5 Important SEO Trends to Prepare for in 2020

In 2019, Google introduced a number of updates that have been paving the way to the current landscape of search engine optimization. As always, Google is all about making the user experience easier, faster, and generally more pleasant. Here are 5 SEO trends to prepare for this 2020:

1. Google BERT

In the last half of 2019, Google introduced the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model, or simply BERT, which improves search engine results by enabling Google to better understand search intent and context behind every query. This heralds a new era of user-focused content optimization.

With the further incorporation of BERT in SEO algorithms, we can expect a huge leap forward in terms of keyword research and natural language processing (NLP). In this case, keyword tools won’t be as relevant as before and content creators should focus instead on getting more personal with their target audience. The more SEO specialists understand the target audience’s needs and intent, the better it is to deliver content that can be easily discovered by BERT in search engine results.

2. Speed and Technical SEO

Lately, Google has been putting a lot of emphasis on website speed with the new “slow speed” badge on Google Chrome and the recently enhanced Speed reports on Google Search Console. It’s not just about your website load speed and ranking well in search results; it’s really about the user experience.

What this means for marketers is that special attention is warranted for technical SEO. Fine-tuning the technical side of SEO in terms of website structure, redirects, media file sizes, compression, etc., can help improve the overall performance of a website and thus greatly improving user experience. Google also offers PageSpeed Tools to help developers create faster and more efficient websites. Additionally, this trend also means that accelerated mobile pages (AMP) will become more pertinent this year.

3. Site Authority 

In previous years, marketers have been mostly focusing on generating relevant content. While relevancy is still essential, Google has upped its content quality standards by introducing E-A-T—Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This basically means that Google will look at the quality of a certain content more closely than before by factoring in the three previously mentioned criteria. 

When creating content, it’s prudent to check your sources and ensure that all stated facts are reliable and true. While Google clarified that E-A-T is not a ranking factor but merely one of its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG), it’s safer to assume that site authority is at the forefront of the current SEO landscape.

4. Visual Search

With so much emphasis on video content in past years, it’s just about time that image content searches are making a bigger comeback with the recent improvements of Google Lens. The feature allows users to simply aim their camera at a physical object—for example, a restaurant menu—and, with Google Lens, the search engine can generate relevant content about that object. Additionally, Google Lens is paving the way for users to interact with AR objects right from within Google Search.

For marketers, what this means is that there is a growing trend for visual search this year and image optimization is key. And, with machine learning (ML) in the works to further improve search results, it’s also crucial to include structured data on images for better visibility in search engine results.

5. Structured Data

As a related point, we can surmise that structured data, or schemas, is becoming more relevant now with Google’s continuing efforts to use technologies like BERT, NLP, and ML to further improve the quality of search engine results. 

Including structured data in your SEO strategy allows you to make your content more visible with any type of search context—be it through usual Google search, voice search, chatbots, and whatnot. Schemas can be added to any type of content, the most common ones being products, reviews, persons, organizations, places, and creative works/multimedia content.

Ready to take your SEO efforts to the next level?

A lot of exciting things are brewing this year for SEO, and it’s important for marketers to stay abreast with the latest trends to maintain an edge over others. If you’re ready to take your SEO efforts to the next level but have no time nor the resources to do so, Ilfusion is here to help.

We have the expertise, years of experience, and the best tools to help you reach your SEO goals. Give us a call at 888-420-5115, or send us an email to [email protected] to get started!

Categorized in: SEO, Web