There are more than 1.7 billion websites on the Internet [1], these sites compete with each other to attract the largest number of visits, and if we know that 93% of the visits come from search engines [2]. We know that SEO is the decisive factor in the success of any website today.
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SEO is a set of rules and standards that ensure improving the ranking of sites in search page results. These rules are set by search engines, especially Google, which takes the lion's share of the search market on the Internet. These rules are not fixed, but are constantly changing, as search engines are constantly updating their algorithms to improve site ranking standards, and to counter attempts at manipulation.
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In recent years, the frequency of updates that search engines make to their algorithms has increased, as it is estimated that in 2018 alone, Google made more than 3,200 updates [3], between small and large updates. That is why all website owners should keep abreast of these developments, because any inaction or delay may lead to the failure of your project. How many projects have lost more than half of their clients overnight because they were unable to keep pace with the changes made by these engines.
Most likely, you do not have time to review and keep up with thousands of updates made by search engines, so we have collected for you in this short article the most important modernizations and trends of SEO in the hope that you will benefit from them to keep abreast of SEO developments and ensure a greater opportunity for your site to flourish and grow, God willing.
In addition to keeping abreast of seo developments, it is also recommended to take advantage of experts in this field, who keep up well with these developments. One of the best platforms for finding SEO experts is the Khamsat micro-services platform, which allows you to hire SEO experts for an amount starting from only $5.
BERT will change the rules of the game
BERT is Google's latest algorithm, an algorithm that seeks to understand the meanings of sentences and words that users search for to improve search results.
It is believed that this new algorithm affects the results of 10% of searches on Google, and this percentage is likely to increase in the coming years [4].
Now you may ask, how will this algorithm affect my site? And how can I benefit from it? The answer is to create quality content that is relevant to the keywords you are targeting. Avoid wasting your time trying to trick Google to improve your site's ranking for keywords that have nothing to do with your site's content, because Google is smart, and this algorithm will make it smarter. It will make it better able to understand the contents of the sites and detect attempts at manipulation.
Voice search
The use of voice search by Internet users has increased, as people prefer to search for what they want directly through speech, rather than typing in the search box. This trend is being driven by the increasing use of smartphones to browse the web, as well as the use of automated assistants, such as Alexa, Siri, and others.
It is expected that half of the searches on the Internet will be audio in 2020 [5]. Usually long and precise, not short as with written research.
You have to adapt the contents of your site to this new reality, you should focus on the long keywords, and the contents of your site are relevant to the topics that people are searching for.
Increasing use of influencers
Many companies are using influencers to promote their brands and drive traffic to their sites. People are tired of the many ads, and they trust the influencers who follow them more than the ads. Especially in the areas of health, beauty, personal life and travel.
Influencers can help you get more traffic, whether by promoting your site's content to their followers in social networks. Or by placing links to your pages on their sites, blogs and social accounts. As you know, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors in search engines, especially if they are from good sources.
Priority for video content
You may have heard that good content is the most important element of SEO. This is still true, but with a slight modification, which is that video has priority over other types of content. All indications are that video will dominate Internet content in the coming years. Some studies even predict that video will constitute 82% of downloaded content. on the Internet by 2022 [6].
Video will be one of the most important SEO trends in 2020 and beyond, and search engines take it into account when ranking sites. Some studies indicate that the chance of pages containing video to reach the first page of search results is about 53 times greater compared to pages without any video [6].
You must have a clear strategy for designing and publishing videos on your site. Whatever content you publish on your sites, video can help you get more traffic and improve your site's ranking. If you use your site to sell products, you can create videos that explain how to use those products, and if you have an educational blog, for example, turn some of your blog posts and articles into educational videos. The bottom line is, whatever content you post, you can turn it into videos and take advantage of this new wave.
Artificial intelligence is coming
Like all other fields, SEO is not immune to the recent developments brought by artificial intelligence. It has become used by search engines and website owners alike.
Search engines, such as Google, use artificial intelligence algorithms to improve website rankings. These algorithms are mainly based on machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that seeks to learn from data. Machine learning algorithms analyze all the data related to your site, such as keywords, type and nature of content, how visitors interact with the site, number of visits, bounce rate , browsing time (dwell time), page load speed and many other factors, and then try to extract the factors that distinguish User-preferred content. Accordingly, artificial intelligence arranges those locations.
