While 2020 was busy throwing curveballs, it was also opening up a unique opportunity for companies to adjust their business plans and experiment with innovative marketing. One of the most well-known yet constantly evolving marketing strategies is SEO, and in 2021 it has definitely evolved to a new level. Here are the top nine SEO trends to optimize for in 2021:

AI Takes Center Stage

This year Google’s search AI called RankBrain is poised to take center stage, and your SEO strategy had better be ready.

RankBrain is, most simply put, an AI that looks for intent. What did the user intend when they typed “the best place for Chinese” into the search bar? Did they mean the best place for Chinese people to live or the best place to grab some Chinese food near me?

Looking for intent, rather than relying too heavily on keywords, means that in 2021 SEO factors such as time spent on a page, click-through rates, readability, and other items that ultimately contribute to a website’s quality and trustability will be held in much higher regard.

Voice Search is on the Rise

Thanks to smartphone AIs like Siri and in-home smart speakers, voice search has finally been widely adopted, and it’s now becoming central to SEO strategy. To optimize for voice search, adjust your thinking towards phrases used in everyday speech. Someone might type “best hotels Portugal,” but they’re more likely to say, “what are the best hotels in Portugal?” Longer, more natural-sounding search phrases are better poised to succeed in voice search SEO.

Reputation is Key

Have you ever heard of the EAT principle? It stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness,” and it represents the key factors used to judge if a website is reputable or not – and thus if it will rank. Ensuring that your website provides quality content is essential to stand up to this principle, as is linking to and from reputable websites.

So is Mobile-Friendliness

Since 2019, Google has been using mobile-first indexing. That means that the algorithm looks first at the mobile version of your site rather than the web one when indexing. It’s high time to make sure that your mobile site is truly up to par. Check the Google Search Console or Google’s mobile-friendly test to see where you stand and what you need to work on.

Long-Form Content Does Rank

Content with more than 3,000 words reputably gets more traffic and more shares than its average 1,000-word counterpart. This translates into higher ranked content – as long as you don’t let quality suffer. Providing users with shareable yet still engaging information means your business will want to invest more in quality web-writing than it may have in previous years.

Be sure to organize the content logically – both for human readers and crawler-bots. Employ subheadings in logical places, link to relevant, authoritative sources, and avoid plagiarism at all costs. Make sure to use natural language and one new aspect of SEO that’s particularly important in 2021: Semantics.

Semantics Matter

SEO used to be all about primary keywords. Now, with intent on Google’s mind, secondary keywords and semantic search optimization are quickly gaining prominence. The more logical and relevant information that you can provide that truly addresses the question your content is designed to answer – while remaining natural and readable – the better.

Featured Snippets are Central

Featured snippets, rolled out in 2017, show a short paragraph of information, often structured as the response to a question, right at the top of the SERP. Snippets are very brief, and if you get them right, they’re a sort of short-cut for getting first page results. If you’re aiming for snippets, make sure to tailor your content towards concise, easily-liftable answers to relevant keyword questions.

Optimize Images

The proper labeling of images has always been key to SEO; however, with Google’s plans coming to a head, image labeling is more critical than ever. Optimize your images – use high quality, relevant images that are correctly labeled on the file name, alt text, and tags to ensure the crawlers can correctly classify them.

Include Video

Video isn’t for everyone, but if it’s the main medium for your target market, then you should be doing it and doing it well. Optimize the name of your video channel and its description. Tag relevant keywords. Beyond actually creating videos worth sharing, organizing content is the key to ranking in video search results.

Although most companies took a financial hit last year, many are already back on the up-and-up and ready to thrive. Revving up your SEO strategy this year will ensure that in 2021, your company will be climbing back up the rankings, right to the top.

Hire an Experienced SEO Firm with a Proven Track Record

To ensure you are making none of these SEO mistakes, UnReal Web Marketing has a systematic search engine optimization program that generates page one rankings every time. Our SEO program has been proven time and time again; our holistic approach integrates research, design, content, structure, links, UX, and analytics. Contact us today for a free health check and ranking report.

