Recently, Google’s Senior Webmaster, John Mueller explains that Google makes many algorithm changes each year with others being more significant core updates and others being minor ones but he believes that none should be overlooked as all of them contribute to better SEO results for your website in the long run.
Mueller also gave some insight in a recent expo that Google continues to promote indexing mobile friendly sites first and that the web core vitals update expected in May 2021 will be for mobile search only.
So 2021 is expected to see some major changes but also some tweaks and improvements to well- known ranking factors such as backlinks. Let’s take a brief look at what the experts predict for SEO in 2021.
User Experience
Is Zoom a great example of UX that works around the world? Perhaps, but there is more: As already mentioned web core vitals will be one of the major ranking factors for websites in 2021 and this includes a combination of 3 factors: web page loading speed, site responsiveness and page stability when loading. These factors combined with existing user experience factors such as: how mobile-friendly your site is, if there are annoying pop ups that are difficult to close as well as https and how safe your site is all contribute to overall user experience.
Google intends to make core web vitals a major ranking factor of user experience, as Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko underlines that with the core web vitals update Google is going to invest more in user experience. This is a natural progression for Google which has the power to influence the next move that millions of sites are going to take. Dean also believes that, in the future, web core vitals will expand and from only 3 factors will become 10 or even more.
Backlinks
Building backlinks will remain a key ranking factor in 2021. You want to be creating links to high quality sites with high DA and content that is relevant to your target audience, you don’t want to be spamming by linking to low quality sites in bulk.
You can use one of the many backlink research tools out there such as SEMRUSH, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs or Google Search Console to research your competitors urls and click on the back link reports, see how many links they have and who is linking to them as well as the quality of these links. You can then use this data to understand which pages you should try to copy and create similar ones and also which sites you should be contacting to get those high quality backlinks. For a side-by-side comparison of popular backlink checkers and backlink research tools you can check out Sitetrail’s definitive guide with insights and tips. The agency planners say that “maybe a combination of 2 or 3 SEO tools might be what you need to get the most benefits out of the tools you will be using”
Content Marketing
Creating content that is more real, human and purposeful is what will make your content stand apart from the competition. Ann Handley, best-selling author and content marketing specialist underlines that when it comes to content marketing you need to have your own tone of voice and personality – showing your customers and prospects who you really are but also telling powerful internal stories to your employees.
You also need your great content to get discovered otherwise creating it is pointless, that’s where SEO tactics such as keywords and backlinks comes into play to help people searching for relevant content discover how great you actually are.
Neil Patel, entrepreneur and SEO specialist, believes that content marketing and SEO need each other to survive, alone they are impotent, “your content marketing needs SEO and your SEO needs content marketing”
Search engines reward fresh content that’s why it’s important to create new content consistently. Spending time updating your existing content is also important and can help you generate more traffic.
Clickthrough rate (CTR) is an important factor that can help you rank higher on Google. You can increase your CTR by optimizing your title tags and meta descriptions. Getting more people to your website and reading your content.
Video Content is the future – content isn’t just about writing great blog posts, Youtube is the world’s second largest search engine so it might be a good idea to start creating content for youtube videos and use SEO tools that will help you get your videos to rank higher on Google
PR Marketing
At the end of the day you want your content to be popular so it can rank higher and that’s why it’s important to have a site that people trust, appreciate and consider to be knowledgeable in their area of expertise. What we’re talking about is the EAT formula that Google uses to rank your site higher.
EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness which you want your website to be all about, creating content that is authentic and captivating and created by people that are authorities in their field and exude trust.
Niche businesses that are authorities on specific subjects rank better on Google. These authority sites produce better and in depth content aimed at a more targeted audience that is rewarded by Google more so than the content produced by more popular but generic sites.
