Top SEO Tips for 2020
The following is a list of key factors to consider when optimizing a website in 2020.
Relevance
Relevance refers to the significance of a search term/phrase compared to content on a website so that a search engine can locate the most relevant content for the user. In 2020, we are in the age of semantic search to produce more accurate search results.
Website content must be relevant to the search term.
CTR (Click-Through-rate)
CTR is one of the most reliable relevant signals for Google. It is important to use Google Search Console’s Search Analytics report.
It may be an indication that your on-page SEO is not relevant enough and needs to be improved.
Content
Content always has been and remains ‘king,’ web page content and rankings go hand-in-hand.
That said, even well-written content pages are not always enough to move you up the rankings. Pay attention to all other SEO driving factors.
Keywords on your page
In 2020 keywords in the metadata remain a powerful ranking signal to the search engines. Nothing much has changed in this regard, keywords should be strategically placed on a web page’s SEO elements (image alt tags, heading tags, etc.)
Ensure that you do not overuse keywords because you may get penalized for keyword stuffing.
Comprehensiveness
With Hummingbird, Google now prioritizes pages that match the meaning of the query rather than separate keywords.
To optimize your website’s content for comprehensiveness, consider using TF-IDF analysis, which can help to calculate how frequently certain keywords are used on your competitors’ websites.
This will produce relevant terms and concepts used by your top-ranking competitors.
Grammar
Grammar counts!
It is a measure of the quality of a website’s content.
Well-structured HTML
Organize your code markup in this way; you can make it much easier for the search engines to understand your content’s meaning.
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Content uniqueness
Google prefers unique content; it also penalizes sites with duplicate content.
So, you can improve your rankings if it has no duplication issues.
Number of backlinks, linking domains and linking authority
Backlinks continue to be the most reliable indication of ranking authority to Google. Links coming from a single domain carry much less ranking authority than those that come from multiple domains.
The quality of each domain is taken into consideration with higher quality domains offering better-ranking signals than those with a link domain authorities. Spammy links to your site can hurt your rankings and should be disavowed.
Link anchor text
Links anchor texts should be semantically relevant to the topic of your contspecificJust like keywords, do not over-optimize your anchor texts with keywords.
User experience, Page speed
Page speed is considered a high-quality ranking factor, sites that load slowly are considered to have a lower quality user experience and will be penalized in the search rankings.
This factor is now even more important in 2020 with Google’s move to Mobile-first indexing, where the mobile version of your website is the baseline for what Google includes in its index.
Use Schema Markup for Rich Snippets
AMP Mobile Websites
To take advantage of the mobile-first indexing it is important to have a fast-loading mobile site. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source HTML framework developed by the AMP Open Source Project. Google AMP originally created it is optimized for mobile web browsing and intended to help webpages load faster. AMP pages may be cached by a CDN, which allows pages to be served to the user more quickly.
Page authority within your website
PageRankcontinues to be one of the most influential authority signals for Google.
HTTPS
Sites SSL are considered much more valuable to search engine rankings than non-SSl sites
Voice Search
Half of all online searches will be voice searches by 2020 web should be optimized for voice using search phrases and not just keywords.
Social Media Matters
Social media channels also offer access to real-life reviews and interaction and engagement with your customers and audience. These factors offer potential customers, and search engines, of your legitimacy and trustworthiness.
Embrace Video
Studies, by Google, have shown that 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than watch television.
Video must be optimized for search by using relevant keywords in the description and headline of your video that matches user intent.