Complicated and mysterious as it may seem, search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential factor in the success of any business in the modern world. Fortunately, business owners aren’t alone in figuring out exactly how to prime their websites and content for a continuously changing technology. Read on to discover how eight top experts in the field predict that the future of SEO in 2020 holds, as well as their advice on how to make the most of it.
1. Natural traffic will continue to be the most important.
“I’ve been doing SEO for 20 years and there’s one thing that I have seen that consistently has been paramount for any website success is quality link building. The real question is what types of links are relevant. In my opinion, the best that perform well are natural links. Links that are created based on the intent of the reader the best links. If you create good context around the pain of the market and people become your fans will garner the best trust from Google. They know, like and trust you and they are going to share that content with their friends. It’s a great signal.” — Qamar Zaman, Chief Happiness Officer at KISS PR
2. The whole industry is evolving alongside search engine technology.
“It’s not just as simple as it used to be where you could get to the top of Google by having lots of links and the right keywords on the pages; you really must be a lot smarter than that. The whole industry is evolving alongside the search engine technology. Increasingly, the search engine technology is based around the user so it’s more and more personalized, and you are actually, in some senses, the search term. What I mean is, before you even type a question or phrase, the search engine has a good idea of what you might be going to search for, which is something that is really new.” — Malcom Graham, Aceify.me
3. Keywords will remain the foundation of SEO.
“When it comes to SEO, you have to think about keywords. No matter how SEO changes in the future, everything will start with keyword research. People might type the keywords in the Google search box or use voice search, but keywords are the foundation of SEO (and will be in the future as well). I use Google keyword planner, People Also Ask Box, Searches related to, SEMrush more often for keyword research.” — Rintu Biswas, Digital SEO Land
4. The future of SEO is in voice search.
“I think that’s where people need to start thinking about how they can enhance their content, their visibility, and their brand, ultimately, because you want to be selected as the featured snippet in your answer to that query that the users are searching for. You search for something and the featured snippet comes up and it’s your website and your brand, as the best answer for that query. Google is seeing you as an authority on that topic and rewarding you with the featured snippet. Yes, the downside means that you’re not getting the user to your website, but it does mean that you’re going to increase your brand visibility.” — Paul Lovell, Always Evolving SEO
5. We are learning that there are real ranking factors.
“The real ranking factors, the criteria that are basically used in a second ranking process from Google are really important. And we’re talking about engagement data. We’re talking about traffic statistics from Google SERPS to your websites. So everything that we knew before in terms of link building, in terms of how we create mentions is being balanced with how we engage with an audience. The funny thing is that Google won’t admit that the click through rates or any kind of traffic data will be used as a first ranking hint. But we know this is true because of patents and some SEO case studies.” — Antonin Pasquereau, Black Cat SEO
6. Storytelling will be increasingly important.
“Storytelling is very important. From experts in the world like Neil Patel, storytelling is really important because your audience on the internet, in general, want to hear your story, and they want to be able to resonate with that you’re not just selling your services, but you’re also your brand yourself as an authority figure. We all know about personal branding, right? You want to be perceived as a thought leader in the world and as for your company, you can write articles to relate yourself and your story, your background, your journey to other people. That’s also a huge strategy and tactic that I believe is going to be constantly increasing.” — Michael Georgiou, Imaginovation
7. You will need to establish expertise and authority.
“The next big thing in future trends, that I’m focusing on for a lot of my clients, is establishing expertise and authority; making sure that the content created for your site is written by people who actually know something about it – true authorities on the topic, and not just some writer who did some research on Wikipedia to get away with milling content. That’s what Google’s looking for – the real juice.” — Michael Cottam, independent SEO consultant
8. 90% of what you’re doing won’t change.
“90% of what you’re doing won’t change. You still want high quality content. You still need inbound links from authoritative sources. If you want to use structured data all that is good. Frankly, one of the things that often goes overlooked is Page Speed which has become more important. So yeah, focus on that SEO 101 stuff, too. But you should have been focusing on page speed for the last couple of years. That’s not new news.” — Greg Jarbo, SEO PR
By: Steve Wetmore
Steve Wetmore is an Amazon published author. His kindle book, Instagram Dominator 5.0: Learn How to Dominate Instagram Today is now on sale.
As a leading Instagram coach and consultant that helps businesses and brands build organic Instagram growth using organic growth, Steve founded https://www.buysellshoutouts.com/ back in 2014 as one of the first Influencer Marketing platforms on the internet. If you want to get organic Instagram growth and get 10K - 30K IG Followers every 90 days check his new venture InstaVIP. https://www.instavip.io/