Is SEO necessary for all businesses, or only a subset of them? Should you spend money on SEO or can you get by without it? These are the kinds of questions that most online businesses have.
It is critical to realize that Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is Google’s method of determining which websites should rank high for queries entered into its search engine. It will not be difficult for businesses to manipulate search results and rank their websites high in search engine results in the absence of SEO.
SEO is in charge of ensuring that search results are balanced. It significantly reduces the potential to exploit search results. It would not be incorrect to state that SEO assists deserving websites in appearing in search results.
How Search Would Be Like Without SEO
It is impossible to conceive how we would ever search for businesses or other information we require on a daily basis if Search Engine Optimization did not exist. We imagine it would be simple to influence search engine results, and we would have to work harder to find useful websites.
SEO is important since it ensures that you don’t have to spend more than a few seconds finding the relevant information you’re looking for – this is a general function of SEO for search engines.
Now, let’s look at how SEO can aid internet businesses.
Advantages of SEO to Your Business
SEO enables businesses to build a website that is quick, strong, and user-friendly, and that ranks higher in search engine results. In general, SEO-optimized websites attract more potential clients and have higher conversion rates.
When you optimize your website for search engines, you increase brand awareness and consumers begin to trust your company. To establish a strong web presence and get new clients as an online business owner, you must optimize your website for search engines. SEO, according to around 57 percent of B2B marketers, helps them create more leads than any other marketing approach.
So why not invest in SEO and track the effects for yourself? The following are a few of the most important advantages of SEO for organizations of all sizes.
Better User Experience
Today, SEO is more than just optimizing a website for search engines; it also assists you in producing a faster and more user-friendly website.
The goal of modern SEO is to provide a better user experience. A well-structured and tidy website encourages visitors to stay longer, lowering the bounce rate and increasing page views. A website with relevant information, on the other hand, keeps your readers satisfied.
Furthermore, SEO-optimized websites are more likely to provide solutions to their target audience’s questions. When you optimize your website for search engines appropriately, you please both your users and the search engines.
Build Brand Awareness
One of the key benefits of improving your SERP ranks is that when your website shows on the first page of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other major search engines for a certain search query, people begin to trust your brand.
As a result, businesses that wish to increase brand awareness must invest in SEO. As a result, companies not only get strong search engine ranks for key terms connected to their business, but they also get hot leads.
Don’t forget that search engines can make or break a business.
Improve Conversion Rates
Websites that have been optimized for search engines load faster and are easier to read and navigate. Furthermore, such sites display properly on devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions. As a result, SEO-optimized websites attract more visitors and readers, resulting in more leads and conversions.
Keep You Up With Your Competition
Running a business in today’s competitive market is akin to running a marathon. Fortunately, with the help of SEO, you may avoid the competition.
Consider two businesses in the same industry that provide similar services at comparable pricing. One of them has an SEO-optimized website, whereas the other does not. Which firm do you believe will benefit the most from search engine traffic? Which company has a better chance of growing quickly and becoming more successful?
The advantages of SEO are limitless – it is up to you to determine how you will use it to grow your business.
We’ve compiled a list of SEO data that every business owner should be aware of.
- Google receives around 63,000 searches per day (Source: Live Internet Stats)
- Google’s top five organic results receive 67 percent of all clicks. (Image courtesy of Advanced Web Ranking)
- 70% of marketers agree that SEO is more effective than other approaches for increasing sales. (Image courtesy of databox.com)
- Local searches account for 46% of all Google searches.
Advanced SEO Techniques for Success in 2020
SEO has evolved dramatically in recent years. In its early days, SEO was confined to stuffing keywords, spamming links, and tinkering with back-end code. Fortunately, Google has outlawed numerous tactics that were solely intended to manipulate search results.
Google’s algorithms are constantly being updated in order to improve the quality of search engine results. As a result, SEO strategies developed in the first decade of the twenty-first century are no longer effective today.
As a result, online firms must stay up with the current search engine algorithms and update their SEO methods over time.
