Top Five SEO Trends for 2020
Stay up to date for the new decade

Performing your due diligence by keeping up to date with the latest tech, trends and algorithm changes will stand you in good stead and keep you ahead of the curve for inevitable future updates. Regarding SEO, we’ve taken a look at the latest trends for the new decade and what you should implement to stay relevant in 2020 and beyond!

1. Voice Search Is Here To Stay

The numbers and statistics for voice search are constantly growing. Data from an Adobe survey found that 48% of consumers use voice search for ‘general web searches’. Furthermore, regarding mobile search, a survey from Microsoft in April found that 68% of people use voice search when ‘searching for a quick fact’ on their mobile phones.

What you’ll notice about these types of searches is their specificity. They often contain long-tail keywords, as users are looking for an accurate answer to their exact query. These users are much more likely to convert once the answer is given as they’re already in the consideration phase as opposed to the awareness stage.

Most voice searches are local, so to maximize your conversion potential you should optimize your voice search and website for local SEO as well as include bullet lists to give a better chance of ranking for voice searches.

2. Increasing Prevalence of Featured Snippets

A featured snippet appears at the top of a search results page, above both the organic search results and the paid advertisements, as a direct answer to your search query. They are viewed as being in ‘position zero’, as they don’t actually push other organic results off the first page.

Snippets can be sorted into these three categories:

- List and table snippets

- Video snippets

- Text snippets

Featured snippets are so effective at answering search queries that a study of 2 million featured snippets conducted by Ahref found that they receive more traffic than even the first organic search result!

In order to rank for snippets, your SEO strategy should include questions and answer based search queries to provide a swift, clear and direct answer to all questions and queries related to your niche and business.

3. More Marketers Will Leverage Influencers

Okay, so you might be thinking, “what exactly is the relationship between SEO and influencer marketing?” To put it simply, when it comes to companies that operate in the fashion, beauty, travel, lifestyle and recently e-commerce industries – influencers have been known to carry a unique authority that can be used to increase traffic, reach and visibility.

Factors such as targeting the right influencers and properly executing your sponsored content concerning time and quality can have a big impact on whether you’ll see a positive ROI. This means contacting the influencers already operating in your niche who regularly receive a good level of engagement from their followers.

The amount of followers isn’t all that important; the engagement is much, much more so. This could be more difficult to determine following the ‘likeless revolution’, which we discussed in our article, “How Marketers Can Adapt to a Likeless Instagram”.

The process, when done correctly, can be hugely beneficial from an SEO perspective. Not to mention the backlinks via link building that can be gained through influencer websites to further contribute to your ranking potential!

4. Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT)

BERT, Google’s first algorithm update since 2014, is here for the long haul. BERT will improve the way Google understands search queries through a better comprehension and understanding of natural language.

BERT will directly impact websites and content that is poorly written. Although you can’t necessarily optimize for BERT, as it is simply Google’s method of gaining a better understanding of natural language for its AI, SEO specialists who apply the fundamentals of BERT to their content could improve their ranking potential and have a better chance of playing a part in a featured snippet.

To appear on the first page of SERPs, creating content should be all about coordinating with a variety of options that match user intent. If the top searches for a query are informational, navigational or transactional, you should follow suit and create content that corresponds to their rules.

5. The utilisation of the Knowledge Panel

Google’s Knowledge Panel has been a staple of Google search results since it was launched in 2012. Companies are now able to edit and control information on their knowledge panel that is shown in search results.

Claiming and editing your own knowledge panel provides countless benefits to the user and to the panel owner. First and foremost, the panel shows instant information and quick access to your website, a featured image, title and access to your various social platforms.

To do this, simply ensure that your website is verified with the Search Console and update your panel through Google My Business.

From an SEO perspective, a knowledge panel is prime real estate. It can add to your brand’s trust and authenticity – whether you’re a business owner or an influencer. However, becoming a recognisable force in the knowledge graph isn’t always easy. You’ll need a series of authoritative pages and a Wikipedia page isn’t enough!