Companies’ expansion through the internet is on the rise. Major and minor businesses have recognized the value of SEO services to achieve success. Companies endorsing these services are expanding in plenty. The SEO marketing industry is booming. Various firms are utilizing the services of companies offering these services. There are loads of opportunities in this sector for these service providers. Here we discuss the role of SEO services in the digital marketing field. The digital marketing agencies use SEO services for brand promotion. It’s vitally important to recognize the value of having the right content which is keyword-rich. Once a brand has achieved a good place inside search engine results, they must keep that position. That’s another thing which these services can help them to do. By offering content that is rich in keywords, this could connect customers and it will also direct them to the website of interest. This can increase the brand visibility or image of a company. The website can achieve top 10 rankings in the search engine and stay there, provided SEO services maintain it. These services are a huge benefit for start-up companies of any kind.
Importance of SEO services
Another benefit is that SEO is good for the smooth running of a big website. Websites with more than one author can benefit from SEO in a direct and indirect way. The direct benefit is an increase in search engine traffic, and the indirect benefit is having a common framework (checklists) to use before publishing content on the site.
SEO is also good for the social promotion of your website. People who find your website by searching Google or Yahoo are more likely to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or other social media channels.
SEO is not only about search engines, but good SEO practices also improve the user experience and usability of a website. Users trust search engines, and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching increases the website’s trust.
Search engine optimization is important because the majority of search engine users are more likely to click on one of the top 5 suggestions in the results pages (SERPS). To take advantage of this and gain visitors to your website or customers to your online store, you need to be in the top positions.
In today’s competitive market, SEO is more important than ever. Search engines serve millions of users per day looking for answers to their questions or solutions to their problems. If you have a website, blog, or online store, SEO can help your business grow and meet its objectives.
Role of digital marketing agencies
The traditional role of digital marketing agencies in the SEO space has been selling services such as link building and old school SEO. The reality is that there is still a place for these types of services, but they are becoming less and less important as the internet evolves. The major engine that is responsible for this change is the concept of the “social web”. To understand that concept, consider what the internet used to be and what it is now. The internet used to be a collection of websites that were connected to each other with hyperlinks. Now, the internet is a vibrant and constantly updating tapestry of human experiences, opinions, and emotions. This has always been the case for the people who use the internet, but it has not always been the case for web crawlers. The social web is forcing search engines to take into account what people think is important. Believe it or not, this is a very hard thing to do. People assign value and importance on the social web using a complex series of verbal and nonverbal communications. Deciphering what is important on the social web is something that cannot be done by machines, but the closest they can get is looking at who and what is popular. This has serious implications for SEO and web marketing.
Voice Search Optimization
One major impact of voice search on SEO strategies is that it will increase the importance of featured snippets. When there is a voice search, the digital assistant usually reads out the featured snippet content as the answer to the query. As a result, having a featured snippet provides a chance to be read out as the answer, which will give a huge boost to organic traffic for that particular keyword. It is reported that pages with featured snippets have experienced a two times higher increase in the click-through rate. Therefore, it will be very important to aim for featured snippets in organic searches to adapt to the growing trend of voice search and stay ahead of competitors.
The most important step towards optimizing your website for voice search is to focus on long-tail keyword research. People tend to use longer phrases and questions in voice search compared to text-based searches. According to Andrew Ng, the former chief scientist at Baidu, “When you think about the different ways that people are going to be interacting with intelligent assistants, the queries will be different.” This new insight will change our on-site optimization for more conversational content that focuses on solving user problems. High-quality and informative content with clear answers to potential questions can increase the chances of getting both the featured snippet as well as appearing as the answer to a voice search query. This can include creating articles with FAQ formats or how-to guides that are relevant to your keywords.