In the next part, we’ll go over a few SEO tactics that will help you create leads in 2020 and beyond. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
1. Prioritize Mobile-First Ranking
Mobile internet users surpassed desktop internet users for the first time towards the end of 2016. According to an estimate, by 2025, 72.6 percent of internet users would access the internet via mobile devices.
So, if you run a website, it should be available on both desktop computers and mobile devices. Following Google’s Mobile-first indexing, an effort by Google to make the web more mobile-friendly, it has become critical for all website owners to have a mobile version of their websites as well. Sites and their mobile versions are welcomed together with this Google update.
For those who don’t know, mobile-first indexing means that Google primarily indexes and ranks mobile versions of material. Because the majority of people use mobile devices to access Google search, Googlebot has begun indexing pages using the smartphone agent. Since July 1, 2019, mobile-first indexing has been enabled by default for all new websites. However, Google will continue to monitor web pages based on best practises for current sites.
According to Google, websites that have an appealing, user-friendly design and integrate with mobile phones will rank higher.
It is safe to assume that optimising your website for mobile devices will undoubtedly benefit you in 2020.
Here are some quick recommendations for preparing for mobile-first indexing:
- Switch to a responsive website as soon as possible.
- Make sure your website’s mobile and desktop versions both serve structured data.
- Verify your mobile site in Google Search Console as a separate property.
- Make the appropriate changes based on the demands of the users. Remember that users behave differently on mobile devices than they do on desktop computers.
- Create information that is also easily readable on a smartphone.
You can use Google’s tool to test your website’s mobile friendliness.
2. Better Optimization for Loading Speed
In 2020, page loading speed is unquestionably important. Nowadays, every company wants its website to give a positive customer experience. After all, a website that delights new or recurring clients is more likely to outperform one that does not.
Because internet users’ behavior is constantly changing, you can’t afford to ignore the importance of website load speed.
The statistics below demonstrate how critical it is to optimize your website for speed.
- Waiting for websites to load is what 46 percent of respondents detest most about mobile internet browsing.
- Approximately 47% of purchasers anticipate websites to load in two seconds or less.
- According to Google, 53% of mobile website users will abandon a site that does not load within three seconds.
Aside from that, site speed is one of the most important ranking variables taken into account by all major search engines. Long before 2010, Google identified website speed as one of the signals utilized by its algorithms to rank pages.
Remember, the first experience is the last experience. So, instead of demotivating your clients with a slow website loading time, optimize your website speed in 2020.
Some quick techniques to improve your website’s speed include:
- Transfer your website to a more suitable hosting provider. If your website receives a lot of traffic, you should think about getting a VPS or a dedicated server.
- Optimize the picture size on your website. Image size can be reduced using software such as JPEG Optimizer, Kraken, Image Recycle, Tiny PNG, and others.
- Remove any extraneous JavaScript and CSS files.
- Identify 404 errors
- Reduce the number of redirects
Google PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom Speed Test, Gtmetrix, and WebPage Test are some prominent website speed test tools.
3. Produce More Video Content
If you want to increase conversion rates in 2020, you must incorporate video content into your SEO strategy. The rise of Social Media Stories, an increasing number of smartphones, and the way people have begun to consume media have all contributed to video content becoming more important than ever before.
In the United States, approximately 85 percent of internet users watch online videos. According to much research, consumers will spend more daily minutes watching videos in the coming years.
According to Smart Insights, 83 percent of marketers say video content is becoming increasingly important. It implies that organizations should use video in their SEO marketing strategy. And why shouldn’t they? Video material has the potential to reach a large number of people. Furthermore, videos make excellent storytellers. So, what are you holding out for? This year, put greater emphasis on developing video content.
Nowadays, there are a plethora of handy tools available on the market that allow you to create a professional video without breaking the bank.
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Here are some suggestions for optimizing your video content for SEO.
- Because you’re developing video content to increase website traffic and new leads, you should select the best video hosting platform for your website.
