We all know how SEO and content marketing trends are important for the well-being of just any website. If you aim for the first SERP in 2021, you need an update on the new Google algorithms, SEO waves, etc.
Such an approach will help you adjust the strategies quickly in the future, meeting the latest requirements of a meticulous search engine.
Good news? There are lots of automation possibilities. Bad news? If you’re still in the past and don’t rely on technology and high-quality content, there’s a lot of work to be done.
Here, we’ll review some of the freshest digital content trends, finding ways to be popular and implement the best SEO techniques.
So, what are the TOP topics?
Introduction of MUM That May Help You Rise in SERPs
Such a sweet name means Multitask United Model, Google’s newest AI improvement coming after BERT. It’s expected to be 1,000 times more powerful and precise. It will try to understand the tone, sentiment, images, text, video content, etc. The algorithm will understand 75 languages and help answer the longest, most difficult queries.
Content distribution may be changed due to the implementation of MUM, so it’s better to find a professional service that will help you get through the changes.
Content marketing, influencer marketing (more on them on shoutcart.com) will also change. It will become more difficult to manipulate the algorithm to increase the rating. Along with other trends, it seems that it’s high time to put customers as the top priority.
Long-Form Content Is a Thing
Everyone interested in trends in content marketing and long-form content will be excited due to two news:
- Apparently, it’s a thing now;
- AI will be able to understand what you write about, so you can cover multiple subtopics (about this later).
You can write and post articles that are 2,000+ words long. The uniform mark should be around 3,000-3,500 words. The content should meet the E.A.T. recommendations and be relevant to rank higher.
Search Intent Rises in Importance
In 2021, the focus should be on the user and their search intent, not on manipulative tactics of getting more conversions. Ideally, catering to your target audience and its needs, you’ll get the desired results anyway.
Your primary goals are to understand user behavior and intent. This will help you reply to their queries more precisely, improving reputation and gaining new customers.
The algorithms are becoming smarter, and it may be impossible in the future to build a reputation manually. It’s better to start really thinking about the users ASAP. This should become more important than brand promotion. This also means:
- No annoying banners;
- No pop-ups;
- No obligation to sign up to get the information, etc.
Video SEO Is on a New Level
Have you seen a video result with key moments marked? This feature was only available for YouTube videos, but now, Google provides such possibilities to many more platforms. This will help you promote video content much better and with more precision.
Two new structured data were released:
- Seek Markup;
- Clip Markup.
The rating of your video and the click-through rate will increase significantly. This approach will bring more diversity and possibilities for SEO, especially if video is your main direction of SEO content creation.
Google AI Will Understand Passages
The new algorithm, Passage Indexing, is a breakthrough. Now, the AI will work hard to understand every passage of the largest pieces of content you regret sharing because they don’t seem to bring results.
Wait for some passages to be ranked high for particular searches. The investigation of every page is going deeper and deeper. For those who like to write long texts, this is good news.
But if you tend to fill a large space with paragraphs that are difficult to understand and are present there only for the keywords, it’s time to change the tactic.
No Way Without Mobile SEO
Over half of Internet users access the Web through smartphones. The number grows every year, and search engine algorithms, as well as optimization tactics, adjust.
So, in 2021, when we’re talking about user experience improvement, we mean UX for mobile users. The most essential thing is to make your site mobile-friendly. You can easily check whether it is already using the Mobile-Friendly test in Google Search Console or by typing ‘mobile-friendly test’ in search.
In the future, SEs will completely ignore the regular desktop version and use the one for smartphones to determine the quality of the page and its ranking.
Introducing More Automation to Content Marketing and SEO
AI continues to surprise us. The quantity of content created by it is expected to increase, which may create a new challenge for search engines. AI on AI battle to detect spam and scam.
But there’s something for humans to benefit from as well. The number of automated SEO features will also increase. This is good news for SEO specialists that need to work on new strategies instead of performing routine tasks and checks.
Follow the News
News and releases come out every month. So, make sure you read all of them and find out how you can use the new automation features, algorithm changes, etc. to improve search rankings and aid content marketing.
It’s great that the search engine makes an emphasis on the needs of the users and their search intent. This means that when someone clicks on a link to your website, they are already targeted for you. They searched for something very similar to your content and will likely remain on the site for a long time.
That also depends on your content and user experience, but this is a topic for another article.