One thing that’s constant when it comes to marketing is that SEO is going to change regularly. It’s one of the most dynamic practices in marketing. Being unable to keep up with those changes can make or break your digital marketing campaign.
It’s always good revisiting these changes and how they came to be. They’ll give you an understanding of what it takes to become successful in SEO. More importantly, it gives you an idea of the next trends when it comes to SEO so that you stay more prepared.
Here are some of the key changes that we’ve taken note of.
1. Say Goodbye To Keyword Stuffing
This is perhaps the most important change we’ve seen in Google’s SEO so far. It used to be that keyword stuffing was preferred when it comes to blog content. Even if it didn’t come out naturally, writers were forced to add upwards of three keywords to their articles depending on the length.
Now, Google wants writers to be more mindful about keywords. Instead of writing for machines, we’re recommended to write for humans. What this means is that articles need to come out as naturally as possible. No more keyword stuffing!
Keyword placement is more important. Ideally, you’d want the keywords to be placed in these spots:
- Title – one of the most important keyword placements as Google takes a lot of notice when it comes to titles. Adding the keyword seamlessly here will boost the ranking.
- Metadata – adding keywords to the metadata will make it appear on the page description that appears when people make a search.
- Content – keywords should still be placed on your content but not as much as they used to. Make keywords sound more natural so that it’s easier to incorporate into articles.
- Headers – putting a variation of your keywords into the h1, h2, and h3 headings will help with rankings greatly. Variation is a must to make the piece sound less spammy.
- Links – try to link outbound and inbound links to the keywords in your blog piece.
- URL – you can alter the website’s URL from the backend. In doing so, make sure to add the keyword as well as this helps with SEO.
- Alt descriptions – if you’re embedding videos or photos in the blog piece, alter the alt descriptions so that they have the keywords as well. It will help the images appear as Google and other search engines crawl the internet for them.
When making keywords, use phrases that people actually search for. Now that voice search is more prominent, you don’t have to worry too much about people using search terms that are shorter for convenience.
As they’re using their voice to search, the keywords should sound natural as well. This will play an important role in your SEO.
2. Mobile Friendliness
Smartphones and other mobile devices have taken over the world to say the least. By the end of 2021, roughly 54.4% of internet traffic came from mobile. At the start of 2015, it was at 31.16% only.
The trend sees a steady increase in mobile traffic and experts are expecting the numbers to rise even further.
Due to the shift in mobile traffic, Google has let mobile-friendliness affect SEO as well. Now, your website needs to load fast and properly when loading on mobile devices.
3. Quality Over Quantity
That being said, Google has a deeper focus on having more quality content posted on their search results page. It used to be that websites had to post content regularly to stay relevant on the rankings.
Now, Google wants to put focus on content that’s not just good. They also want content that’s relevant to your website as well.
Say you’re running a plumbing business in your local area. The last thing you’d want to do is to post content that’s about general housekeeping. By keeping a focus on content that’s purely on plumbing, you have a better chance of ranking higher in Google as well.
4. Stronger Local SEO
To help support businesses, Google has made local SEO a stronger factor online. Local SEO helps businesses reach out to the local market on
Google My Business lets businesses list themselves in the platform with the goal of getting a better ranking on search engines. This is helpful for startups as it can help them be more prominent online with the right marketing campaign.
SEO is without a doubt more centric on the typical internet consumer. Google’s clear intent is to make the searching experience better and more rewarding for people online. What you need to do now is to center your SEO on this principle so that you’re able to rank higher in Google as well.