read. Here is a well-informative blog about how to create evergreen content.

Change 3 – Voice Search

Over the past few years, the searching style of people on search engines has changed completely.

Usually, people used to do searches by entering simple words and phrases on search engines, which in the IT world are known as Keywords. But as soon as we entered the smartphone era, things changed.

The smartphone technology made life easier by providing maximum results with minimum effort. The Voice search feature is the most popular among people all over the world, and it has become a part of daily routine.

Introducing the voice search feature on your website will be a good initiative resulting in getting more organic traffic.

Voice search feature will make a good impact on SEO. As it provides the user ease in searching and getting relevant information just by speaking, it is more like talking to a person and getting your answers instead of typing in search bars.

Keeping in mind that the search engine must have to be efficient and sensitive enough to get the user relevant information just by receiving vocal commands.

2020 is the decade of smart technology, and to sustain in the market; you need to adopt new trends and update to the modern features to stand out in the IT world.

Change 4 – Focus on Speed and the “On-the-Go” Mentality

We are in an era that is always on the go, and we have no time to spare.

 In my personal opinion, the future of SEO lies in speed. Many SEOs might believe this starts and ends with the website speed, but there is a lot more to it.

Because of the improvements in customer technology, we’ve connected anywhere we go. And this has enabled users to use a fast-paced, ‘on-the-go’ intellect, whether they are on the go or not!

In other words, if your website, your content, your response can’t be reached quickly, then it’s going to be ignored.

This is why we demand to think ahead about site speed.

The content that we are producing needs to be identified, yet enlightening. How we are doing, it needs to be quick yet compelling. We need to give the reader precisely what they are looking for in the least time possible. And they need to be able to access it—whether it is an organic search or through inner linking—as quickly as possible.

Change 5 – Having a Brand Will Be Even More Important

One of the most important things that a brand can do is to have a strong online presence. This will help consumers recognize your product and make it more likely for them to buy from you.

Brands have been known to use SEO in their marketing strategies for a long time now, but the importance of having a strong online presence has grown many folds.
People are increasingly concerned about their online privacy, and they want to know that brands they do business with will respect them and not misuse their information.
More often than not, people tend to keep on doing business with companies that they’re comfortable with whether it is personal or professional.

Change 6 – The Rise of VR Marketing

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-simulated environment where people interact with digital objects that appear to exist in real space. It uses various technologies like headsets, gloves and sensors which are being used by companies to increase their sales through immersive marketing. Virtual reality has become a big part of our lives, as it offers us  the ability to go anywhere and do anything in a virtual world.

In the future, we can expect companies to use VR to help them increase their sales by allowing people to try out products before they buy them. And this will make it easier for the consumer to decide whether or not they want the product.

Companies like Samsung, Sony and Google are already using VR technology on their devices and have been doing so for a while now. And as more companies start adopting this technology into their marketing strategies, we can expect it to become more common in our daily lives.

Important Changes That Are Already In Place

The Rise of AI in SEO

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a fast-growing technology that’s changing the way companies do business. Google has been using AI in its search engine to predict what users are searching for and how they might best find those results. The use of AI can also help companies better understand their customers and market themselves more effectively. All in all, AI is making life easier for businesses.

AI has been around for a long time, but it’s only recently that we’ve seen its full potential. But even with the recent advancements in AI, there are still many things that can be done to improve the efficiency of these new technologies and make them more useful to people and companies alike.

Optimizing Your Visual Content SEO Is Becoming Increasingly Important

Because of the rise in popularity of mobile devices, SEO has become more important than ever. To maintain a strong ranking on search engines, you need to make sure that your website’s visual content is optimized as well.

The more visual content you have on your website, the better. Even though text-only search results still get plenty of traffic, people are much more likely to click on a photo or video and then proceed to read about it.

You can optimize your visual content by optimizing it for keywords you want to rank for. For instance, when writing blog posts about “home sales,” you might use images of homes and real estate agents, rather than generic stock photography images that don’t relate to the subject matter.

Getting More Selective with Your Link Building

Link building is an important part of your website’s success. It allows you to get more visibility for your site, and it also helps increase the number of referrals from other sites that come to visit yours.

However, your link building efforts should be focused on the best possible links you can get. It is important to realize that not all links are equal, and some will generate more traffic than others.

It is important that before you link to other sites, you should do your due diligence. You can find out what the competition is doing by checking their website or social media profiles. You also need to check if they have a blog where they discuss anything related to your niche and how it relates back to them. If they are engaging in conversation on their site, this will give you a good indication of whether people are talking about them online.

To get more qualified links from popular websites, start with content marketing as this will be an effective way of getting linked up with blogs and influencers who can help promote your business.

In Conclusion

I hope that you found this post useful. I also believe it is important for businesses to stay on top of latest trends and technologies, especially when it comes to marketing. Because of this, I try to keep myself up-to-date with what’s happening in online marketing so that I can share my knowledge with others who are interested in learning more about digital marketing.

With that being said, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this article. What do you think about the use of AI in online marketing?
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below and I’ll be sure to respond!

Thanks again for reading!