In this article, I will discuss what are the major SEO 2020 trends to focus, what challenges they pose, and how you can overcome those challenges as an SEO.

Google has come a long way since its early days evolving in terms of how it ranks websites and the structure of Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). Earlier webmasters could get away with stuffing keywords and performing spammy link building tactics. But then Google rolled out different algorithms like HummingBird, Penguin Updates, and a bunch of different algorithms updates and started penalizing such black hat SEO practices.

We have seen that Google has been improving its ranking algorithms consistently with some that made minor tweaks and others that shook up the SERP. And Google will continue to do the same to improve the user’s experience.

With that said, let’s talk about what is going to change or rather what changes to focus on in 2020 in terms of search engine optimization, and as an SEO, how you can change your strategies to stay on the top of your game.

Major SEO 2020 Trends

# 1. SERP Real Estate Distribution 

I remember after the launch of Google Adwords in the year 2000, in its early days, ads used to have a distinctive look with a yellow highlight on it, and then it kept changing towards less and less standing out from the organic results. The number of ads also increased from one to two ads, to four at the top and two to three at the bottom of the page now.

Moreover, Google introduced rich snippets in 2009 and local 3 map-pack results in 2014.

What does this all mean? All this means that organic results are getting less and less real estate and also pushed down the fold. Top of the fold which usually attracts more clicks is taken away by Google Ads, Map packs and rich snippets. And as a result, the click share of organic results is going down and down. 

# 2. The Traffic Coming From Organic Search Is Going To Decline.

This is because A, most of the clicks are taken away by Ads and rich snippets above the fold, and B because people get answers to most of their search queries from the direct answers or rich snippets on the SERP itself.

For example, if you search for information about a flight, Google answers you on the SERP itself. You can change the date range, destination and get information about the prices without clicking through to any website.

 

 

 

Or if you search for weather

It shows your results in the search bar itself.

 

 

 

Same with searching for calculations, definitions, sports scores, meanings, even descriptive explanations, and much more. 

So, it is clear that the traffic from organic results will keep declining as people will not need to click through to a website to find information.

Is this bad? Not really, because by providing the ready answers on SERP, Google is improving user experience. And it is also not necessarily bad for websites either, because if a user is only looking for information then anyway the user is not going to convert into a lead even after lending on your website.

# 3. Importance Of Keywords Will Become Obsolete 

Yes, you heard me right, at least usage of keywords as we have been understanding till now will completely change. With the launch of the Google BERT algorithm in late 2019 and its incorporation into ranking along with featured snippet algorithms, Google has made Search all about user intent. Looks like Natural Language Processing or NLP is going to be focused more by Google in the coming times.

So, where rich snippets or what is called the zero results and google ads are expanding and organic results are shrinking on SERP how can you protect yourself as SEOs. How can you derive the value of your hard work? How could you still reach out to your target market with your blog or piece of content that you created investing so much time and hard work?

Smart SEO Strategy 2020

Here are my tips for SEOs to work smart and win the game in 2020.

Tip 1. Adopt An Omnichannel Approach.

Do not depend on Google’s organic traffic only. Adopt an omnichannel approach. Meaning, don’t be just a blogger. Repurpose your content for different channels.

For example, if you have a blog post, make a video using the same content, extract the audio and make audio clips too. Or the best way would be to organize your content creation in a way that it becomes easy to have the same piece of content in many formats. 

For example, create a video first, so you will naturally get audio created with it, and with little tweak into the script, you can convert it into a blog post. And promote these contents on different channels like social media, podcasts, emails, push notifications, etc. Diversify your channels as much as possible. Because there are more than 1.6 billion websites, and there are only 10 spots on the 1st page of Google. 

It is not enough to just stick to one or two social media channels. Reach Out to all the channels where your target audiences are available. Use social media management tools and schedule your social media content in advance and incorporate automation in your content distribution to amplify your content and make your workflow easy. 

To schedule and automate social media management use tools like Social Pilot. Social Pilot is not just a social media post scheduling tool, you can almost auto-pilot your social media platforms with it. Social Pilot helps you discover the most popular content and schedules them directly to your social media accounts with RSS feeds and content curation. This will help you reach out to new audiences.

And to make the most of your existing audience use Push Notification. Push notification is an innovative way to bring back your audiences to your site and retain them. How many people who visit your website come back? Most of them don’t. Right? With push notification, just on a click, your site visitors will be subscribed to receive a browser notification whenever you publish a new post and that way they will keep coming back to your site.

Push notification is easier because your visitors do not have to fill in their email ID in a form or anything. So set up a push notification on your site to make sure to bring back your site visitors. You can use tools such as Pushengage or Pushcrew to set up push notifications.

Tip 2. Enhance Your Website For More CTR.

To attract more clicks, write compelling titles. Write click-worthy meta descriptions. Don’t just include keywords in your title and meta description just for the sake of it. The best way is to try to appeal to the user’s intent using the keywords in your title and meta description. 

Use schema markup on your website to outperform your competitors on search engine result pages. You can make your website look more attractive on SERP using Schema showing additional information, such as reviews, FAQs, prices, timings, etc. Not only that, with the added schema your site will take more real estate on SERP compared to the other results that are not using Schema. 

If you are not technically pro, use the WordPress plugin called Schema Pro. It is easy to use and with this plugin, you can almost automate Schema on your website. 

Tip 3. Enhance Your Website For Conversion.

With google providing most answers through rich snippets, your website will end up getting less traffic. So don’t just aim to provide information on your site. Along with valuable information, optimize your sites for more conversion. 

Because it’s not traffic that matters it the conversion that matters for most businesses.

Traffic + conversion = Success, right?

Incorporate conversion optimization into your SEO strategy.

To build an email list of your website visitors use Convert-Plus WordPress Plugin This plugin is all in one email list generation plugin. It provides highly customizable pop-up forms that you can use site-wide to build your email list easily.

You can also use the Opt-in Panda WordPress Plugin. This plugin is more effective because, with this plugin, you can lock-in your premium content behind the pop-up and reveal the content only after a user fills in the email and subscribe. 

You can sky-rocket your subscription rate by leveraging your content and providing in-content freebies only to the subscribers.

Tip 4. Aim To Target Specific Questions In Your Content Instead Of Keywords.

As we discussed earlier in this article about BERT algorithm updates and searches becoming user intent-driven rather than keyword-driven Smart SEOs will create content around user intent. 

Aim to target specific questions in your content, not just keywords. Think of long-form questions as people naturally ask. 

The usage of keyword tools will not be directly relevant in the coming times. You can use keyword tools to get an idea of search volume around a specific topic. 

Visit the website called Answer The Public to get an idea of what kind of questions people are searching for around your topic. This website will provide all kinds of questions to you around a keyword that people are searching for. You can pick relevant questions from this website and answer those questions through your content. 

You can also observe your real customers and understand what they need from you? What are their questions around your products or services? Try and respond to the needs of your customers. Match your content with the user’s intent rather than a search query. 

I hope that this information is useful to you. If you think of any other way to enhance SEO efforts in 2020, let me know in the comments.

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