How Semalt Approaches SEO Optimization In 2021

Businesses are quickly developing a digital presence and to handle the rising demand for convenience and speed. No doubt, being on the internet makes getting information and buying products faster and more convenient. With this rising demand, there is also a growing need to improve SEO performance from its core.

To stay updated on the latest trends, Semalt has compiled a list of changing trends to let you know what can be considered old or outdated and what the future holds. In the last six months alone, there has been a climatic mix of uncertainty, chaos, empathy, and challenge in what should be considered the best SEO moves.

As a result of the Coronavirus, companies across the world have had to adjust their operating system. Some had to rapidly scale up or down, while others had to rethink their entire operation plan as things continue to change. At the same time, other businesses saw a unique opportunity to grow and develop an online presence to cater to their customers' needs.

In this article, you will see some fundamental shifts that we have noticed in the market, and you will be learning more about some user's search behavior.

Fundamental shifts you should know about

The traditional customer journey is changing

Let's imagine that you are a big B2B company like adobe or IBM. Traditionally, you would have relied heavily on trade shows and field to field meetings to improve your consumer base and knowledge. However, the lockdown, amongst other things, has made that difficult, and as a result, companies have to invest in an online presence. Today, these companies have had to improve their website content to replace the knowledge consumers would have gotten from those offline events.

To survive, they have created content that tries its very best to mimic their one-on-one interaction, but now, it's done online. This allows those on one conversations to be easier to handle, and their accounts team can easily handle and connect with customers.

Practically overnight, retail consumes questions concerning takeout menus, COVID-19 guidelines, and seating arrangements in restaurants have changed what information customers look for on a website. Global companies took this change as a shock and are finding it difficult to adapt to these changes and modify their content to meet the needs of their visitors in different regions across the world.

Our advice for you:

These changes will become more obvious, and you can make adequate corrections to suit your customers better.
Continue investing in virtual connections. Consumer behavior will never remain the same. You should also prepare for in-person events as soon as it is safe to host events.

Narrowcast marketing isn't the best option in times of dynamic change

Many marketers who focus their attention on only a few metrics typically fail to capture other important business intelligence metrics (BI). Without this, it becomes difficult to understand the entire scope of market shifts, which becomes a problem when redeveloping your search strategy.

Analytics that focus on a narrow metric range fail to observe the extent of the market shift we see in search. In fact, many SEO platforms look at trends narrowly. This is insufficient to see the scale and breadth of what goes on in search.

To get the most understanding of these changes, one must process massive amounts of data and have a full scope of changes across the whole search landscape.

Our advice for you:

Try to collect and learn from as much data as you and your team can collect. Use this data and utilize AI where you can.
Invest more time in understanding market data and not only your user data.

What is in the past isn't a prologue

During the Coronavirus, we have noticed a significant shift away from over resilience on historical trends. We have also learned that now more than ever, there is a greater and more critical role for real-time data to play in the search and content space. Today, it is critical that we detect how market and customer's intents are changing.

SEO and digital marketers need to improve their cadence, which such rapid changes, and with the magnitude of these changes, it is important that we stay on top of it. If you decide to look at data on a quarterly or monthly basis, you can miss essential inflection points.

Our advice for you:

Marketers need to respond asap to thrive in an online market.
Marketers need to find timely data to rethink their online strategy, especially during the holidays and new year.

Big trends can hide essential facts.

Very insightful details, especially during COVID-19 pandemic, are found on the granular level. For example, flights aren't working. But its city by city changes this creates a rise in regional flights. Now, regional flights are operational, whereas international flights are still down. To understand this, we had to look at the granular level of trends to find where opportunities are.

Our advice for you:

To get there, marketers need to study both broad and deep details of their markets.
Marketers are required to process vast amounts of and take note of the fine details. This will reveal insight and patterns that you can work with.

Marketers need to try new approaches and understand users' intent

What online marketers and SEO experts have long hoped for is that users would realize that online shopping is convenient and easy. Shoppers are now browsing more frequently, which has led to an increase in the overall success of purchases made online. However, these purchases are still small in value. A recent survey revealed that 60% of customers have been shopping online since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

The likelihood that this consumer behavior is as high as 73%. This makes now the best time for marketers to test new ways to understand a user's intent. Today, smaller stores are shifting products to their online market.

The more marketers understand macro trends, which affects their direct industry. Once this knowledge is combined with search intelligence, they can understand their user's intent better. This will be beneficial not only beneficial for the holiday season but in more seasons ahead.

To help with this, there are other Search engine trends you should note.

Communicate better by adding images and videos

This is the final tool Semalt uses in creating engaging content. People learn differently; to some, reading is the best way; to others, pictures and videos are needed. Using pictures and videos can help you illustrate your points clearly. This is why they are so common in modern textbooks. Pictures and videos are an excellent tool Semalt use in enhancing the reading experience. No one wants to read-only text without a touch of colors.

You should note that only images that help add value to your content should be used. Using the wrong image only does more harm than good. Using pictures and videos are particularly beneficial because they stick better to the minds of your readers. You want your content to stick to the minds of your readers. You want them to be able to remember your services quickly. Since visitors can remember the pictures and videos, it becomes easier to remember the content surrounding them.

Online vendors have no other choice but to use engaging images and videos to show their potential clients what they are buying. No one will pick anything from your shelves if they do not know what they are getting.

Semalt uses these engagement tools in creating great content, ensuring that your visitors are satisfied by what they see on your website. In the end, you have happy customers willing to patronize your business.

Be accurate

No one wants to read information that isn't factual or accurate. If an article is written for a website, thousands and possibly millions of viewers will read it, and if the information turns out to be inaccurate, it may have dire consequences. Can you imagine how much damage this will bring, keep in mind that your web content represents your company?

Using figures and statistics is a fun way to beautify your content; it gives your viewers a variety like your content. But be careful that every figure, statistics, or graph displayed on your content are accurate.

Here are some tips to ensure the information you display is accurate:

Consider who you are linking to.
Linking your statistics can help.
Linking helps search engines find your website.

Your content should be thought-provoking

Your audience reads your content, and it becomes engaging only when you make them an engaging audience. You can stir up their thought through the following ways:

Leave your readers with questions: This should be done with care; you shouldn't write incomplete contents. But instead, include questions that will make the readers reflect on how they can use it to meet their needs.
Have a captivating and promising introduction: Your introduction determines if your readers will continue reading. People are quick to judge; you should try your best to show your best in your introduction.
Use stories: Using stories makes your content more personal. It is a better and more realistic way to pass information across because your audience could understand it easier.

These are some ways you can help your website look great in 2021 and the years to come. Remember, Semalt is always here to help, and you shouldn't hesitate to ask questions or request our services. Our team of experts will help you with your website issues as well as help your website perform better on SERP.