Speaking of SEO today, we can notice that the main priority is to provide a better user experience. At least, leading search engines like Google claim so. If you have an appealing, clean, optimized, and well-structured website, you can assume it will give you better results. Visitors will find it easy, spend more time on it, and have no problems with finding what they need. In return, your traffic will increase, the bounce rate will decrease, and it may launch your conversions very high. It’s a win-win situation for both sides. But in order to achieve all the good results, you need to stay on track with advanced SEO techniques for 2020.
Some of the advanced SEO techniques for 2020 you should use
By following the best SEO techniques for 2020, you will be able to create eye-catching, user-friendly, content-worthy websites for your business. Not only it will help you rank higher in SERPs, but it will boost your reputation among visitors. Nonetheless, these benefits don’t come overnight. You need to invest significant time and effort, and follow the latest SEO updates and rules to achieve it. In most cases, hiring a professional SEO team can take the burden off your shoulder. But, if you have time and means to personally deal with it, you can do it by yourself. At least, to a degree.
So, without going deeper into the subject about all the benefits, let’s introduce several “must-know” SEO techniques you should use in 2020.
- Optimization of your older content
- Check how you perform in local SEO
- Mobile-first websites and responsiveness
- Reduce your website loading speed
- Optimize with voice search in mind
1. Optimization of your older content as one of the advanced SEO techniques
If you have a website, chances are, you already have plenty of content on it. In case it’s a couple of years old, maybe it’s time to revise it. The thing is, SEO is evolving over time. Regular patches are taking place, algorithms are updating, which sometimes significantly changes how things work. Generally speaking, if you audit your pages, you will find that some of your older content might not perform the way it once does. But, you can increase the results if you re-optimize it.
When checking for candidates for a revision, try these:
- Use different tools to check the performance
- See how your keywords are ranking
- Pay attention to loading speed optimization
- Find if your pages are missing some newer SEO techniques
- and many more
Depending on the state of your content, you might need to tweak just a few things. Or, you will need to hire professionals, in case your website needs an in-depth update.
2. Check how you perform in local SEO
There is a great chance that local SEO will become more important in the near future. If not already. Considering that a large percentage of queries is about finding services and products, you will need to take a closer look at local search. Especially if your business is focused on a specific region.
To optimize for local SEO, take a look at Google My Business (GMB), as an example. You can, generally, claim your listing fast, and easily update your NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number of your business). There are also additional options besides. Explore how citations work and don’t hesitate to find help for this. Many companies are hiring professionals to optimize their local listings. On the other side, GMB is not the only way to boost your local appearance and rankings. Social media, and other resources, are a necessary part of every SEO strategy today.
3. Mobile-first websites and responsiveness
If you follow what Google announces, you can easily conclude that smartphones play a great deal in their vision. That’s why it’s no wonder why mobile-first indexing is becoming a priority. After all, just look at the fact about how many smartphone users are out there. In short, Google gives priority to mobile versions of websites for indexing and ranking.
Here is a couple of rules you should follow, in general:
- Aim for responsive website
- Focus on structured data
- Compare the differences in user experience between mobile and desktop versions
- Give mobile-first approach the priority
However, there is plenty of websites out there that are still not mobile-friendly. If yours is among them, then you need to solve this by making it responsive. Hire professionals who know how to redesign it, and who knows how to answers SEO issues at the same time.
4. Reduce your website loading speed
There is a kind of paradox here, even if we are using advanced tech and incredible internet speeds. Sometimes, it seems like some websites are always struggling with loading speeds. Maybe websites are more resource-hungry, maybe the audience lacks patience today. Probably a bit of both. Nevertheless, you need to provide the best user experience possible. So, the loading speed of your website is one of the factors. Besides, your site speed is one of the important ranking factors so it’s worth improving.
In a few words, here are some optimization steps to improve speed:
- First, examine the current speed of your website
- Choose the best hosting options you can find
- Have a dedicated server
- Optimize images on your website
- Minimize the script usage if possible
- Reduce redirects to a bare minimum
Use some of the tools to check if your website is optimized speed-wise. In fact, some of them will provide you with recommended changes and steps to take. Otherwise, hire a company that will get your site checked and know how to optimizes everything.
5. Optimize with voice search in mind
You can freely expect that voice search will take the largest percentage of all searches in the future. It would be hard, not to say reckless, to disregard its importance. In a word, it’s still the same search, but you simply use your voice instead of the keyboard. Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are just some school examples of how voice search works. Optimizing for this type of search is definitely something to consider. To do this successfully, you need to follow these guidelines:
- Your content should be written in a natural tone, closer to conversation than to documentation.
- Avoid using complex and difficult words if circumstances allow it.
- Focus on local SEO optimization for your brand
- Target long-tail keywords for the best results
Using advanced SEO techniques for 2020 is a good way to improve your website performance naturally. After a while, it will increase the traffic, give you better SEO results, and most importantly, provide a quality user experience to your audience. But, don’t forget that SEO is always changing and constantly evolving. So, don’t stop following the latest trends and implementing changes if you plan to outperform your competitors.