SEO is a critical piece of today’s marketing budget. In fact, the SEO Market has reached $80 billion annually in spending and will continue to grow as a significant revenue channel.

With the breakneck speed of technology, changes and adjustments often occur in how SEO works. Perhaps one of the most significant announcements regarding SEO changes from Google centers around the Page Experience Update.

The Page Experience Update is based on Core Web Vitals, which measure the speed and usability of a web page. It confirms that user experience will become an SEO ranking signal during 2021. SEO methods are continually evolving.

This is due to changes in consumer behavior and new developments in search engines. Preparing for the coming SEO changes is vital, as is determining what SEO mistakes you may be currently making. Take a look at your website to determine whether your site is making any of the following 20 SEO mistakes:

1. Your site is not easily accessible.

Accessibility is one of the top SEO mistakes out there—issues with indexation and accessibility account for a significant number of all SEO errors. To ensure accessibility, prioritize features like alt text, and prioritize accuracy above keyword density.

2. The “noindex” tag was not removed.

A noindex tag tells search engines not to index your page, meaning you could have the most comprehensive SEO around, and users would still be unable to find your page.

3. The content on your page is too short.

Yes, at one time, shorter was considered better, but today, content is getting much lengthier. Google and other search engines need a minimum of 300 words to work with—longer is even better. In fact, most pages that rank in the top ten have more than 2,000 words. This is not to say words should be added for no other reason than to make a word count, but thoroughly covering a topic is recommended.

4. Your content is long enough, but it’s not the content your audience wants.

When you create content only to rank for a specific keyword, but that content is not actually about your audience, you fail in your SEO objectives. When any of us type in a search query, if the results do not answer our needs, we will quickly go elsewhere. To rank for keywords, sometimes the quality of the content deteriorates, or there is an attempt to fit several topics within a single piece of content. While your content should have high-ranking keywords, even more, it must closely correspond to the needs of your target audience, answering their questions in a straightforward, thorough manner.

5. The content you are publishing is not original.

“Back in the day,” duplicating text was standard. However, today, such practices are penalized by search engines. Never copy content, never plagiarize content, and never duplicate content. Spinning old content into new is simply not worth the toll it can take on your rankings. Make sure your headlines are strong and match your content topic, ensuring the content provides answers and is relatable and engaging.

6. Your AMPs (Accelerated Mobile Pages) are not working correctly.

When you use AMPs, pages will load faster on mobile devices, making the page much more user-friendly. It is important that you not use JavaScript code or CSS stylesheets with AMP—they are not compatible. Also, make sure you remove outdated tags in the AMP document.

7. You don’t have a good understanding of your target audience.

No matter what business you are in, if you don’t have a thorough understanding of your target audience, your SEO will fall flat because SEO is your customers’ voice. How do your customers behave in your specific market? And while you may have a particular understanding in your mind of how your products and services are defined, do your customers have the same understanding?

8. You’re flying blind without a solid SEO plan and roadmap.

Even if you happen to have a solid understanding of your clients and your audience, if you don’t have a solid SEO plan, then whatever you’re doing can come off as random. It is surprising to realize how many businesses lack a specific SEO strategy, which is crucial for success. Take a look at your site now, including the level of results you’re currently getting. Is it where you want it to be? Do you have specific goals? Do you understand your competition? Do you know what tools and platforms will help you meet your goals and help you with workflow?

9. You’re working with meta content that is not optimized.

Meta content or tags describe the contents of a page to search engines. Meta titles should not exceed 11 words, with a meta description of between 150-300 characters.

10. Your pages aren’t being crawled as they should.

This could be because your HTTP status code has an error.

11. Your headings are “off.”

Search engines see headings as a sign of relevance, plus they guide users with short attention spans through your content.

12. Your site is lacking high-quality external links.

Don’t buy your links. Build them organically. Always ensure there are no broken links and use appropriate tools to help monitor the site’s links.

