SEO in 2020: 3 Trends Marketers Can't Ignore in the New Year

Keeping up with changing SEO practices can seem challenging, because every day there's news about a new tweak to the search engine algorithm, a new must-have tool, or some new technique to be mastered. SEO in 2020 will require knowledge of these three trends. Just remember that SEO requires a long-term mindset, and sometimes it's better to ignore the daily noise and shiny new SEO objects. Of course, there are some trends you can't ignore, and in this article I'll highlight the important ones that will impact your SEO efforts in 2020. 1. Use UX Design Principles to Improve Your Mobile SERP Rankings Combining UX with the best SEO practices gives businesses a powerful combination to work with, when it comes to the mobile experience. SEO helps put your information in front of visitors when they are looking for the services you offer. Using UX design principles in the layout of your mobile site encourages visitors to "stick" on your site, rather than bounce. Some ideas to keep in mind when it comes to UX include rearranging the site structure for more straightforward navigation, making the design clean and simple, and putting the essential information about the user’s interest above the fold. That means it should be front-and-center, as soon as they navigate to your mobile site. Do not let a focus on logos and flashy advertising overwhelm the information your visitor wants. Make sure the font is large enough to be read without straining. Finally, optimize (AKA, resize) images so that they do not impact your mobile site speed. Your visitor does not want to watch a spinning icon for ages while your pictures struggle to load. 2. Capture User Attention Using Snippets Zero-click searches have taken off over the past few years. Featured snippets and rich snippets on the front pages of Google make it possible for a user to have their question answered without having to click anything. In 2020, focus on making this new trend work for your business. Optimize your website information by making it appear as featured snippets or rich snippets. Featured snippets are results that show up as a block of information at the top of SERPs, and rich snippets are enhancements to search engine listings, like business reviews, ratings, product prices, etc. To get your webpage information to appear as a featured snippet or rich snippet, you should add structured data. Structured data is code that you can add to your website that tells search engines like Google exactly what is on your webpage. For example, you can use structured data to specify business reviews and ratings and product prices, as mentioned above. You can also use structured data to specify your business location, which helps with local SEO. Long story short, add structured data to your site to improve your SEO in 2020. 3. Make Security a Priority When It Comes to Collecting Visitor Info One of the hottest topics in 2019 was security, and this trend is not going away in 2020. Everyone is concerned about data security. Many businesses fail to realize that attacks from hackers have an impact on how search engine bots access a website. Assaults on your site cause it to slow down and even prevents your page from showing up in search engines like Google. Visitors instead get a 404-error page, because the search engine can’t reference your page. Monitoring for attacks, data theft by automated web scrapers, and other cybersecurity issues should be considered as part of your SEO strategy for 2020. Summary of the 3 Important SEO Trends in 2020 SEO and UX are merging and both need to be considered, especially with your mobile website. Featured snippets and rich snippets continue to gain traction on Google's first page and that means businesses must add structured data to their websites. Last but not least, website security should be a top priority in 2020, if it's not already. Want more tips to improve your SEO? Click here to grab a copy of my "Ultimate SEO Checklist."

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SEO in 2020: 3 Trends Marketers Can't Ignore in the New Year

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Phil Frost

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