SEO is constantly evolving with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning being the most important and futuristic trends. Since the technology impacts almost every area from manufacturing, to scientific research, healthcare and more, SEO is being influenced by AI and the trend’s likely to advance in 2020 as well. To make the most out of Google’s Rank Brain Algorithm is the current buzz which itself is moving up in many different ways. Let’s have a look at what future holds for SEO and Google Algorithm.
Business Benefit of the Best SEO Practices
The world today is defined by digital technology where businesses, irrespective of their size and nature, can emerge on the digital front only with the right SEO practices. The outcome is:
- Higher and reliable rankings on SERPs
- Increased organic traffic to a website
- Boost in conversion rate
- Greater profit
But, achieving all of this isn’t a piece of cake or something you can pull of overnight. Implementing the right SEO practices to gain the desirable, long-lasting results require time and significant effort. And while domain age is an unignorable fact to impact a website’s authority, yours can be built by consistent implementation of the best SEO standards.
Ever Unsettling Google Algorithm Updates
Like human, search engine also learn and evolve in time and the best example can be of Google algorithm updates that have been rolling out all too frequently in the present age of digital marvel. That said, Google algorithm changes almost a hundred times per year and digital marketers are always brainstorming on what would and wouldn’t work. The search engine giant made its intent clear, favouring web pages that are most user-friendly and meet the following features:
- High quality and authentic content
- Responsive and mobile friendly web design
- Faster loading time
- Natural, lengthy and informative content
- Pages that are interlinked to many other resources, also known as backlinking
SEO and digital marketing experts always leverage the best content practices to optimise delivery on the web while dodging all the black-hat and unacceptable tactics. By keeping up with the latest SEO trends and best practices is the only way to sail smoothly across the digital landscape. Let’s have a look at all the SEO trends and happenings we’re expecting in 2020.
SEO in the 2020
Blockchain Tech, SEO & SEM
Though associated mostly with cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, influence of blockchain tech goes beyond that and heavily impacting search engine optimisation. The technology is aimed at creating a secure and reliable transaction record performed online including search engines, that is between advertisers and website owners. Here, Google acts as an intermediary between both parties, assisting each other to carry forward smooth and safe transactions.
Blockchain can authenticate a typical user, ensuring they’re what they claim to be with almost 100% accurate results. It can validate if an ad has been viewed by a real person or a bot thus helping website owners in paying only for genuine click-throughs to the website while reducing online ads fraud.
Technical giants like Microsoft and many others have already collaborated with the blockchain-powered identity systems for improving the apps and services.
Amazon Search Optimisation
Although comparing Google with Amazon Search may seem unwise, SEO indeed has experienced a significant growth in Amazing Search Optimisation. An ecommerce survey also revealed that approximately 72% online shoppers use Amazon to find their preferred products and brands especially in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany.
In fact, around 56% consumers search Amazon first before moving on to other ecommerce websites. This is for sure a big threat to Google and its ads since fewer people are using Google to find their product thus affecting advertising and revenue.
AI & Content SEO
Lately, machine learning has heavily website development and implementation of the keywords. Google realised that humans are unable to track and identify every website for ranking, based on the on-site information.
For this reason, Google engineers implemented artificial intelligence to keep a close and detailed check on websites including the content. Corporate leaders soon identify the significance of AI to SEO being the most profitable for customer segmentation.
Machine Learning & Google Rank Brain
Automatic analysing data through specialised analytical practices is referred to as machine learning which allow technology to self-learn and evolve. AI thus learns of certain data patterns to base its decisions without any human intervention. Though been around for a long time, machine learning recently gain momentum when it comes to analyse and produce results through huge data volumes.
In 2015, an algorithm learning AI system was developed by Google aimed at providing better and more relevant search results. Named as the Google Rank Brain, it works in-line with the Google AdWords and currently in its beginning stage however, progressing rapidly while redefining the future of SEO.
Since Google is always updating its algorithms for more relevant and better search results, Rank Brain benefits almost all internet users including owners of corporate websites. The tech can predict from a particular phrase or word entered by a human user to conclude the search and even find alternate yet relevant meaning to the search for more accurate results.
For this reason, data management, changes in the search queries and keywords has been redefined completely, making the searches closer to linguistic similarity and authenticity. Rank Brain also keeps a record of the search and return likewise results and better overall search experience to a typical internet user.
Voice Search
There has been a significant rise in voice searches since people use their phones on the go or when driving. This makes voice search an indirect result of the mobile first landscape and a new way to date interface. Every one in five searches are executed by voice which help SEO experts target audience against the things they’re searching for. That said, webpages programmed for voice interpretation and translation have a better choice of topping the SERP. Here, make sure your page is optimised for Siri, Alexa, Google and Cortana.
Google Algorithm: A History of Updates in 2019
Each year, the search engine giant, none other than Google release hundreds of algorithm updates that affect search results in many different ways. Looking back to 2018, there’ve been approximately 3,234 updates; some major, other minor. For the search marketers it’s important to keep track of all these updates so as to plan their strategy accordingly for indexing and fresh take on the digital. Have a look at all the major updates that happened in 2019 till date.
The March 2019 Core Update
To remove confusion of the search and name updates associated with every algorithm, Google simply rolled out a new one and named it “March 2019 Core Update”. It simply let you type the update name and see when it happened.
March 2019 – Florida 2
The release of yet another algorithm update in March 2019 seriously affected website in terms of downed traffic and drop in the ranking. SEO strategies that websites practiced so far to rank in the SERP backfired as Google preferred better websites with superior and genuine content as an acceptable replacement. In both the cases, the plunge that has been experienced can be averted only by planning out a well-thought and careful strategy focusing heavily on Google EAT Quality.
June 2019 Diversity Update
In June 2019, the Diversity Update as it’s termed has been released to curb the multiple search results as they appear on the first page, all from the similar website. This way, a typical user would get many different search results from diverse websites rather than one but, all were results were relevant and hold true to the query.
September 2019
In September 2019, Google confirmed of a core update release and the announcement came officially via SearchLaison Twitter which read that the update is now live and already rolling out across various data centres over the coming days. Although nothing happened in the following month, the biggest one happened in October named as Google BERT.
October 2019 BERT Update
BERT has been one of the biggest updates as compared to the RankBrain algorithm which came out way back in 2016. The search engine announced that more or less 10% of all the search queries would be impacted in terms of how people actually perform search. Unlike previous, the latest BERT model can read prepositions and make sense of a search query thereby returning more relevant results. It’s soon to integrate with all the major languages and improve the way searches are performed.
November 2019
Later, there’s been a lot of hype amongst the digital marketing and SEO industry about a major shift in website rankings following an unconfirmed Google update. Although nothing happened yet, the search engine did announce that several updates were released but none are broad enough to change the search results or impact website ranking.
Author Bio
Danya Ayaz is a professional digital content creator and editor having years of experience working for many different industries and recently head of content department at Digital Express. In her free time, She loves to watch movies, read books, and play console games.