Voice-activated devices and voice search are undoubtedly a growing trend, poised to impact search marketing in 2021 and beyond. According to a report by eMarketer, 30% of searches will be done without a screen. The popularity of voice search has been on the rise in recent years. People find it easier to speak with digital assistants nowadays to search for anything on the web rather than typing. Big tech giants like Google, Siri, or Alexa have been investing in AI technology and machine learning to improve their NLP (natural language processing), which now allows them to understand the context of a conversation or search query.
Growing popularity of voice assistants
In the future, voice search is going to increase rapidly and soon become the primary way most users search. This is due to the high levels of accuracy and personalization of voice recognition, as well as the fact it is more convenient and faster than typing. Because voice recognition essentially acts as an interpreter taking spoken language into text, it is going to lead to an increase in global internet literacy and foreign language acquisition. This will directly affect the volume of web content and how users search and find information. With every kind of software or device from computers to cars featuring their own voice assistant, it will soon become second nature to speak commands and search queries whether you are alone or in the presence of others. This is going to lead to a huge shift in user behavior and the adoption of voice search as an SEO strategy will be absolutely necessary.
The easiest way to describe voice search is to go back to the 1960s and talk about Star Trek: the voice search on the Star Trek TV show in the 1960s is the dream for what voice search should be. Until recent years, voice recognition technology has been quite rough and only worked for a very small population of people overwhelmingly well. In the last few years, however, big improvements in the accuracy of voice recognition have been made by companies like Amazon with their Alexa system and IBM with Watson. Google Now, Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana have also been major contributors to the growing accuracy of voice recognition. Most smartphones now come equipped with a voice assistant built into the operating system. According to Google, mobile voice searches are three times more likely to be locally based than text search. These personal assistants and voice recognition technology are designed to create a more conversational and personal relationship with users and make finding and confirming information easier than it has ever been.
Optimizing content for voice queries
The consensus is that spoken queries tend to be longer than their written counterparts. These are early days for voice search, but we are seeing that an increasing number of informational searches are being carried out via voice search. For example, consider someone writing on their PC and they want to find out some quick information. They may try to multitask and not want to break their stride from typing. Now take someone using a mobile device, voice search is going to be a lot more convenient for them in this situation. Building on that, consider the times when people are mobile. Voice search is likely to be the first choice for someone driving or for those with mobile devices who want to ask a quick question in a place where typing would be difficult, like in a crowded street.
When it comes to optimizing content for voice search queries, there has been a lot of conversation. SEOs are of the opinion that spoken queries are quite different from typed ones, though they may want to target the same keywords. However, is this really true? Typically, search engines match a spoken query to the best-matching written query, so in that sense, optimizing for voice search is no different. Given the limited amount of data SEOs have access to, it is difficult to determine exactly what impact optimizing for voice search queries should have on content.
Impact on SEO strategies
With the paradigm shift from text to voice search, it becomes imperative for SEO professionals to alter their search strategies. Voice queries will present a whole new set of long-tail and colloquial keywords that need to be targeted. With the majority of voice searches happening on mobile devices, local SEO and appearing in featured snippets will become even more important to be the content that is read back to the user. Marketers will need to understand the context and intent behind the search query to provide content that best answers the question. In essence, this shift to long-tail, local, and question-based queries will make organic search results look a lot like paid ads. This will make it essential for SEOs to measure and prove the value of their efforts through organic traffic and ROI. Whilst voice search will bring a new set of SEO challenges, it will also bring a whole new platform to search on. At present, voice search is limited to mobile devices and Google Home. However, Amazon’s Alexa is making great strides to be a market leader in voice-controlled virtual assistants, to the extent that they have released tools to integrate Alexa into web apps. With Windows also rumored to have a voice-controlled assistant on the way, it is clear that within a few years there will be a wide array of voice-controlled devices to search on. This will mean that voice search will not only impact mobile and local SEO but will impact the whole SEO industry as there will be increasing demand for a wide array of new content that is tailored to the platform.
