Optimizing and ranking your website pre-2010 era was pretty easy. You’d just have to follow simple steps like getting your website up, throwing in a bunch of keywords, writing a bit about the topic, and Voila! Google would start ranking your website on top.
However, that’s not the case anymore. Also, due to the internet revolution, the number of websites that compete with each other to rank higher exploded. Due to these reasons, it started getting difficult for search engines to crawl and index the massive database of the internet.
Today, the Google search index contains hundreds of billions of web pages and is well over 100,000,000 gigabytes. Thus, it needs a formidable way to evaluate and rank each page.
The evolution of Search Engine Optimization as seen in the last decade that ended with 2020 was, if described in one word, stellar.
Search Engines, especially Google have improved their quality and user experience by shifting their focus from keyword-oriented to quality-oriented results. And as the days pass by, SEO will keep getting evolved as and when new trends emerge.
Meanwhile, let’s see some of the SEO trends that are bound to rule the coming decade.
6 SEO Trends That Will Dominate the SERP Ranking for Coming Decade
1. Content Quality & User Intent
Yes, content quality has long been here and affects significantly on the SERP rankings. However, many websites haven’t adopted this as their SEO mantra. They are still focused on short-term SEO gains through building backlinks, optimizing technical SEO, or doing digital PR.
However, these are not suitable for long-term SEO gains. Also, due to the massive size of the database, the Google algorithm will only rank pages that offer remarkable quality on a consistent basis.
Websites creating generic content will have lower chances of ranking than the ones that publish unique, quality content on topics not covered by others previously.
One way to adopt this in your competitive content marketing strategy is by researching well for the user intent of your target audiences to scour unique topics. Now, organize and prioritize these notions by relevance and cover them one by one.
The quality content doesn’t necessarily have to be SEO-friendly but it must fulfill the users’ intent and their expectations. And if the industry leaders are to be believed, Google has long been working to detect the intent behind every search users make.
Thus, considering the value of content quality and user intent it encapsulates, this trend is bound to rule the coming years as a SERP ranking signal.
2. SEO Automation
From admin workflows to IT services and marketing, automation has proven its effectiveness. SEO practices such as website audits, competitor analysis, search intent detection, and many others have already been automated. And from 2022 onwards, it’ll become more widespread as more SEO professionals around the world increasingly adopt automation with open arms.
Driven by AI and machine learning, SEO automation can intelligently do technical audits to scour issues by content type. Also, many SEO experts utilize SEO automation as quality assurance for their SEO services.
Moreover, AI-powered automation tools monitor potential SEO issues in real-time and warn as soon as possible to eliminate and resolve them beforehand. The SEO automation trend is continually picking up the pace. And it has gone from ‘nice to have’ to necessary when dealing with larger and more complex sites.
3. Mobile & Page Experience
Not so recently, Google had announced the mobile-first indexing for the whole web. And recently, it has started implementing a page experience update that aims to rank sites with better user experience scores for both mobile and web.
Thanks to this update, the entirety of the mobile and web, from the discovery phase to engagement, everything will correlate and be in sync to offer the best possible page experience.
The ripple effects of mobile-first indexing and page experience updates will cause a massive re-organization in the SERP ranking that we all can witness in the coming years. Thus, brands should start preparing their website from the onwards to not lose any significant SERP rankings.
4. SERP Localization
As per Brightlocal’s Consumer Survey, consumers that use Google for local business evaluation increased from 63% in 2020 to 81% in 2021. Also, the following graph shows that 21% of consumers use the internet every day to find information about local businesses and 99% have done so in the last year.
From these statistics, we can idealize that Google will focus more on presenting localized content in the SERP results over the next few years. Already, the location-specific pages or content is outranking those who ranked at the top and focused more on global reach.
This will keep on picking up and become more obvious in the coming decade. Thus, websites with global target audiences will have to necessarily form a local presence to rank higher on localized SERP.
5. Metaverse Marketing
Metaverse marketing may seem like a new trend in the marketing sphere that’s thought to fade away with time. However, it has come a long way from being just another buzzword to a revolutionary strategy for marketers.
Metaverse can be conceptualized as the successor of the internet that we enjoy today. It brings the capabilities of the internet, virtual reality, and augmented reality together. As per Statista, there will be around a billion AR active users in 2022, which is supposed to cross the 1.7 billion mark in 2024.
Just like how brands optimize their web presence to get found on the current internet, they’ll have to find different ways to optimize their presence on the next generation of the internet i.e. Metaverse. A visual content strategy will play an important role in getting found on the Metaverse.
Audit your content strategy to find and optimize it with new content types and can implement AR, VR, and 3D experiences to leverage Metaverse marketing.
6. Voice & Visual Search
As mentioned in the previous point, visual as well as voice search will take precedence over the normal search approach.
As per one report, more than one-third of Americans use a voice search feature while 71% of consumers prefer making a voice search over typing. Another report projects that Google Smart Speaker Sales will hit 140 million in 2025.
This foreshadows that Google will prioritize the sites optimized for voice search and will feature them in the snippet results or show/speak when searched using smart assistants.
The same will apply for the visual search. After the introduction of Google Lens, the search engine giant is becoming better at interpreting SEO-optimized images day by day. The image recognition software will enable users to search for products and other things on the web.
Also, Google Discover uses images for tailored results. Thus, it’s predicted that normal search may start to resemble a lot more like Discover results filled with visuals.
Conclusion
Trends are known for their quick appeal when they appear first in the market. Many of those trends become obsolete after a certain period or when they are no longer relevant to the market. However, the above-mentioned SEO trends have been here for a few years now and we believe they’ll continue to be relevant in the coming years.
As more research and development are being conducted in the same direction, many of the trends listed in this article will go mainstream and rule the coming decade. Thus, brands need to sharpen their knowledge horns to drive sustainable and meaningful growth in the near future.
Author Bio
Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.
