8 Highly Effective SEO Trends in 2021 For Your Business

Attracting visitors to your site can be an uphill task without an effective site optimization strategy. Statistics show that Google has approximately 3.5 billion searches daily. Every website competes for the top position, but only the effectively optimized ones make it to the top search results. 

For your site to generate the much-needed traffic, it needs to rank on the first page of SERP. Being on the top result of Google’s search results increases your CTR by an average of 31.7%. That brings us to the importance of search engine optimization and the outstanding SEO trends in 2021. 

SEO Trends in 2021 Worth Watching

For your site to have top-ranking SEO performance, there are many metrics you must pay attention to. These include backlinks, traffic, social shares, and others. However, these SEO elements are constantly evolving, thanks to Google algorithms. What works today may not be significant tomorrow.
This guide gives you insights into some of the most useful SEO trends in 2021. They will help your site dominate with its online presence. 

1. Artificial Intelligence 

Artificial intelligence is affecting many aspects of business and how people interact with content on online platforms. The reason behind the transformation AI provides is the personalization it delivers to users. Google is making use of AI to deliver the exact results searchers look for. The success of the tool is in its unique ability to learn. 

Experts believe that by using AI, you can create more powerful content for your site. You also can augment your keyword research, optimize all digital platforms, and maximize link building.

Tools like Keyword Tool function based on AI to refine your keyword research. 
Our web accessibility solution harnesses cutting edge AI technology to stay ahead of the curve to provide all users – even those with disabilities – a fulfilling web browsing experience

2. Original High-Value Content

Content plays a fundamental role in SEO and ranking, but quality is of utmost importance. Authentic content plays a more significant role than just branding. Producing content similar to what already exists on Google reduces your chances of ranking highly. People will also not bother looking at it, denying you an opportunity to grow your traffic. 

Ensure your content adds value in your own language and brand voice. Most importantly, it must adhere to Google’s EAT principle. This refers to expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. These are factors that Google uses to determine the quality of content in a webpage. 

Backing up your content with facts and statistics is an excellent way to make your content more trustworthy. Remember to link to reputable and authoritative sites to bring out authority in your content. Furthermore, constantly update your content to provide readers with the most recent perspective. 

3. Video Content

Video content continues to be an effective SEO strategy in 2021 and is only growing in importance.

If ‘Content is King’, video content is the crown.

Currently, YouTube has over 1 billion users and counting. If you’re yet to start utilizing video content, this is the time. Cisco projects that video content is set to take over all other forms of content in traffic and consumption. 

Optimization of your video content is crucial. The description should be more than just a collection of keywords. It needs to provide a clear overview of the channel. Get some inspiration from your chosen platform’s auto-complete feature. 

4. Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are also known as Position Zero, and they appear in a rectangular box at the top of the SERP. Snippets are useful for websites and help in ranking. Unfortunately, you can’t choose the content that appears in the snippet as it all depends on the Google Algorithm bots. 

It’s not clear the exact approach one can use to get a webpage in the Featured Snippet, however, SEO experts suggest a few helpful strategies.

One approach is to answer a specific question in bullet form or well-structured content for better chances of success. Make sure to properly format your content using the proper header tags in a well-organized hierarchy.

Another similar tactic is to summarize your article into bullet points at the beginning or end of your content following the header tag hierarchy we mentioned above.

Once you do that, make sure you mark up that content in Schema to improve your chances of getting your content to rank.

5. Image Optimization

Visual image search is on the increase, and not just for entertainment. Images influence people’s purchasing decisions. Google, for a long time, has insisted on the importance of optimizing images. You’ll be in a better position if you make this part of your long-term strategy. 

Incorporate high-quality and relevant images in your content marketing strategy.
Ensure you customize the file name by labeling the photo file. This makes it relevant to the corresponding page’s content and helps it rank.
Using alt tags will also be helpful in this quest since crawlers use them to classify images.
Make sure to minimize the pixel density w/o compromising image quality to ensure quicker load times.
Lastly, remember to incorporate images in your site map for easier crawling. 

6. Structured Data

Another one among the valuable SEO trends in 2021 is the use of structured data.
This approach to SEO helps search engines to understand your content better.

Google provides a tool for Structured Data testing to help you familiarize yourself with the idea. Using structured data for your landing pages and website will significantly help your site rank highly. 

7. User Intent Keyword Phrases are Crucial

Primary keywords, secondary keywords, and long-tail keywords should all characterize your content creation strategy.
According to Neil Patel, long-tail keywords account for approximately 70% of all online searches. They can significantly help you outrank the competition as they have a 36% conversion rate. 

Furthermore, semantic search and intent optimization is gaining more prominence. Google now analyzes query context and is no longer just interested in a string of words. The more relevant and suitable your keywords are to your audience, the better placed you are to rank highly. 

This means you should be crafting content specifically tailored to what your audience is looking for.

8. Core Web Vitals & Good User Experience

One of the most important SEO trends in 2021 to look out for is your Core Web Vitals and UX.

Core web vitals are three measures Google has chosen to reflect real-world page experience metrics.
They are metrics Google has chosen, respectively, to reflect loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
All of these are seen by Google as important to a good user experience on the web and have been incorporated in their algorithm as a ranking factor.

It is imperative to reduce the coding bloat and structure your website elements in a way that improves user experience.

Tactics to improve page speed include:
– Minimize and condense CSS and JavaScript code.
– Arrange the top-of-the-fold elements load before things lower down on the page
– Choose a premium web hosting solution
– Implement page caching with a CDN.

For a more comprehensive take on this topic, check out our post – Can Core Web Vitals Be Improved By A Good Hosting Solution?

Tactics to improve overall user experience (UX) include:
– Have an intuitive site architecture and internal linking structure
– Make sure your site uses a mobile responsive design
– Implement proper page formatting
– Have an updated, clean, and intuitive design

For a more in-depth look at these and other UX tactics to employ, check out our post – 5 Ways Good Web Design Improves SEO Rankings

What Do These SEO Trends in 2021 Mean for Your Business?

If you want to attract and sustain high rankings and search engine visibility, you must respond to search results changes. This is only possible if you pay attention to the current trends and act accordingly. Whenever Google releases an algorithm update, the metrics behind search engines change as well. 

Although you may not see these changes, they are there, and they affect search results. It helps to approach the concept of search engines with an expert’s mentality. Ensure you remain up-to-date by aligning your content to the changing algorithms and trends. 

If you are like most businesses, you have your hands full just adapting and keeping up with running your business day-to-day. It is therefore wise to have a dedicated team member focus on the SEO trends – either in-house or with an agency partner.

SEO trends in 2021 – Final Thoughts

Search engine optimization is a complex but crucial component for businesses looking to compete online. The above SEO trends in 2021 only make this clear, and you have to think about them critically.
If you want to beat the competition, ensure you implement these strategies effectively.
An expert in SEO and Digital Marketing can help you get tangible results with your SEO strategy. Contact us today.