The length of the content becomes more important
One explanation for this is that long content is generally good, rich in information, and people spend more time reading it, which increases browsing time (dwell time), which is one of the factors that Google takes into account when ranking sites.
Quality of content is key
We have said that the length of the content can help you reach a higher ranking in the search results pages, but this does not mean that you neglect the quality of the content, because even if you write an article containing 5000 words, if the article is not good, people will leave it after a few seconds of entering the page This will be an indication to Google that your site's contents are poor, and this will have a very negative impact on your site's ranking.
Everything you need to know about alt image text in SEO!
The content that you provide to your site visitors should be of high quality, its language should be beautiful, elegant and eloquent, not poor and poor. It is also advisable to use images, infographics, videos, and other types of content that add aesthetics to the contents of your site, and give the reader an additional benefit.
Also, try to focus on the reader, and don't have too many in-content ads. And if it is necessary to display ads within the content, you should not do so in a crude and provocative manner, focus mainly on delivering useful, valuable and excellent content, and then try to place your ads smoothly and in harmony with the content.
The extracts will continue to capture the attention of researchers
Snippets appear above the search results, ie Rank 0 as it is known to SEO experts.
If your site can reach rank 0 in the results, that is, if Google takes a snippet from your site, this can give your site a big boost, and bring you a huge number of visits, as studies estimate that 54% of clicks on Google results pages go to those snippets [ 8], and another study found that snippets get more clicks than the first result on the search page [9]. Moreover, snippets improve your site's reputation, as people consider that as long as Google snips from your site, there is no doubt that it provides excellent content.
Try to target snippets, create high-quality content, study the keywords people are searching for, and create blog posts and content that answer the questions they are looking for.
Click rate and survival factor will become more important
Believe it or not, Google is not a charitable organization, but rather a for-profit business. And the product that it offers to its customers is the search results that it provides to them to answer their questions and the keywords they type in the search box.
Like any other company, Google seeks to improve the quality of its product, and outperform its competitors, by improving the results it returns on search pages, developing and updating its algorithms, and confronting manipulators who try to circumvent it. But in the end, the most important criterion for Google is the extent to which customers are satisfied with the service it provides to them, that is, how satisfied they are with the way it responds to the research they conduct, and the extent to which it is able to understand what they want, and lead them to pages that contain the most appropriate content for them.
Google pays great attention to these two metrics, because they measure the satisfaction of its users with the results it provides to them. The long browsing time is an indication that users are satisfied with the pages that Google has directed them to. On the other hand, if the browsing time is short, this can only mean that the users did not like those pages, so they quickly left them, and did not spend much time on them.
The click rate is also important, because it measures how attractive the page link is to users. If your site's click rate is poor, this means that it is not attractive, and therefore Google may delay its ranking, and delete it from the first page.
Both metrics are important, click rate measures the attractiveness of a site before entering it, and browsing time measures users' satisfaction with a site after entering it. You have to take into account these two metrics, try to raise them as much as possible by providing useful and good content. It is also preferable that the content be long so that users spend as much time as possible on the page, also try to use the video, because people spend more time watching videos than reading textual contents. As for the click rate, try to choose appropriate titles for your pages, and put an attractive description that convinces those who see your site link to enter it.
Responding to the phone has become a necessity
Most people browse the Internet on their phones, and most searches on search engines are done via phones, so it is not amiss that search engines, especially Google, have become responsive to phone screens as one of the main factors for ranking sites.
This trend will accelerate in 2020, and in the coming years, with the spread of smartphones and the increase in their users.
If your site is not responsive to small screens, you should convert it now and immediately to a responsive site, otherwise your site's ranking will drop dramatically, and you will lose a lot of possible traffic.
The increasing importance of security
With the large number of crimes that occur on the Internet, such as theft of personal data, hacking of websites and others, people today are more concerned with security aspects, so Google considers security as one of the most important ranking factors, and delays unsafe sites in search results pages.
One of the most important security standards that search engines take into account is an SSL certificate, your site must have it, otherwise you must obtain it immediately, because it is necessary to protect users by encrypting the transmission of data between the browser and the server.