The transition from physical to digital in all areas of life has made rapid progress in recent years. The coronavirus pandemic, often only blamed for the closure of many physical businesses, only accelerated the digitization trend, and did not start it. With businesses and people moving more of their lives online, the visibility of the internet is not a privilege: it is a survival tool.
Because of this, it is impossible to overestimate the importance of SEO in the new normal. Not sure what SEO is or why your company should care? Here’s what you need to know.
What is SEO
SEO is an abbreviation for search engine optimization. Search engine optimization refers to making sure that your website is optimized to rank well in a search engine’s algorithm. Algorithms do almost everything on the internet these days. So if you optimize your content, your visibility will be improved.
The importance of SEO
After you understand what SEO means, the importance of SEO should be obvious. If your company’s website doesn’t rank well according to Google’s algorithm, no one will suggest it in their search feeds. If your website doesn’t appear on the first page of Google, nearly 75 percent of people won’t search for you.
You can’t afford to miss out on so much business. Nobody can, especially when it’s online or broke.
How to improve your SEO
If you understand exactly how important SEO is to a website, you may be wondering how to improve your SEO. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources available to you. These resources can include:
Take SEO courses
As with all things related to computers, there are a number of courses designed to help everyone learn the pros and cons of search engine optimization. Regardless of where you’re getting the course from, be it Udemy, Skillshare or any other platform. Finding an up-to-date SEO course means you can take your company’s SEO into your own hands.
Hiring of external SEO services
If you’re not struggling with the complicated systems behind SEO, you can always hire an SEO company or agency to help you out. In fact, in the case of local SEO, it might be better to outsource than to do it in-house. Do some research online on some popular SEO services and find out what works best with your business model.
Combine your SEO with marketing know-how
Pop Quiz: What do SEO and Marketing have in common? If you answered “Both are very targeted services” then you are right! Marketing is about reaching demographics and SEO is about knowing the user intent of your demographics. Use what you know it works well in standard marketing, think about how it affects online searches, and you will get a long way.
If you need help figuring out what’s going to work in marketing in the coming year, check out this article on Marketing in 2021 for some tips and tricks for the pros!
The tools that make the trade
No SEO effort would be successful without the help of certain tools. Here are our personal recommendations for tools that will make your search engine optimization a little easier:
- Ahrefs: A premium keyword research tool that ensures the highest quality SEO keywords every time
- SEMRush: A Marketing SEO Tool and a Great All-in-One Research Tool
- Moz Pro: If you’d rather install software than visit a website, this is the first stop for professionals
- UberSuggest: This tool allows you to track keyword performance over time and adjust on the fly
These and thousands more tools can make SEO a breeze, even for those new to the concept.
See SEO trends in 2021
Like anything computer and internet related, SEO is an ever-evolving beast that requires constant research to tame. Observing what’s trending in SEO is more than a nice perk. it is an absolute necessity. With that in mind, here are some key SEO trends you need to know to be successful in 2021.
User experience makes or breaks your website
In May of this year, Google intends to publish statistics on page experience as a ranking factor for your SEO. In the past, websites ranked well because they were well optimized, but the user experience on the page was poor at best. No longer.
They are ranked based on factors like ease of use, page load times, and interactivity. If any of these areas have proven to be painful in the past, they need to be addressed as soon as possible.
All SEO will be mobile SEO
Google also intends to make the mobile version of a website their top ranking website in March versus the desktop version. In this way, they want to close the often large gap between optimizing a website for mobile devices and optimizing a traditional desktop. This is not the time to get lazy and accept basic passages with your mobile website SEO: it’s time to actually optimize it.
Voice search reveals the user’s intent and challenges old models
Okay google? Hello Siri? Alexa?
Whichever question follows these questions, you need to make sure that your relevant company is ranked for the answer. If getting the best result on a search engine is important to traditional search engine optimization, getting that coveted top spot in a voice search is critical. If users can find your competitor by doing a voice search, why bother looking for you the old fashioned way?
Long form is not the enemy
Many companies shy away from long content. This is understandable given the often dire stats we hear about users’ attention spans. However, many SEO experts predict that long-form content will rank better than short-form this year. Be ready to experiment with longer content and see how far you can get.
Completely understand SEO
As mentioned above, the importance of SEO cannot be overstated. Without proper Search Engine Optimization, your website won’t show up early on Google and you’ll be missing out on a huge number of potential customers and businesses. However, if you follow the tips, trends, and tricks listed above, you can stand out from your competition with ease.
If you need more assistance with a business, technical, or lifestyle need, check out our blog daily for more articles like this one!
June Potter wrote this article on behalf of FreeUp. FreeUp is the fastest growing freelance marketplace in the United States. FreeUp only accepts the top 1% of freelance applicants. click here Get access to the best freelancers in the world.
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