The Next Big Thing in SEO Updates in 2020

SEO has become one primary component of successful digital marketing. Expanding and growing your business is not as steady as it used to be. The pace to reach out more leads has already exceeded. Appearing on the first page of Google stands as the new business card for any business. And we all know how it happens. Social Media Optimization is the spell here.

We are a month away from 2020! And the questions we still encounter are, “Isn’t SEO all about keywords?” “How many keywords should you include in a blog post?” “How important is back linking to achieve a good rank?”

Well, SEO has come past all of these ways ahead. The upcoming SEO trends are going to change big time. Searching on the web has evolved in the past twenty years and so has SEO since its inception. SEO is witnessing a dramatic advancement every year. Isn’t it intriguing? The tactics which were the most popular have already exhausted their usefulness. And now fall under the category of ‘outdated’. And before you know the techniques you are using now will become obsolete.

Then what next? What should you focus on now? What is going to be the next big thing in SEO? What does 2020 hold for SEO?

Well here is a guide to the most important SEO trends which are going to take over in the coming year. Are you looking to improve your SEO strategies and keep yourself in the game? You are then cruising on the right page.

1. Voice Search Optimisation

It looks like voice search optimisation is “the next big thing” in SEO. And the smart SEOs have already buckled up to optimise the content for voice search.

During his Google I/O keynote, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that “20 percent of queries on its mobile app and Android devices are voice searches”. And this is not it here are a few stunning reasons why voice search optimization is going to magnify next.

• 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search once in a day.
• By 2020, 50 per cent of all searches will be voice searches.
• Voice Search in mobile is becoming part of your everyday life rapidly.
• An average of 1 billion voice searches was recorded every month by January 2018 itself.

Well stellar enough, you know now what you need to do. Voice search is at the strong-up trend for SEO. The reasons why voice search is growing is – it is quick and definitely faster than typing. It also enhances user experience. No wonder why Google is focusing on voice search.

2. Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are here to stay!

Google’s featured snippets are not losing its importance in the coming year. The featured snippets have been stealing a lot of number one clicks. In fact, optimizing Google’s featured snippets can help in building more traffic.

According to SEMrush, 7.61 to 11.57% of all search results have a featured snippet.

You know it well, it is must to focus on keywords to rank well. It is vital to rank in the top 10 searches if not the chances of featuring in the snippets are zeroed down.

These small excerpts of content serve as the bait for most organic search results. And hence the snippets show is on for 2020. But the question is how to get featured snippets for yourself.

Provide information which is listicle and easy to understand. If you want the search results to pick your content, use bullet points contents and HTML lists. Do aim for featured snippets to up your SEO game. Though it is uncontrollable but worth trying. Just add the right content and the right keywords.

3. Visual Search at a Rise

Based on what is trending, visual searches have a high percentage of chances to take off. And if it does, it can be a master game changer. Though it is dealing with its infancy. Visual search is already working well.

Source: theverge.com

• As per studies, 62% of Gen Z and Millennial want Visual Search more than any other new technology.
• Pinterest gets visual searches of about 600 million per month.
• Google Lens has also used this feature for about 1 billion times.

People want to search with images. Visual search is super helpful for shopping, direction, identifying landmarks and many more. Optimizing websites for visual search could significantly improve user experience. It also leverages your conversion rate and online traffic.

SEO experts give very little attention to images. They generally focus more on enhancing speed than for alternative attributes and appeal. Bur the implication of visual search for the near future is substantial. Thus needs to be under the spotlight.

Image SEO is the key here. Google says they will feature images from the most authoritative pages. The future of SEO strategies looks forward to capitalizing this evolving technology.

4. Focus on Search Intent

As we list the Google ranking factors for 2020, we find search intent gaining a little more importance for the coming year. It is so far one of the most overlooked factors while trying to rank in the search results. Whereas it requires significant focus.

Source: smartinsights.com

Stress more on creating content which aligns with the search intent of the user. Merely putting it search intent is the “Why?” for the queries. The primary aim of Google is to deliver the best result to the users for their queries.

Search intent earned much limelight as a massive topic in 2019. Google has already moved away from the exact matching keywords.

It is now focusing more on the semantic meaning. Google doesn’t use the actual string of words which you type in the search box. It instead evaluates the context of the query. And the analyses the possible search intent to deliver results according to it.

5. Optimise your website for mobile

Yes, we are still talking about it. It is important to have an adaptive and responsive website. And we list what the google updates in 2020 are, this definitely makes up to the list.

Why? – To keep up the pace with the trends we are talking about!

It is crucial to optimize your website for mobile. About 40% of mobile users abandon an inferior mobile website. They rather prefer to continue with competitor’s website after a bad mobile web experience.

It is also enticing to know that one-third of all the e-commerce purchases are made on smartphones. And two out of three shoppers prefer accessing a mobile website.

Source: bluecorona.com

If you care about SEO and we know you do, this is what you should be emphasizing on. Try not to suffer from the negative impacts due to mobile-friendliness problems.

The world is getting smarter, and so should you. If we compare 88%, searches are done via smartphone alone, whereas PCs and tablets combined make it up to 84%.

Isn’t it evident that upgrading your site to make it a mobile-friendly one is going to be a popular trend in 2020?

There goes a non-exhaustive list of SEO updates for 2020. These are but just a few factors to consider which could up your SEO strategy and bring you forth in the ranking game. SEO is very important for your business, irrespective of the industry you belong to.

Preparing for the latest SEO updates for 2020 might look like a daunting task. Doesn’t it? But we know you will make it through. And we hope we have eased your work a bit to decide on which factor to look upon while emphasizing on SEO.