- Insert a video transcript to make your videos more accessible to a wider audience.
- Make certain that your thumbnail image is interesting. After all, when your movie is indexed, it is what a searcher sees.
- Pay close attention to your video’s title and description, as they play an important influence in search engine ranking. Conduct thorough research to guarantee that your goal term is being searched for by your target audience.
- Ensure that the rest of your page is relevant to the video and perfectly optimised for search engine optimization.
- If you embed the same video in various places, you will be competing with yourself.
4. Improve Voice Search Ranking
Another critical part of SEO that you cannot afford to overlook in 2020 is voice search. According to one report, by the end of 2020, voice will account for 50% of all searches.
In contrast to input terms into a search query to create results, voice search allows users to talk into their device to generate results. Though it may appear to be a novel notion, the technology has been around for some time. Voice search is exemplified by Google Home, Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa.
Because voice search improves user experience, Google is putting more emphasis on voice search optimization. As a result, your website must be optimized for voice search.
Tips to Improve Your Voice Search Ranking
Google voice search, like traditional SEO, prioritizes websites that load quickly. So make certain:
- Your website is responsive, meaning it works well on devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions.
- Images have been correctly optimised.
- Your server’s response time is slow.
2. Write content in the manner in which people speak — your content should provide honest replies.
3. Concentrate more on local search because the bulk of voice search inquiries are looking for material that is specific to an area.
4. Because voice search inquiries typically contain more words, focus on long-tail keywords to achieve first-page rankings on Google.
5. Schema Markup for SEO
Despite numerous algorithm modifications, the content remains one of the most important ranking elements in SEO. What has changed is how search engines index and comprehend web information.
Google has become considerably better at interpreting user queries and intent over time and hence gives the most relevant results. Most businesses are unaware that schema markup and structured data play an important part in assisting your webpage in transmitting that information to crawlers and search engines in a more timely and systematic manner.
Because of schema and structured data, Google and other major search engines can display a straight answer to your question or display relevant rich snippets. It would not be incorrect to argue that it has the potential to be a strong SEO tool in 2020. Include schema microdata in your HTML code to assist search engine bots in better interpreting the content of your sites.
Pay More Attention to Local SEO
Local SEO, according to several SEO experts, will become increasingly important in the next years. Already, local businesses, services, and information account for 46 percent of all Google searches. According to a Forbes survey, 95 percent of smartphone users have used their devices to conduct local searches. So prioritize local SEO, especially if you have a target audience in a certain place.
How can you improve your website’s local SEO?
- Include local business schema or structured data markup on every web page to optimise your website for local SEO.
- You can also improve your local SEO by using a VPN service. When you connect to a VPN server in a specific region, you learn about the various search queries that are being done for that specific reason. You may plan your local SEO efforts based on this information. To get the most out of VPN, only use the best VPN software.
- Take control of your Google My Business page.
- Update your website’s NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) citation. Examine how your company is featured on Google My Business and other important business listing websites.
- Make use of social media to drive traffic to your local business. It will also aid you in your local SEO efforts. If you haven’t yet built a Facebook business page, you should do so right away.
- Make a distinct page for each product, service, and location, then apply a schema to each of them.
Final Thoughts
In today’s competitive industry, Search Engine Optimization is critical for online businesses to survive. It not only helps you improve your website’s search engine rating, but it also increases conversion rates.
Aside from that, it is one of the most cost-effective strategies to increase brand awareness in a natural way. You receive a significant amount of visitors when you present your organisation in the top search engine results with SEO.
However, in order to achieve higher SEO results, you must stay current on the latest SEO tactics. Because SEO is always growing, you should be well-versed in it by now. In this piece, we will introduce you to some advanced SEO tactics that will help you achieve a high ranking in 2020 and beyond.
Need help with getting your business found online? Stridec is a top SEO agency in Singapore that can help you achieve your objectives with a structured and effective SEO programme that will get your more customers and sales. Contact us for a discussion now.