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Digital Trends for 2021: SEO Roundup

Purpose Media

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February 23, 2021 | 9 min read

Most of us have (hastily) closed the door on 2020 and are looking ahead to this year with great optimism

Last year was full of change, and a year most of us will want to leave behind – but there are a lot of things to learn too.

2021 presents a new way of collaborative working, hyper-accelerated consumer trends, and greater emphasis on digital than ever. Digital marketing trends have changed for good, but, what does this mean for the digital marketing industry in particular, and what’s key to look out for to cut above the noise?

Purpose Media has spoken to 21 experts from some of the UK’s leading SEO agencies and the best in the industry, to reveal their predictions and “things to watch” and make an impact on your marketing this year.

Kevin Kapezi, Growthack Digital

Competition within Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) will grow in line with the growing demand for digital marketing services and the increased investment in digital, strengthened by the pandemic which has forced it into the forefront of any marketing plan. Interestingly, Rand Fishkin highlighted how much interest has grown in SEO this year, far above other related marketing topics. It’s currently at an all-time high.

Considering how much more awareness businesses will have around SEO tactics, it will be even more critical for marketers to ensure they are a cut about the average website.

Google has placed more emphasis on Core Web Vitals being a ranking signal and aligning the SEO team as close as possible to website developers should be a top priority now more than ever before. A strive for technical excellence and high-quality online user experiences will be a continuing trend, following the previous mobile-first index and HTTPS security updates. However, basic SEO elements should never be forgotten and sometimes these are the most difficult to achieve, especially within larger enterprise businesses!


Olly Torrence, SEO consultant at Purpose Media

My top tip: Make sure you are thinking about user intent at all times. Google is getting better at understanding language and how people search so make sure your content reflects the intent.

Also, look at the SERPs when doing keyword research, and see what types of pages Google is ranking. E.g. is it a blog, category page, product page? If for a certain keyword all Google is ranking is blogs, it will be a lot harder to rank a product page for it. So, use schema and get rich snippets. These will really help you stand out in search results and Google will understand your pages better.

Trends I see emerging this year will include:

- More SERP features e.g featured snippets. I can see Google looking to provide even more answers directly on search result pages without people having to visit a site.

- Mobile search. This is only increasing and with the page experience update coming in 2021, Google is making it clear that user experience is more important than ever, especially on mobile.

-E-A-T will become more of a factor especially since the rise in so-called ‘fake news and theories’. Google wants to make sure the correct advice is being shown so if you’re in an industry giving advice that can affect people’s lives, E-A-T is a must.

Naomi Fracis-Parker, SEO manager at The Evergreen Agency

Search and user intent is a big thing to focus on this year. It’s no secret that search intent is a big deal, and this isn’t exactly a groundbreaking prediction, but it’s so important that businesses understand the weight of search intent in SEO.

Content that answers the user’s questions and gives them what they’re looking for without making them pay, sign up or go through some kind of sales process, will ultimately win in 2021 and beyond too.

Leave the ego and the sales-speak behind and write content that genuinely adds value and serves the user’s needs following an E-A-T approach.


Jack Goldsmith, SEO manager at Distinctly

Top tip for 2021: Reviewing your web vital performance.

Your website’s pages should be safe, secure, quick, and responsive – all of these fall within the Core Web Vitals criteria. This is not new but with the official rollout impacting the search results in May 2021, businesses will need to ensure their technical foundations are correct and their user experiences meet their audience’s needs.

Also, Google is currently testing out new indicators for the search results to highlight sites that are deemed safe and secure to visit – another addition that may affect click-through rates.

Failing to address this part of your SEO strategy will likely impact your traffic and conversions so start looking at this now.”

Hannah Butcher, SEO strategist at Re:signal

In 2021, businesses will be hoping to have a less turbulent time, but with the ongoing global pandemic and Brexit, there will be more uncertainty to ride out before the storm is over.

I think the best strategy for SEO in 2021 will be all around the simple best practice elements surrounding technical and on-page. Sustainability may not seem like the most exciting concept, but businesses need a solid foundation when everything else is up in the air.

It’s also worth getting into the commercial mindset to understand the other issues within the business, industry, or economy that could be blockers to success. For example, trading and shipping delays, or even ongoing recovery from product shortages due to changed shopping habits in 2020 (e.g. small freezers or hot tubs).

The focus on business sustainability may have a knock-on effect for digital PR budgets, as this could be seen as a “nice to have” rather than an essential investment – particularly as cutting through the busy news agenda can feel like a gamble for ROI.

This would lead to a re-evaluation of existing content and assets, and how to improve these on a smaller budget.

Ryan Darani, freelance SEO consultant

There are three areas of SEO you need to pay attention to; topical authority, publishing velocity, and content distribution.

My biggest successes last year came from focusing on topic modelling and keyword clustering at scale, and I don’t imagine it’ll be much different in 2021!

Building out the breadth and depth of your content is going to be a guaranteed way to win. Plan out content to cover as much of a topic as you can (breadth) and then maximise your on-page, through creating a page that aims to cover the topic in as much detail as possible (depth).

Use entities and semantic relevance to generate a much larger corpus of words in your content. This will allow you to rank for hundreds of keywords; instead of just a few.

Chloe Fair, senior SEO strategist at Impression

After a lot of learnings around intent and demand in 2020, where businesses have had to pivot strategies from brick and mortar to online or have unintentionally had a brand new audience come to them, this will inevitably be a focus moving into 2021 too. All businesses should be focusing more on understanding the search landscape and looking at their competitors more, understanding what competitors are and aren’t doing well, and also monitoring SERP features.

Last year I noticed the local SERPs changing a lot too and this is something that I have been reviewing and reporting on more than ever in tools such as Searchmetrics and Seomonitor. There were a lot of fluctuations in 2020 due to the changes in local lockdowns etc. and this will inevitably continue in 2021. Local SEO is more important than ever!

Ellie Buckle, head of digital and strategy at Purpose Media

This year I expect content to have a much more blended approach with other specialities. Content has always been a really malleable specialism, and I think it’s just going to become more and more ingrained with the marketing mix as time goes on.

I’ve always been a believer that content marketing isn’t really a thing. It’s more the creation of content and the channel on which you market it. The creation of content is already starting to evolve. We are seeing more people focussing on intent when it comes to SEO, and broadening their own websites relevancy where necessary.

The real change in 2021, for me, comes with the amplification of those pieces of content. Marketing is always becoming more digitalised, and utilising effective digital strategies. So the creation element naturally evolves with cultural trends. But amplifying content with a blended approach to SEO, PPC, Social, and PR and how they work together is the best way to really make an impact on your bottom line. I should think it won’t be too long until ‘the SEO team’ is a phrase of the past.

The most important thing to focus on this year is around your customer journey. Make sure you are really taking time to map out and understand every step of your customer’s journey. Create content with a purpose, that can impact and amplify across channels – that way you are really making the most of your investment.

Drive your SEO strategy in 2021

A massive thank you to every single person who took the time to share their advice. Hopefully, you found these tips useful for pulling together your SEO strategy for 2021. If you would like to find out more about optimising your website to get the most of your digital marketing, get in touch with our team today.

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