• Google announced it’s 3rd core update for SEO in December 2020.
  • The face of SEO is changing once more, with experts suggesting several new approaches.
  • New EU guidelines will lead to a major shift in transparency.
  • UK Competition rules seek to fine tech giants up to 10% of global revenue

A string of industry changes are about to have a major impact on search marketing. On the 3rd of December 2020 Google openly announced it’s 3rd core update for 2020. The message came from Google’s official search liaison, Danny Sullivan and stated: “Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the December 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before”. In this same period, the EU announced that it is pushing ahead to compel search engines to provide more transparency about ranking factors. As if the aforementioned changes are not enough, the UK seeks to encourage tech giants to follow competition law by announcing record breaking fines of up to 10% of global revenue.

Clearly, with more transparency and fair competition from regulators, as well as an increased effort to prioritize core web vitals as a ranking factor from Google themselves, the evolution of search engine optimization is once again accelerating.

How will industry professionals in search engine optimization respond to these changes? First of all, they will soon be equipped with much more information as Google seeks to comply with the EU. This means that the guess work will be over - and a level playing field will exist thanks to the newly compelled transparency.

It goes without saying that those who seek to increase visibility and improve brand awareness should follow certain principles that will help them curate sites and content to appeal to not only the most people possible but to the ones that are more likely to become valuable conversions. Ultimately, those who understand how to benefit from the most recent changes, may see the most gains.

Factors to consider in 2021

Of the hundreds of ranking factors inferred by practitioners and available through transparency, at least ten factors stand out as actionable, as we discuss below:

The quality of content

Barry Swartz of SE Roundtable advocates the right balance between quantity and quality of web content. It is already known that sites who publish infrequent levels of content are at a disadvantage. One of the most important factors for ranking high on Google is creating content that actually creates value for the reader / customer. Using content that really resonates with your customers is key to growing a successful business and giving your company visibility.

Keyword research is of course still a valid method to creating content that search engines can discover more easily, however it is not the priority, writing with the user and their experience in mind is the way to go. The CEO of TRUiC, Nagabhushanam "Bobby" Peddi said “The main reason we grew by more than 120% in 2020 is that Google awards exceptionally high content quality, backed by great researchers. We have now negotiated unique access for other small businesses who want to buy into quality content efforts so that they can also grow as a result”.

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Page Load Speed and Core Web Vitals

Technical aspects will be more important than ever and affect choices such as web hosting, design aspects and coding. Adriaan Brits, CEO of Sitetrail media, said that “companies should first ensure the right infrastructure and coding framework to assure optimal load speeds to satisfy Google’s increased focus on core web vitals, before spending on content marketing”.

You need to ensure that your site has a seamless user experience by doing whatever possible to minimize any problems and delays in content loading. Good page load speed is a critical ranking factor for SEO which you should always keep in mind.

The optimal load speed is between 2 and 5 seconds with every half second beyond 2 seconds increasing your bounce rate, so it’s important that you clear your site of any plugins or large photo files that might be causing your content loading speed to lag.

You should also make sure that your site is optimized and mobile friendly. Making sure that you use a website builder that is optimized for fast loading is way more important than the looks of the site it produces.

Reconsidering most press engines

EAT ratings carry weight - and this is where 90% of providers in this sector fall short. The question is, which provider will actually be capable of delivering EAT compliance? You will inevitably consider big names such as PRWeb, Cision, PR Newsire, Sitetrail and Business Wire. There are many top press release distribution services out there that can help you distribute your press release to the most people possible including top media outlets and credible journalists. You should do your research beforehand and compare providers before you choose the best press release provider that can help you with SEO.

Keep in mind that the majority of press release platforms don’t provide unique editorial content (therefore lacking in EAT compliance), however Siterail is one of the few platforms that introduces brands to legitimate journalists as part of delivering authenticated content. This can make a world of difference if you want to keep your content unique and relevant and your audience engaged with your brand. In turn helping your content get on websites such as Forbes and Entrepreneur.

Earning credible citations

Linking to trustworthy blogs and websites when creating a piece of quality content is a good way to increase your authority and credibility.

Also quality not quantity is key here so linking out to a few authoritative sites is the best practice if you want to build a community of followers that will appreciate your content and effort and eventually return the favor - by linking back to you.

The value of good meta descriptions

Make sure that you don’t have duplicate meta descriptions for different pages and that they are always unique.

Meta descriptions are the first thing that users see when your page loads so it’s important to have relevant descriptions that correctly describe your content, making for a better user experience overall.

Social Media “Signals”

Social media compliments SEO more than we think it does, it is believed that you can achieve a higher ranking by using social media with direct and indirect links to your content.

By using social media platforms and having your content liked and shared by Facebook or Twitter you are creating more awareness around your brand, increasing your discoverability and rankings.

Coherent URL structures

It might sound like not much of a big deal but you should pay attention to your URLs and make sure that others can understand them clearly and there is no use of numbers or characters that make no sense.

If human beings can’t understand your URLs then most search engines will most likely be confused as well and won’t rank your content well.

Consistency in content flow

Your content needs to be unique in order to stay relevant and rank high on search engines, but apart from uniqueness you need to make sure that you are posting with consistency.

Posting unique content consistently will help you rank higher on search engines and create visibility for your brand.

Image descriptions

Image search has risen way ahead of voice search - and remains a huge opportunity in SEO. You should always use the correct keywords to describe your images as they are important for search engine optimization.

Try to be as descriptive and literal as possible so your images will show up in the correct search results - relevance is key.

Analytics and Google Search Console are vital

We all want to achieve better results but without the right tools that can show us where we started out and how far we’ve come we have no real data to base our marketing strategy on.

If we don’t know where we've been we can't really figure out where we should go either to achieve the results we want making analytics one of the most useful tools in navigating your success.

Final take:

Although experts like John Mueller at Google argue that major (core) updates are more important than minor updates that are released throughout the year, the industry is monitoring all updates relentlessly.

In response to the UK seeking to fine tech giants up to 10% of global revenue for non-compliance with competition law, Ronan Harris, VP of Google U.K. and Ireland, stated that they “welcome rules which support growth and innovation.”The number of future core Google updates for 2021 is yet to be announced. If anything can be taken for granted, it is the fact that more transparency may improve the industry and user satisfaction when acted upon.