Mobile-First Indexing
Effective from the 1st of July 2019, mobile-first indexing will be enabled by default for all new websites (new to the web or unknown to Google Search). Global mobile-first indexing enabled by default for all new websites. For older or existing websites, we continue to monitor and evaluate pages for their readiness for mobile-first indexing and will notify them through Search Console once they are considered ready. Given the great progress we’ve seen in mobile-first indexing, it is still expected that mobile-first indexing will be enabled by default for all websites in the next six to twelve months. Ongoing, we will continue to monitor content for readiness to shift to mobile-first indexing. We will notify webmasters through Search Console once their site has been migrated. Depending on the site, a significant increase in crawl rates by the Smartphone Googlebot can be expected, as well as potential changes in Google’s caching of the site and snippets in the search results.
Mobile-first indexing is going to feel like a big change for some. In the current process, Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have typically used the desktop version of a page’s content, which may cause issues for mobile searchers when that version is vastly different from the mobile version. This can cause confusion when the mobile page has less content than the desktop page because the mobile page is the one that is used for indexing and ranking. People tend to find and access the desktop version, even on a mobile device. In some cases, a poor mobile experience can still be a reason to not show a mobile page in search results. All of this can lead to a frustrating experience for mobile searchers.
Shift towards mobile-friendly websites
Mobile first indexing is clearly an initiative driven by consumer behaviour. There are now more searches carried out on mobile devices compared to desktop, and the Google index that is used to match user queries to results is primarily built from mobile documents. This suggests that the change to a mobile-first index is not only to serve mobile users, but the index will serve all users, regardless of the platform the search was initiated from. In line with this, Google has stated that they will have one index, as opposed to a primary and secondary index, which will be a unified index primarily populated with mobile content, and desktop content as a secondary consideration. For the time being, it is understood that there will still be some sites included in the index which are exclusively desktop, however, the trend is now certainly towards a single index.
Recent years have seen a rapid growth in the use and capabilities of mobile devices. In response, Google announced in 2016 that it was to release a mobile-first index, a clear sign that mobile usage was taking precedence over desktop in terms of search. The implications of this are huge, and could significantly impact the way websites compete for rankings.
Importance of responsive design
The fluid layout of responsive design means the site’s content reflows to accommodate any screen size, creating an easy reading experience. Consequently, if you currently have separate mobile and desktop sites, you could see rankings increase for mobile sites whilst your desktop site rankings drop (or be removed completely), causing potential to seriously disrupt your business. If you don’t have a mobile site this could affect your desktop rankings. With the aim that users will find the same content on your mobile site as your desktop site, it is strongly rumoured that a mobile-first index will be used for both mobile and desktop rankings. It’s still unclear at this point as to how greatly this will affect your desktop rankings, but it is safe to say this will have to be a consideration for SEOs in the near future. This realignment with Google wanting to deliver one search result for both mobile and desktop users is a large shift from the past, where mobile user experience has often been secondary to desktop. With a single index it’s a case of ‘if in doubt, focus on mobile’. During this transitional phase, it’s important to monitor the impact of these changes on your site’s different device rankings, comparing it to analytics from previous years. This can be done by segmenting your data by device category and comparing total traffic from mobile and desktop over time. Any differing trends in site performance from before could provide an early indication as to the impact of mobile-first indexing and what may need to be done to improve organic traffic from mobile devices.
Mobile optimization techniques
Responsive web design is the recommended way to develop a mobile website. This is because with a single code base, a webmaster can implement a site that has one URL and the same HTML across all devices. Additionally, a single user agent (Googlebot) can more easily crawl and index content that is on a single site as compared to a site that has separate mobile and desktop URLs. This is important as it makes for efficient use of resources and easier maintenance of the site. By providing content and site markup that is both dynamic and consistent, it becomes simpler for Google algorithms to assign the indexing properties for the content. This, in turn, makes for more accurate indexing and, as a result, better search visibility. At the time of writing, responsive design is a ranking factor for Google search results on both mobile and desktop devices. However, since it is the easiest mobile configuration for webmasters to implement and maintain, it is likely that responsive design will be directly preferred in the future.
