This year we're going to experience a digital revolution.
SEO trends for 2021 have been making noise for some time now, but some of them are still in a transition period & will become mandatory by then.
Do you want to know them in a quick review?
Featured Passages
One of Google's most recent variations has to do with the way it displays search results.
Already now, when you enter any term, Google takes a passage from the best-indexed page for that term you searched for (a passage that doesn't even have to be at the top of the content) and places it in a featured snippet at the top of the results.
In this way, Google is trying to streamline the user experience, as you don't even have to visit a web page to receive the information you requested.
This means that you will lose a lot of visits to your website, but it is also an opportunity to generate curiosity and relevant interactions by providing the best possible excerpts and definitions within your web content.
Mobile-first Indexing
Google indexing has begun to give priority to those pages that have better usability on mobile phones. And why is this?
Well, according to the company's internal data, most of the queries they receive come from smartphones.
For this reason, websites that still have poor usability on these devices in 2021 (i.e. that load slowly, have a lot of weight & many requests, or do not have HTTPS), will lose positions in searches... and they could even disappear from the indexation completely!
Therefore, having a professional on your team capable of helping you to have a fast and furious website will become more and more relevant.
Voice search
Related to the above, more and more people prefer to control their devices (smartphones, tablets and computers) by voice.
Add to this the emergence of technologies such as Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Home, and we have another rising trend.
Voice searches are radically different from text searches.
The best example is that in voice searches we use full sentences, whereas when typing we tend to break the sentence into keywords and eliminate some terms.
For example, we would write "SEO agencies UK" but we would say "SEO agencies in UK".
What does this imply?
That digital content & the processing of search algorithms will give new possibilities based on semantics & paralinguistic elements.
For example, you can now recognise some songs by humming them even if you don't know the words!
Try telling Google to search for "eggs with oil and ham" and see what happens.
User Profiling & Prediction
The topic of user profiling and behaviour prediction will be very strong in SEO trends for 2021.
Aspiring online entrepreneurs & digital nomads are being asked to start creating an ideal customer avatar to get used to the idea of profiling.
This is something that can be applied to any website.
Big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning are going to be very relevant to the way search engines are going to interact with us.
So why not learn a little more about the story that the data you collect on your website tells you?
What kind of people are coming to your website?
Where are they from or where are they?
What do they do?
What content do they favour with more visits, longer retention & better interaction?
With this knowledge, you will be able to improve not only your on-page SEO but also your off-page SEO.
Your social media strategy and even in the real world can vary substantially depending on how much or how little you know about your audience.
5G, speed and transience
In 2021 we will start using 5G technology in full force, which will have a serious rebound effect on web user behaviour.
If we already have very impatient users with short attention spans & extremely easy to bore with current speeds, we can predict that from 2021 onwards we will see an increase in visits of 1 second or less.
However, that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing!
After all, you can educate your audience.
If your web content includes summaries, infographics and other formats (video blogs, podcasts) that allow you to acquire relevant information in a very short period of time (around 5 minutes, for example) and enjoy the process, you will have a great advantage.
Relevance In Local Searches
In the wake of the coronavirus situation, people have become more comfortable & more supportive of their immediate environment.
You may have just realised as you read this that you are favouring doing your shopping & receiving your services as close to home as possible.
We follow the progression "myself, my family & friends, my community of neighbours, my neighbourhood, my city, my region, my country, my continent, the world" to determine the degree of relevance to grant our favours, to collaborate & to look for affinities.
So, if it was already interesting to optimise the NAP and have a presence on Google My Business for millions of 2.0 professionals (those who advertise on the Internet, but provide their services offline), now it will be preferable & even necessary for everyone.
Influence Marketing
In recent years we've seen influencer marketing fall into all sorts of scandals, it should come as no surprise to anyone that most experts think it will be extinct by 2021.
However, there are also those of us who think that this promotional trend will learn from its mistakes & sharpen its focus.
For example, micro-influencers already exists (people with a notable, though not excessive, audience)
Relevance & coherence are increasingly sought after in this format of collaboration.
At the end of the day, if the subject matter of the business does not match the influencer's audience & your own subject matter, there will be more rejection, thus it will not be such a fruitful collaboration.
SEO Trends For 2021 - Conclusion
Focus heavily on local relevance for your SEO - remember that months of confinement have emphasised the convenience of proximity!
Know your users so well that you can guess their search trends & meet their demand with content they will enjoy.
Make the most of your existing content.
Focus on the convenience and virality of your content.
Don't be afraid of videos, audios, downloadables and infographics.
Improve it from time to time according to what you learn from your audience and the transformations of the topics you deal with (perspectives, solutions, etc.), and don't let it die!
Finally, consider collaborating with micro-influencers as relevant as possible to your topic, niche and sector. This way you can increase your authority, traffic and sales.
