SEVEN INCREDIBLE SEO MARKETING STRATEGIES TO EMPLOY IN 2020

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By drilling down the past, one can observe that digital marketing has changed drastically over the last few years. Be it email writing, social media posts, or paid advertising; everything exhibits a considerable transformation. The reason behind this that technology is gaining ground rampantly, and marketing experts keep discovering new means to expand their reach.

The same stands true for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It has been one of the oldest and the most effective ways when it comes to giving exposure to a brand. However, Google keeps introducing changes in its algorithms from time to time. For example, not long ago, black hat strategies went pretty much undetected by Google, and businesses would improve their ranking by using several foul means. But that is not the case anymore because the search engine has become smarter now.

Just like every other year, SEO has changed a bit this year as well. So without further ado, let’s unveil top seven strategies that can lift your position in the search engine in 2020:

1. ENGAGE IN LINK BUILDING

Link building is an integral part of SEO. The search engine relies on it to determine the authority and credibility of a website. It is an easy equation. The more backlinks you get from authoritative sites, the more trustworthiness you will gain in the eyes of Google.

Apart from getting hooked up to link building blog, here is what it takes to map out a productive link building strategy:

• There is a massive demand for infographics, case studies, and whitepapers. Investing in these types of research-oriented content will attract backlinks in a considerable quantity. 
• Make a list of sites that cover your audience. If you give them a shutout, they will be more than willing to backlink your pages. Building relationships is key to link building.
• Stay in touch with the latest developments in your industry because writing on trending topics could make your content viral like fire in the forest.

2. PUBLISH HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT FREQUENTLY

Google loves content marketing. Ever since Bill Gates said “content is king” in 1996, the popularity of content marketing has never gone down even for a temporary period. If your content is captivating, users are likely to spend more time on your website. It will send positive signals to the search engine spiders, and, as a result, your website will gradually earn a better ranking.  

Well, publishing content once in a while will not help the cause. You will have to share it consistently, or else Google will push your website to the bottom, assuming you are not active enough. 

3. PAY ATTENTION TO USER EXPERIENCE

User experience is about how a visitor feels while he is navigating through a website. It is not a new phenomenon. Website owners have been keen to provide quality user experience for quite some time. But, until recently, it was taken as a bonus rather than an inevitable necessity. Numbers suggest that as many as a whopping 88 percent of the people will permanently bid farewell to a website after going through poor user experience. 

As more and more traffic continues to come from mobiles, make sure your website design compatible with all screen sizes. Among other things, page speed, easy navigation, and well-structured content are go-to factors that heavily contribute to fitting user experience.     

4. OPTIMIZE WEBSITE FOR VOICE SEARCH

Currently, about 41 percent of adults engage in voice search at least once every 24 hours. The upsurge of voice searches should not come as a surprise to anybody because marketing gurus had long been anticipating that. Owing to the popularity of this trend, Google has begun to consider voice search optimization as a valuable component of SEO.

Anybody with a shred of knowledge about digital marketing knows all this. Yet, many people don’t make the most of voice search optimization because they fail to realize that, unlike typed searches, users tend to be more conversationalist with voice searches. You will have a higher probability to be indexed on the first page if you embed rich answers or long-tail keywords while optimizing for voice searches. 

5. PARTNER WITH INFLUENCERS OF YOUR NICHE

Modern-day consumers are smart. They won’t readily trust your word unless you have a well-recognized expert standing your side. It is one reason why nearly 17 percent of companies spend half of their entire marketing budget to leverage influencers. This trend is more common among industries such as travel, e-commerce, and lifestyle.  

Are you wondering what the connection between SEO and marketing influencers is? Well, it is pretty simple. For example, if an expert rather than a nobody writes your product reviews, the search engine would consider that information as more authentic and direct the traffic toward it.    

6. PAY ATTENTION TO KEYWORD RESEARCH

An enormous amount of content is published on the search engine regularly. But web-users don’t have to navigate through unwanted information by using the right keywords. In simple words, keywords are terms or phrases that directly lead an individual to find what he is hunting for online. As a website owner, you can never attract the live audience if your keyword research is not up to the standard.

Keyword research has evolved with time. By using the outdated techniques, you will only unearth the wrong set of keywords that will bear little to no weight in the eyes of Google. Therefore, you must conduct keyword research with the help of the following step-by-step guide:

• Brainstorm niche-oriented keywords: Before jumping to this step, you should have absolute clarity about your niche. Once you are well-versed with your products or services, list down keywords that go with them. Here, putting yourself in the shoes of the customer and creating customer personas will help.
• Cherry-pick a tool: Gone are the days when SEO experts had to engage in guesswork to determine the efficiency of a keyword. You have many SEO tools at your disposal today. The second step is to choose a robust SEO tool.
• Filtering unwanted words: It is a flawed tactic to incorporate all the keywords that you come across. Thus, it is time to use the SEO tool and getaway from less-important words or phrases. That way, in the end, you will be left with keywords that could keep you in the competition. 

7.USER-FRIENDLY URLS ARE KEY

As time goes by, Google emphasizes to create user-friendly URLs. If a URL gets cluttered with undue characters, it will convey to the search engine that the page contains disorganized information. Moreover, the algorithms will have a hard time making any sense out of it, and your ranking will invariably suffer. Therefore, make it a point to keep the URLs as precise as possible. At the same time, a URL should be able to spell out what the web page is all about.

FINAL WORD

Though the SEO of 2020 is not drastically different from the SEO of 2019, we can see some modifications. On the surface, these changes might seem too small, rather negligible, to make a difference, but they are capable of turning the table. Thus, it would be a smart choice to pay attention to the techniques mentioned above to fuel your SEO game.