The most difficult aspect of SEO is its fluidity. Google’s algorithm is updated 500-600 times per year. This means that there is at least one update every day of the year. Even SEO experts who devote their entire careers to determining rank criteria end up scratching their heads at the end of the day.
It is indeed impossible to keep up with all of the changes. Don’t squander your time on that. But if you stay up to date on some of the biggest trends and SEO techniques for 2021, you’ll be a step ahead of the competition. We know that 75% of searchers never look past the first page of results.
So figuring out how to beat these algorithm updates and stay on the first page of search engine results pages is critical.
To keep you from constantly refreshing Google’s update page, we’ve compiled a list of the top ten most important SEO techniques for 2021.
1. Recognize Your Website’s Core Web Vitals
Basic web vitals is a new SEO term you may not be familiar with. However, by 2021, you must be familiar with what these terms mean and the metric benchmarks that support them. Page Experience, a new algorithm that ranks pages based on Google’s core web vital scores, will be released in May.
As such, what are the most important aspects of the internet? They’re a set of metrics that measure speed, responsiveness, and visual stability, according to Google. In this post, we delve a little deeper into what core web vitals entail, but first, a quick refresher.
2. Search Passage Ranking Optimization
In October of 2020, Google introduced Passage ranking, which allows individual passages on web pages to be ranked alongside the entire page. What is the significance of this? This means that Google can extract sections from a page, even if the page is about a different subject than the one displayed in the SERP.
For example, suppose you wrote a blog post about social media marketing that covered a variety of topics such as tools, strategy, metrics, networks, and so on. Even if you haven’t optimized for the keyword social media marketing tools, your page could still rank for it. Because your post contains a relevant passage about social media marketing tools, Google recognizes it.
3. EAT Principle
Despite Google’s constantly changing algorithm, the EAT principle can help you master long-term SEO success. Doesn’t it sound fantastic? But, what exactly is EAT?
EAT stands for knowledge, authority, and reliability. It’s essentially a measurement of your brand’s online reputation. Google gives established, brand-authentic, and trustworthy sites a higher ranking than newer sites.
When your industry is a little more saturated than others, you might be wondering how you’re going to beat out some of your competitors who are large corporations or well-known brand names.
Start with small and don’t get overwhelmed. There are specific steps you can take to establish the authority, trustworthiness, and reputation of your brand.
4. Create New Content
It may seem obvious, but marketers can get caught up in the details of on-page SEO and forget to focus on creating new quality content for searchers. Keep in mind that every day, over 4.4 million blog posts are published. So it’s very easy to fall behind if you’re not creating new content on a regular basis.
When you create new content, you have the opportunity to optimize for today’s SEO best practices right away. Pay attention to page titles, content headers, subheads, image alt text, and the new keywords you want to target.
Users regard new content as more valuable than old content. When people are looking for an answer to a question, they frequently look at the date to see if it is relevant. If your posts all have out-of-date dates and information, people will quickly move on to the next search results.
5. Create Backlinks
Backlinks are the lifeblood of SEO. You can’t have a solid SEO strategy in 2021 and ignore the importance of building high-quality links back to your site.
This because? Backlinks are an important part of establishing brand authority. And we’ve already determined that expertise, authority, and trustworthiness will be more valuable than ever in 2021. When a reliable authority site links back to your site, your EAT factor increases and Google sees your site as a valid answer for searchers.
We’ve put together a comprehensive guide on how to build your backlink strategy. Learn more about how to build backlinks effectively, from email templates to the dos and don’ts of link building. Here are some quick pointers:
- Prioritize quality over quantity – your linker’s domain authority is more important than the number of links you have.
- Consider doing some guest blogging.
- Use online forums to distribute your content and connect with others in your industry.
- Use social media to your advantage by sharing useful content and reaching out to others about backlinks to your own site.
- Locate unlinked mentions and convert them to links.
6. Images
Google Images accounts for more than 20% of all web searches in the United States. So, in order to dominate SEO in 2021, you must understand how to optimize any image for search.
To begin, ensure that any images you use are of high quality and relevant to your keyword. Users should be able to tell what your content is about simply by looking at your image.
Often compress any images you use before uploading them to your website. Remember that Google considers page speed to be a ranking factor. Images account for 21% of the total weight of a webpage, so even a single large image can slow down a fast site. Squoosh is a simple and free tool for quickly compressing images.
Alt tags for images are also very important. This is a text alternative to images that search engines use to help associate keywords with your image. Furthermore, if your image does not load, this is what a user sees in the top left corner. When writing your alt text, include relevant information and keywords as needed. However, be weary of keyword stuffing.