Mobile optimization techniques are methods by which a web page can be made to function optimally on mobile devices. With the addition of mobile usability factors into Google’s search algorithm, it is imperative that mobile optimization forms a fundamental part of SEO. This section details best practices to ensure that a website is mobile accessible and earns favorable regard from search engines.
Implications for SEO rankings
Since mobile-optimised sites are what Google is going to be indexing and showing primarily in the search results, without a mobile-friendly site, businesses could see a dramatic decrease in their search visibility. This is a big shift, but it doesn’t have to mean there’s a slide in rankings for non-mobile sites if they make sure they have a healthy presence on the mobile web. This can be a risky transition period, where you may see some ranking and traffic fluctuations as both mobile and desktop results are in a state of flux. Monitoring the data and making prepared and calculated changes on all fronts will be the best course of action. For sites using separate URLs (m.-dot sites), it is crucial to use switchboard tags and redirects to consolidate link signals to the preferred URL as well as using the various and appropriate mobile directives. The full transition from the desktop to mobile index is said to take a year or more, giving plenty of time to make the necessary changes. For international businesses, this change means the above applies not just to your main site, but also to hreflang and mobile friendly mark-up for your international and multilingual sites. While the mobile-friendly indexing change is only for mobile search results, having a fully mobile-optimised site is still essential for serving and capturing mobile traffic from organic search results. Failure to have a mobile-friendly site risks the loss of mobile search visibility and subsequently mobile traffic, and in turn, the loss of organic mobile traffic being a lead to conversions.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have been major players in the innovations seen in the digital marketing world. And this trend is likely to continue. It is probable that future SEO will involve a more complex, multifaceted relationship between machines and humans. Automation is the future in general, and integrating AI into SEO is no different. But this will not mean that jobs will be replaced by machines, only that the less complex and more time-consuming tasks will be handled by machines, so that human marketers can focus on the more complex, creative, and analytical thinking aspects. Some of the specific ways we can expect to see AI integrated into search algorithms in the near future are the automation of content quality analysis for better rankings and the automatic generation of meta tags and descriptions. Though this raises a lot of concerns for the future of manual, DIY SEO, it is doomsday thinking to assume that smart machines spell the end for human SEO experts. With any sharp AI on SEO is something that is heavily reliant on data analysis and learning from trial and error. Marketers using SEO will have to learn new methods and develop the skills required to work in conjunction with AI. The development of AI in SEO may just be the catalyst needed for the SEO industry to broaden the range of skills it utilizes, increasing the versatility of the modern marketer.
Integration of AI in search algorithms
The very first development in artificial intelligence that SEOs may come across is the usage of AI to develop search algorithms. At the point in time when search engine spiders are sent to map a website, they slow down the website by repeatedly requesting a page. The ideal implementation of this would be a situation where a search engine could send a single AI bot to intelligently map a website by making educated guesses about which pages to visit next, based on predictive models, user experience, and so on. Assuming that for SEOs this results in more equitable crawling of a website, the net result may be a fairer assessment of a website than the current rather hit and miss indexing of pages, which often favors sites with stronger authority. Step one for an SEO here would be investigating ways to influence the behavior of the new generation of search engine bots to ensure good indexing. This development is possibly a double-edged sword, and in the worst-case scenario, the ability for an AI bot to imitate a user so well that it visits a website like a real user would could lead to an AI-based negative SEO industry. Step two and indeed a much broader AI impact on SEO is understanding and adapting to the changes in ranking factors and changes in SERPs that AI developments will bring. Currently, search engines employ basic machine learning to make changes to the SERPs and observe the results these have on user behavior. An AI interpreter can be appointed to assess which changes have been beneficial or detrimental and respond accordingly by altering ranking factors. An example of this would be the recent weight given to HTTPS as a ranking factor, where a Google representative conveyed that they may dial this up or down based on how it affects search quality. Step three is attempting to predict the rate of progress for AI in search and where possible being ahead of the curve in terms of understanding changes and their implications for both organic and paid search. A worst-case scenario for the SEO industry here could be newly launched automation tools that just tell people what changes to make are actually less error-prone and more cost-effective than the advice of a human consultant.
