When designing your 2020 SEO strategy for your Orange County website, prioritize your natural search strategies and ignore dealing with the wrong approach.
Take advantage of every ranking opportunity for content that Google offers you. Despite the changing consumer behavior and the Google algorithm updates, a 2019 study found that natural search accounted for 53% of all website traffic.
Here are 20 facts, statistics, resources, reminders, and practical steps you can follow this year.
Backlinks matter
Regardless of size, companies can always benefit from more links. They are the lifeblood of domain and page permissions, which are still important ranking factors. The lifeblood of domain and page permissions are these links, and they are still critical ranking factors.
Quality is essential but relative
Great content doesn’t guarantee top rankings. Links from other sites, the implementation of SEO best practices, and abundant content can all help your page rank first on Google and other search engines.
Don’t worry about every ranking factor
There is a massive gap between the ranking impact of keywords in page titles and content titles and page load speed, mobile appearance, and use of HTTPS. Although we don’t know the real importance of any factor, even though the smaller ranking variables score low, I will continue to get the highest ranking by adjusting the page titles and headings.
There are many reasons for changes in search engine rankings, including personal search history and geographic location (i.e., Google Local Pack).
Given the volatility of ranking factors, it is not surprising that Searchmetrics now releases ranking factor data by industry rather than overall reporting.
66.3% believe that the weight of Google ranking factors varies from query to query for your mobile-friendly Orange County company website.
Expect search engines to become more complex
As search engines strive to provide the most relevant results, they strive to understand the intent behind each query.
Last year, Google introduced BERT, an update to a natural language processing algorithm that is technically called a “two-dimensional encoder representation of Transformers.
So far, BERT has focused on searcher intent for one of the ten English-language searches in the United States. Therefore, the BERT model can consider the full context of a word by looking at the terms before and after the name, which is particularly useful for understanding the intent behind a search query.
Especially for longer, more conversational queries, or searches where prepositions such as “for” and “to” have a significant impact on meaning, Search will be able to understand the context of the words in the query. You can search naturally.
Don’t expect to slack off from natural organic pages on search engine results pages (SERPs)
The number one organic web page ranking is not necessarily the cause of celebration or increased traffic. Over the past few years, I’ve seen pages from higher ranking websites lose traffic.
You know the painful situation. A set of four paid ads appeared first. Then comes a selection of snippets with some shopping results, a pack of images, videos, and a “Ask People Simultaneously” box. Then, after scrolling down, your “No.” appears in a 1-inch ranking.
Google often provides a lot of basic facts on the results pages that searchers don’t need to click. According to a 2019 SparkToro report based on Jumpshot clickstream data, this happens nearly 49% of the time. The study cited more than 1 billion web searches on 10 million U.S. home desktops and Android devices.
Optimize those keyword phrases
Don’t stick to the same set of keywords. Use keyword research and ranking tools to explore new possibilities. I often refer to SEMrush, Moz, and other resources to discover key phrases that I have never considered.
Demonstrate trust and authority
Google may increasingly take advantage of what appears to be trustworthy website content. You can get this advantage by having an expert provide useful insights in the article and list their credentials in a short resume.
The focus on trust stems from Google’s 168-page document, the Google Search Quality Assessor’s Guide, which references the value of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). Google details these values in the “Search Algorithms” section of another report, “How Search Algorithms Work”:
In addition to matching words in a query to relevant documents on the web, search algorithms are designed to prioritize the most reliable resources available. To this end, our system is designed to identify signals to help determine which pages display the expertise, authority, and trustworthiness of a given topic.
Note the page URL
Of course, ranking factors vary. But you should not ignore URLs. Keep it short-3 to 6 words can reflect the content. Websites often dilute URLs with too many words so that they do not work.
Optimize featured snippets and answer boxes
Fortunately, Google does not award select snippets to the most significant websites. It seems that any relevant website can win the top spot.
Like featured snippets and other coveted elements, your page usually doesn’t show up in the Google answer box. However, you can increase your chances with some useful tips from Dennis Shiao, which are reflected in “How to Be the Content of the Enviable Google Answer Box.”
Optimize your website image
When working with images, your team should make sure to focus on file size, name, alternative text, etc. to ensure SEO success.
Use schema markers to better define website content
Website developers and marketers don’t always take the time to add structural markup (the semantic vocabulary of increase).
This code helps search engines identify what the content means. Including it can affect how information appears in search results-everything from reviews and events to products and recipes.
Make videos for visitors (and SEO)
Video can be a new way of SEO opportunities. On YouTube, link to your website in the description (an often overlooked option). Also, because Google displays videos above regular website pages in SERPs, you get more opportunities to show.
Don’t forget to create a website page transcript to rank more keywords, including long-tail keyword phrases. The voice board is a resource.
Though you don’t know what exactly will happen to Google, you can monitor when your rankings increase or decrease significantly and see if this could become an industry trend.
Ranking factors will continue to fluctuate over time. To have a successful SEO strategy for your Orange County company website, identify variables that your address within the resources available this year.