Trends In 2020 For Professional SEO Experts And In-House Site Admins Alike

New year, new you? Whether you are working in the field delivering professional SEO services for a range of clients or you manage your own website, you’ll want to know what 2020 will bring for your SEO practices. Here, we give a brief summary of the areas you’ll probably want to focus on in the coming year in terms of SEO on yours or your clients’ websites.

We won’t apologise, first of all, for mentioning BERT again, although that’s been the focus of a couple of our recent blogs. Google’s new algorithm generated plenty of attention when launched in October 2019, and those handling professional SEO as well as individuals who manage their own websites are still trying to divine what it means for SEO practices. Essentially, it’s recommended that website are clearly and logically navigable, with content that’s tailored to the kinds of questions your customers and potential customers are likely to ask about your goods or services. Secondly, while keyword research may appear to take more of a back seat to user intent, it’s still important, especially in terms of on-page content. SEO experts and website owners should be aiming to demonstrate on their webpages that they are an authority in their industry. How can you do that? In part, by using long-tail keywords, divined through researching what your customer needs and how they might ask for that in a search query; and then addressing them in well-informed, pertinent, optimised content. Also, check your webpages to ensure that each and every page on your website is truly unique: you want to avoid using the same keywords and the same topics over and over on different pages. Otherwise, you are effectively competing with yourself and diluting the impact in the SERPs of each page.

Our third tip is often where website owners need help from professional SEO services: the technicalities that must be in place to ensure your users get a great experience when they visit your website, every time. That can mean everything from the speed at which each page loads – the faster the better – to incorporating tools that will give users a more personalised experience the next time they visit your website. And fourthly, as a professional SEO services company, we make no apology for insisting that mobile SEO remains a priority, as it has done for the last few years. It’s now the case that 87% of searches are carried out on a mobile device, and a whopping 40% of transactions (whether that’s signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase) are done via a smartphone or otherwise on the go. So you cannot ignore the issue any longer – put mobile first and foremost. That means having the same great quality content available to users viewing your site on a mobile device as they’d see on a laptop or desktop, but ensuring that that content is easy to navigate and read on a small screen. Break up text with headings and subheadings, make sure every page loads quickly and cleanly… you get the picture.

SEO is a constantly evolving area of expertise, so if you’re a website owner and are struggling with any of these aspects, don’t be afraid to hire professional SEO advisers. They will help you get ahead of the game – and stay there.