SEO Developments that Businesses Should Not Ignore

Default Image

New developments in search engine optimisation (SEO) shouldn’t be overlooked or ignored. They often have a material effect on the ranking positions for search terms and the amount of organic traffic that is received as a result. Here are a few of the recent SEO developments and changes to be aware of.

Mobile is Crucial
The Mobile-First strategy by Google means that the mobile version of a website is considered first and the desktop version second. Mobile SEO may also factor in search elements that are exclusive to smartphone use for that extra rank-ability factor.

When it comes to SEO UK based, companies need to be aware that the mobile ranking for pages and search keywords is judged entirely differently to desktop. For poorly optimised, slow-loading mobile versions, these are likely to rank worse than their desktop equivalents. This also includes scoring well on the mobile version of Web Core Vitals.

Voice Search is on the Rise
The increasing use of smartphones rather than sitting at the PC means that voice search is picking up too. This has been helped by both improved voice recognition and smart home devices like Alexa and others. While this does relate heavily to local SEO and driving traffic to nearby shops, that’s not the only change. Companies can provide relevant information on voice-related searches. This can be picked up by Google and offered to the vocal searcher.

Also, it’s worth remembering that while a phone user may search visually, they don’t only get short answers back. In addition, web pages are shown where a fuller answer is warranted. Therefore, answers to “near me” related queries can be provided in an article format and drive new visitors to the site.

Video Continues to Gain Ground
While they’re not always suitable for short answers or detailed analysis, videos are another way to answer the searcher’s question. Google sometimes prefers video answers too. The search engine may show a row of videos as the top answer before linking to the top 10 sites below that.

Companies that wish to compete for these keywords need to orient toward video production and including relevant keyword tagging for them. See this as just another type of content marketing to get into the SERPs.
When publishing an accompanying article too, it’s sometimes possible to feature both as a video and in the linked articles further down the search results.

Manage Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
One of Google’s Web Core Vitals is the cumulative layout shift, known as CLS for short. The issue for SEO is that when visual elements on the page load in at various speeds, it can cause excessive elemental movement. The reshaping of the page design during a multi-second loading phase is visually distracting and provides a poor user experience. This is what the CLS metric is all about.

Failing to pay some mind to CLS scoring may negatively affect results. The drag factor from a poor CLS score can result in lower rankings across many search keywords. And extra backlinks won’t be able to overcome it either.

While search engine optimisation in its purest sense is often seen primarily to be about backlinks, changes in web usage are affecting SEO too. Therefore, companies need to keep up with these changes to ensure their SEO game remains effective.

Share:
Share

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kristina Knight-1
Kristina Knight, Journalist , BA
Content Writer & Editor
linkedin
Kristina Knight is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience writing on varied topics. Kristina’s focus for the past 10 years has been the small business, online marketing, and banking sectors, however, she keeps things interesting by writing about her experiences as an adoptive mom, parenting, and education issues. Kristina’s work has appeared with BizReport.com, NBC News, Soaps.com, DisasterNewsNetwork, and many more publications.