13. Your internal links have gone awry.

Consider your top-performing pages, then place links to them in your content. As with external links, audit your internal links often for broken links.

14. Your site is not mobile-friendly and/or is too slow.

Since more than half of all those who search the internet do so on mobile devices, your site must be mobile-friendly. If your site is too slow, your users will bounce and will not be back.

15. You are failing to utilize analytics properly.

If you’re not tracking your SEO progress, then there is no way to know if it’s working as it should.

16. You’ve failed to choose the right keywords.

Always use a reputable keyword finder, and never use overly-generic short-tail keywords.

17. You are using the same keyword for more than one page.

When you do this, you are, in effect, stealing your own keywords, plus you are forcing your pages to compete against each other.

18. You are ignoring local SEO.

When you do this, you will not rank in your immediate region, meaning you will not connect with local customers. Utilizing local SEO is a must in 2021.

19. Your conversions are not being properly analyzed.

Conversion tracking tools can help you determine which parts of your content leads to conversions—when you fail to convert organically, you are almost certainly losing out on revenue.

20. There are pop-ups lurking on your pages.

Pop-ups are annoying, so use them with care. If you want to notify your visitors about an important event, ensure the pop-up only comes up once when your visitor first enters your site.

Hire an Experienced SEO Firm with a Proven Track Record

To ensure you are making none of these SEO mistakes, UnReal Web Marketing has a systematic search engine optimization program that generates page one rankings every time. Our SEO program has been proven time and time again; our holistic approach integrates research, design, content, structure, links, UX, and analytics. Contact us today for a free health check and ranking report.

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Are you aware that the lead-to-close rate of social media marketing is 100 percent higher than outbound marketing? Or did you know that 84 percent of business-to-business (B2B) marketers use social media in some way?

By now, lacking an active social media presence is akin to removing a flip phone during a business meeting and later wondering why your manager or supervisor continues to give your colleague at work all the new accounts.

However some people still use flip phones and other people still resist social media marketing, stubbornly. They do not understand how it can assist them and they do not know if they need it. Here are a few powerful reasons why your business needs social media marketing:

You Can Use Social Media to Generate Targeted Traffic

Building a new page on your website can be likened to taking a beautiful selfie. You want the whole world to see it and admire its radiance, but you do not want to appear as if you are desperate for attention. This is why well- positioned social media posts can make a big difference for landing pages. For example, one link on Reddit can bring in 20,000 visitors while links placed on StumbleUpon can raise the number of visitors from a constant handful every day to hundreds. Everybody would want to benefit from that.

Social Media Enhances Your Website’s SEO

Search engine crawlers can tell the pages that attract traffic continually and dormant pages that just exist and have been long forgotten. An excellent SEO strategy is the most critical aspect of getting to the top of search engine rankings.

Social Media Can Assist You to Make an Impact or Attract Media Coverage When Attending Events

Social media is the best way of taking maximum advantage of your presence in a charity fundraiser that you have sponsored or attendance in an important trade show. For example, a tweet we sent when attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) resulted in one of our clients being featured in a prominent magazine.

You Can React to Problems Right Away

You want to be informed immediately when one of your products or services has a problem. The feedback that you get as you are doing social media marketing ensures you will always be first to know when problems occur. You can then initiate corrective measures straight away. Various studies have indicated that consumers value companies that are responsive to customer complaints (and feel free to launch an online tirade when companies refuse to resolve issues relating to their products or services).

An Active Social Media Presence Creates Loyalty to Your Brand

A research study conducted by Texas Tech University revealed that brands that are active on social media have more loyal clients. It is not hard to see why this is the case. When you engage and interact with customers productively on social media (and not just flinging posts out on the internet in the hope that somebody will discover them by chance them ), you become part of a united group of people with a shared vision.

You Might Get Business from Customers That You Were Not Aware Of

When marketing on Facebook, you may perhaps join numerous groups linked to your products, customer base and industry. When you post links on such groups, you might persuade customers to visit your site. You can also answer questions on Quora. After posting a link today you may get a sale from it weeks or months or years down the line.