Personalized search results
The premise behind search engine algorithms providing personalized search results is for the users to be provided with results they prefer the most or results which are best suited to them. In the past, personalized search results were based primarily on data collected around searches and browsing behaviour. As AI and machine learning have progressed, search algorithms are now able to take into account much more complex data sets to determine what a user’s preferences are and what would be most valuable to them. This is an important consideration for SEOs, as it now means that creating content which is optimized for specific keywords may not be as viable a strategy. Content now must appeal to the intended audiences and must be written around the preferences and behaviors of the user whose traffic you are intending to capture. At present, there are too many factors in play for a coherent methodology to be defined on targeting content to specific sets of personalized search results. Generally, the advice is to closely consider the intent and preferences of the audience of each piece of content, and to create something which best serves this audience. Understanding your audience is now more important than ever, and generalized content has a higher risk of being lost in the masses.
Predictive analytics for SEO
Simulation data is the second type, and this involves trying to change variables to see if there is a change in outcome from today or from historical data. The changes that don’t result in a significant difference to the current outcome mean that the variable changes will not be effective in SEO. An example of this would be to simulate changing webpage content or metadata to try and increase rank for particular keywords. This can give a good indication as to whether an action will be effective in the future and is often used in conjunction with rank tracking for particular keywords.
There are two types of data that can be used to predict future outcomes in SEO. The first is historical data, which can be used to indicate whether a trend is likely to continue in the same direction. An example being that link building may have been an effective way to improve search engine result page (SERP) rank, but last year it was less effective. If the data trend continues, it is likely that link building will have no impact on SERP rank in the future.
Being able to accurately forecast future trends for SEO changes the game drastically as it enables a company to make the necessary changes ahead of the competition and capitalize on it by increased visibility. The components of predictive analytics, which include data mining, statistics, modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, are all methods that can be highly effective in SEO. Data is taken from the past and present state of SEO and is used to create a model that can predict future outcomes.
Automation of SEO tasks
An interesting question to ask is whether in the future SEO skills will even involve a knowledge of coding, as opposed to just marketing theory.
Areas of SEO already being automated include things like reporting (e.g., creating dashboards that pull data automatically from various data sources) and gathering data (e.g., using web scraping tools to get market and competitor information). Keyword research might be next (e.g., tools that scan a page then suggest a list of keywords to consider based on analyzing the content), while the ultimate goal might be to automate the entire SEO process – with human oversight/input needed only for certain areas.
Search engines are eager to automate SEO. As mentioned in a statement from Bing, “The less time SEOs spend gathering data and making corrections, the more time they can spend on strategy and insights to increase ROI.”
Currently, SEO is composed of a lot of repetitive tasks, typically involving telling certain people in an IT department to do something, explaining it to marketing managers, convincing them to convince the IT department… all of which automated processes could do more effectively and faster.
How is Sotavento Medios approaching SEO trends?
Staying updated on technology: Their blog post on SEO Services in Singapore emphasizes the importance of keeping pace with technological advancements (https://www.sotaventomedios.com/). This suggests they understand the SEO landscape is constantly evolving.
Prioritizing mobile-friendly websites: Since technology is a focus, it’s likely Sotavento Medios considers mobile-friendliness a priority. This aligns with Google’s mobile-first indexing, where the mobile version of a site is considered primary for ranking.
Content marketing for user experience: Sotavento Medios highlights the importance of creating websites that appeal to users globally. This indicates they may focus on content marketing that provides a positive user experience, which is a current SEO trend.
Social media integration: Their services include social media marketing, which can be a powerful tool for SEO service. Social media engagement can send positive signals to search engines about a website’s relevance.
