Before 2020, there were already hundreds of articles about SEO, discussing its relevance every year. But this year, it started in the most dramatic and unanticipated way that affected the entire world. COVID-19 changed a lot of things and introduce new ways of living.
In the month of March, a huge percent of Europe was in complete lockdown, and people were quarantined in their homes to avoid the infection. Most of them were lucky enough to have a stable internet connection to adapt new way of working – work from home. Even up to these days, COVID-19 affected many businesses to tight production method, and it also changed the playing field in Search Engine Optimization. If you want to know how SEO became the real deal, keep on reading to grasp information and learn tips in order to progress.
Stay At Home Is The New Norm
This may sound unfortunate and scary, but scientists claimed that the world will still likely to experience new viruses across the globe the same as COVID-19. Not only that, they claimed again that by 2050, a new and lethal well-known influenza will be the cause of death for millions of people.
As the world is constantly changing, SEO will also be improving the way it should be.
What Will Be The Changes?
The trends for 2020 that were previously suggested by many SEO experts in the industry are going to change. The outlook of the entire industry is also changing. Some things will no longer be relevant while others are going to be even more relevant than it was predicted. Here are some of them.
1. Keyword Choice Will Continue To Evolve
No industry is exclusive from the impacts of COVID-19, both micro-businesses and macro-businesses, and it caused more damage than you can think of. Many keywords are already lost in sight. For example, no one has searched for construction and tourism anymore because it is not active now, and people would rather divert their attention to economics and daily virus update.
A research shows a staggering search drop in these industries because of the pandemic. On the other hand, food and health see an amazing rise. In other words, future marketers will need to remember that customers’ needs are changed, and that past and old data are no longer relevant.
2. Huge Competition In Publishing Quality Content
Quality content is still undefeated when talking about the features of a good Search Engine Optimization, and it is said that 91% of all ads are viewed for less than a second because they find it uninteresting to spend their time with it. When publishing something online, it is important to make an enticing headline or title and a well-written article to build up interest and engagement from the people.
Another report stating that 71% of the sample population hated the fact of seeing too many posts on the internet which is just a bait to sell their products instead of posting what the accurate information is.
Everyone wants to read or engage a quality content article and that is the purpose of exploring on the internet, but if they detect it as a trap to sell out someone’s business, they immediately quit reading and proceed to another webpage. It is already starting now and will be more active in the future, where people will spend most of their time on the internet, not just surfing but watching entertainment videos, reading news, and so on. This is a chance to get the attention of the public, but it can only be done with great content.
3. Voice Search As The New Trend
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) statistics shows that 31% of the people use voice search when searching via smartphones, and this is inevitably going to change in the next decade as the industry continue to rise. AI-based smart speakers hit the market that uses voice search feature for assistance and inquiries purposes, produced by tech companies such as Amazon. So, it is important to be aware of the new innovations coming through to adapt it as a new SEO strategy.
4. Fast Website Loading Speed Is A Must
Loading speed is one the biggest SEO trends in 2020. It is about the speed of your website to load the contents and to respond to user’s demand. On the uprising competition in the market with millions of pages on the internet, people will always visit a website that has little loading time or just a second to load the webpage. Statistics shows that 40% of web visitors will immediately leave the site if it took three seconds to load.
However, the average loading time of a webpage is over ten seconds, so you are safe if you do have a fast-loading website. An ordinary internet user might just accept longer loading time, but as mentioned earlier, the rise of voice search and AI will not tolerate this kind of performance. In other words, SEO experts who cannot manage to adapt and update their system will lose a vast number of visitors.
5. Engaging And Interesting Content
Staying in quarantine is the new normal on this decade, and surfing through the internet will make people’s attention span even shorter due to the loads of option to engage with. Working from home has never been more convenient as it offers many benefits, but the inability to focus is one of the downsides. The ideal length for articles for now is around 1,600 words or a seven-minute time read, and people are now losing interest and momentum to read long articles. The chances are great that it will even decrease more soon to approximately five minutes. SEO experts should take note on this concept and ask writers to write an engaging, rich information articles.
6. Desktop Computers Are Back On Track
People enjoyed so much being connected on the internet in late 2010, and the fast development of smartphones, tablets, and laptops, provided convenience and great opportunities to step up the game. However, people are already limiting their movement by staying at home, and desktop computers will likely to be on top again. Until now, all SEO consultants are advised for better mobile optimization that seems like it is going to change in the next few years.
Conclusion
No one can predict exactly what is going to happen in the next decade, but based on recent events, the above points are self-evident. The SEO game will change even more dramatically now than ever before.
Everyone working with SEO needs to do more research and analysis as it should always have, because everything is changing, and you need to keep up with the pace. Of course, these changes are going to be dictated from search engines, but it is best to be prepared and act immediately instead of waiting for everyone to benefit from the changes and miss the opportunity to capitalize on new trends.
