Thanks to the emergence of IT, technological and digital tools in recent years, the digital world has constantly evolved. All the biggest web professionals must constantly adapt to change and readjust their strategy to take full advantage of the many advantages offered by natural referencing. And 2021 will be the year of change, especially with the new algorithm update, GooglePage Experience Update …
In this article, let’s discover all the new SEO trends for 2021, as well as the actions to be implemented to improve and boost the SEO of your website.
RANKING IN THE SERPS: HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK?
For anyone who keeps a website or a blog, natural referencing brings many advantages: increasing your visibility on the web, attracting targeted and regular traffic to your website, increasing the click-through rate, the conversion rate, etc.
So how does Google work? What elements/data will it rank a website on in the SERPs?
The positioning criteria of Google are numerous and constantly changing. It can seldom be difficult to see clearly. Currently, SEO experts count no less than 200.
Although SEO basics remain unchanged ( net linking and content marketing ), certain criteria seem to tip the balance. They have a greater influence when it comes to the ranking of a website on search engines. The big question is how to boost your website? 7 SEO CRITERIA TO IMPROVE THE POSITIONING OF YOUR WEBSITE
USER EXPERIENCE AND UPDATING OF CORE WEB VITALS
In 2021, the UX user experience will be a key SEO criterion for Google. In addition to attracting Internet users and meeting their needs, you will have to offer them a positive and qualitative “experience,” making them want to return to your website.
The implementation strategy will have to turn to SXO ( Search Experience Optimization ) rather than SEO alone.
To do this, Google is integrating the updating of Core Web Vitals (essential web signals) into its strategy, based on 3 new indicators:
- LCP ( Largest Contentful Paint ) which consists in analyzing the loading time of a web page ;
- CLS ( Cumulative Layout Shift ) which consists in measuring the visual stability of the elements present on a web page;
- FID ( First Input Delay ) analyzes the interactivity of a web page according to the actions performed by the user.
All these elements help improve certain essential SEO indicators, such as the bounce rate, for example.
You will understand, Google is doing everything to offer the best possible experiences to its users.
QUALITATIVE EDITORIAL CONTENT
Content is king, and in 2021 that won’t change. Even if the editorial content is not an SEO criterion on its own, it is still essential, and Google is still fond of it.
To increase its chances of being well positioned on search engines, the content offered to readers must be: unique, relevant, qualitative, with high added value, and respond to a specific request on a well-defined theme.
To assess the relevance and quality of the content, Google uses the EAT (Expertise, Authority, Trust) criterion.
- Confirm your expertise;
- Demonstrate your authority;
- Demonstrate your credibility.
The new linking strategy with backlinks also remains very important. Bet on quality rather than quantity to increase your website’s domain authority, trust flow, and citation flow, essential SEO indicators for ranking.
IMAGE OPTIMIZATION
Image optimization has evolved considerably, and this is a very important element to consider.
First, it is advisable to choose royalty-free illustrations ( from free online image banks ) of professional quality and relevance to the page’s content.
Secondly, to optimize the images on your website, it is strongly recommended to compress them to reduce their weight. Indeed, images of illustrations that are too heavy slow down the loading time of web pages and penalize you. You can check this setting with tools like GT matrix and use online image compressors like tinypng.com.
Finally, enter the alt tag used by Google indexing robots to reference your images.
MOBILE OPTIMIZATION
Today, more than 80% of Internet users use their smartphones to go on the Internet.
The mobile, therefore, holds a significant share of web traffic. Each owner must ensure that his website is well optimized for the mobile format ( responsive design site ) to obtain a better ranking on Google (” Mobile First “).
The pages of a website must therefore adapt to the size of the screens, regardless of the tool used (smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc.) so that Internet users can navigate in peace, fluidly, and do so. So that their experience is positive.
Tip: Check the loading speed of your website on mobile. A site that takes too long to load is a lost user.
VIDEO CONTENT
It’s a big mistake not to go to the video in 2021! Inserting video content even inside your blog posts or web pages is an excellent strategy to put in place to boost your SEO.
In addition to pleasing Internet users, video is a fun, interactive format with tremendous conversion power.
However, it must also meet the requirements of Google’s algorithm and therefore must be optimized and provide useful, relevant, and qualitative content.
LOCAL SEO
In 2021, the trend will continue to progress: Internet users looking for a product or a service want to obtain a result quickly, and local searches make it possible to meet this need.
In addition, with the current situation we are going through, more and more people are expressing the wish to help businesses or small businesses in their regions.
Did you know that local SEO accounts for 65% of online searches? Therefore, working on local SEO is a strategy to be exploited, particularly by creating a Google My Business listing.
Well optimized, it offers you increased visibility on search engines, an increase in targeted and qualified traffic, and allows you to prove your expertise in your field of activity.
VOICE SEARCH
The voice search is expanding. Many users have become familiar with Google Home, Siri, or Alexa for a few years now.
Oral research is totally different from writing. Users speak naturally and make whole, longer sentences instead of just using certain targeted keywords.
Your editorial content must be adapted accordingly. You must therefore work on your SEO by focusing on the long tail.
For example, a user who searches on Google will type in “salon coiffure Paris.” Still, this one will express itself differently orally and will use a complete sentence: “which is the best hairdressing salon in Paris ? “. These are called conversational requests.
Google is once again looking to simplify and improve the experience of its users who will no longer really need to think about a particular keyword to meet their needs by allowing them to carry out their research by simply speaking. And freely, as if they were talking to a loved one.
CONCLUSION
SEO is complex and evolving. It is essential and essential to always be on the lookout for the latest information and news about it to readjust its SEO strategy and succeed in doing well. For 2021, if there is an essential point to remember, the user experience and the quality of the editorial content are at the heart of the inbound marketing strategy.
