In the middle of a big conversation with your group of friends, an unknown word was launched: “SEO“! “But what is this gibberish?” “
Or do you have a website, but it lacks visibility? Are you planning to create your website to attract prospects? And you don’t know what to do or how to do it?
Don’t worry; we’ll explain everything you want to know and answer all of your questions. We’ll even give you an overview of some of the most relevant and timely SEO trends to predict for 2021. So you can prepare your SEO strategy accordingly.
The definition of Search Engine Optimization – SEO
SEO is the acronym for “Search Engine Optimization,” which means “optimization for search engines,” but that in the language of Moliere, we more commonly call “natural referencing.”
This term defines all the techniques implemented to improve the position of a site on the search engine results pages (SERP). Therefore, natural referencing requires the intervention of an expert who has the appropriate skills to have a real return on investment.
The objective of SEO is, of course, to obtain greater visibility on search engines like Google or Bing. The most visited web pages are, in general, those that appear on the first page of results, i.e., the first 10. However, SEO is used to reach the top of the SERP and position itself on the right keywords according to its activity and target. A misplaced page is a poorly referenced page, which will experience a significant bounce rate.
The secrets of Google’s algorithm
Google’s algorithms decide whether your website, including your blog posts, will rank first or last in search results.
Since its creation in 1998, the Google algorithm has been constantly updated to optimize the results of internet searches. Here is the history and dates of major Google algorithm updates
- Caffeine: rolled out in June 2010. Caffeine is an overhaul of Google’s indexing system.
- Panda: first introduced in February 2011. The Panda algorithm is a search filter. It penalizes the referencing of sites with low-quality content.
- Top Heavy: rolled out in January 2012 to penalize the referencing of sites abnormally overloaded with advertising.
- Penguin: like Panda, this algorithm is a search filter first introduced in April 2012. It penalizes the referencing of sites that do not comply with Google’s guidelines for creating, purchasing, or networking. Connections.
- Pirate: is also a search filter deployed in August 2012. It aims to remove from the SERPs sites that have received complaints about copyright infringement.
- Exact Match Domain (EMD): rolled out in September 2012, preventing low-quality sites from referenced in the first search results.
- Payday: algorithm deployed in June 2013 aims to improve the relevance of SERPs by suppressing the results for requests very strongly assimilated to spam.
- Hummingbird: deployed in September 2013. This algorithm is one of the most important of Google. Google can understand a query or a phrase as a whole and no longer based on one or a few keywords.
- Pigeon: was deployed in July 2015; this algorithm favors local search results to provide more precise user queries.
- Mobile-Friendly: Google rolled out its algorithm in April 2015. This algorithm favors the referencing of websites adapted to mobile.
- Rankbrain: launched in early 2015, is actually part of the Hummingbird search algorithm. It would be an artificial intelligence that would understand the meaning of similar requests but formulate them differently.
- Phantom: In May 2015, web admins noticed significant changes in the SERPs. The algorithm focused on the quality of website content, and Phantom was renamed Quality by Google.
- Core Update: launched in August 2018. This is a general update format of the algorithm, the modifications of which may be more or less important depending on the points it processes/optimizes.
- Bert: deployed in December 2019, truly represents the beginnings of artificial intelligence, ultimately in the engine. Bert contextualizes keywords resulting from a query, no longer considered individually by the engine but as a whole.
- Core Update: last update in December 2020
The year 2020 was a busy year in updating Google’s algorithms.
On-page SEO: the essentials to optimize your website
Even if the search engines decide your ranking based on the quality of your site, you can influence your position in the search results by optimizing your SEO. Your goal? Be as visible as possible to your audience.
But when it comes to SEO, you have to understand that there are two techniques to improve your ranking: off-page SEO and on-page SEO. So here, we will only talk about on-page SEO (the 11 most important techniques).
On-page SEO is the information transmitted to search engines by your site. This essentially corresponds to all the information that a page of your site contains (content optimization). Simply put, the goal of on-page SEO is to help search engines understand the meaning and context of the content of each of your pages or blog posts.
- Work on the quality of your content: 4 criteria for good content (original content/content published first on your website/content with text, useful and in-depth content)
- Optimize the SEO title of the page and this meta description: add keywords / include catchy words, …
- Insert your keywords in the content of your page: avoid over-using the target keyword / you have to find meaning and the subject of the content.
- Cut and format the content: title and subtitle (Hn tag) / use bold or italics (formatting to facilitate readability)
- Optimize your images: weight of the images / use an ALT tag to describe the image/name your files in.
- Optimize your URLs: between 50 and 60 characters/favor dashes to separate words / avoid accents, words without values (from, la, to…) / contain the target keyword / be descriptive.
- Insert internal links: do not use the target keyword in internal links / do not insert more than 15 internal links on a page / add internal links only if they are useful for your readers.
- Reinforce your credibility with external links: by referring to other content, you increase the credibility of your words.
- Monitor the loading speed of your page: speed and user-friendliness on mobile
- Make sure the site is compatible on mobile: readability on small screen/content is identical on mobile to that on computer.
- Moderate comments: avoid keeping too general comments / approve only relevant comments; always respond to comments.
The key trends of successful SEO to know for 2021
We all know that the success of a business today depends largely on its visibility online. Companies must have a well-targeted and well-organized marketing campaign in place to be visible.
SEO is constantly evolving, and all professionals must constantly adjust their respective strategies to get the best out of search engines.
After 2020, rich in disruptions, let’s try to draw where your SEO strategy should be for the year 2021. But, first, we will present to you some major changes at the level of Google’s ranking factors that may affect your site in 2021.
- Artificial intelligence will play a bigger role in SEO
- Mobile usability will impact search rankings
- Content that conforms to the Google EAT principal will be ranked higher
- Long content will help improve SERPs
- Featured Snippets will gain in importance
- Voice search will impact search queries
- Predictive research will improve
- An effective SEO strategy should include video
- Image optimization will play a more important role in research
- Semantically associated keywords will be more important
- Local search cards will play an important role in SEO strategy
- Data and analytics should become your priority if you want to stay ahead in the rankings. The essential web signals will be focused on measuring user experience (UX) => Core Web Vitals
SEO is only getting more complex, as we just showed above. In 2021, SEO must please Google’s AI and give it what it wants: sites with quality content and an optimized user experience.
UX will therefore be essential in the coming months if you want to conquer SEO. But also SEO will probably be marked by a revolution in mobile search. This is because mobile devices are increasingly used for research at the expense of computers. This is one of the reasons why Google has given high importance for 2021 on mobile website indexing.
In 2021, it’s time to rethink your natural referencing! If you want to have a good score in SEO in 2021, your site will have to apply all these strategies with the help of an SEO company to offer it better optimization and visibility.
