How to Improve Your SEO Strategy in 2020

Search engines, especially Google, make changes to their search algorithm almost every day. This means marketers must always find ways to improve their SEO strategy. 

Here are the top six ways to refine your SEO strategy in 2020: 

1. Build a Robust Presence on Social Media

While social signals aren’t a direct ranking factor, they still have an impact on site rankings. 

When people share your content on social media, it gives a signal to Google that it is valuable. Cognitive SEO’s study found a definitive link between social shares and search engine ranking. 

Another benefit of social media marketing is that it can improve your conversion rate. Seventy percent of Gen Z are buying products and services on social media, as cited by Maryville University. 

The first step to improve social signals is to optimize your content for share-ability. That means:

• Crafting irresistible headlines; You can get tips from this copywriting guide from SEOSandwitch to help you create powerful headlines
• Using compelling images and GIFs
• Explicitly asking followers to share content
• Upload videos whenever possible

Use tools such as Buzzsumo to find content that has worked in the past. Enter in a keyword and it will return with topics that are performing exceptionally well on social media. 

2. Increase Your Site Speed

Site speed will undoubtedly remain a huge ranking signal in 2020. Though Google announced site speed as a ranking signal back in 2010 (for desktop results), it was only in 2018 when they included it in mobile search ranking. 

Site speed also affects your bounce rate (again, one of the ranking signals). Pages that load within one to three seconds have a bounce rate probability of 32 percent. Add one second to that and the chances of users bouncing increase to 90 percent. 

Use PageSpeed Insights to check how fast your site loads on both mobile and desktop. PageSpeed Insights also tells you what is affecting your site speed and what you can do to improve it. 

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are yet another great way to improve site speed. They store various copies of your website in multiple locations throughout the world. When a user visits your website, a VPN delivers a copy of your site from their nearest location, thereby reducing the loading time. 

NordVPN is one of the market leaders in the industry. It offers an incredible choice of 5400+ servers in 59 countries. It also provides a high level of safety and credibility. Check out NordVPN deals here for discounts.

3. Optimize Your Site for Mobile

Since last year, Google enabled mobile-first indexing by default for all new websites. For older websites, Google said: “We continue to monitor and evaluate pages based on the best practices detailed in this guide. We inform site owners in the Search Console of the date when their site was switched to mobile-first indexing.”

This means that Google now uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. For this reason, optimizing your website for mobile is no longer optional. 

Here are a few things you need to focus on a few things, such as:

• Make your website responsive
• Don’t block HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Don’t use too many pop-ups
• Improve site speed using AMP
• Optimize your images for mobile devices 
• Reduce redirects

Mercato, an online grocery store, knows how to optimize their website for mobile. They offer the same user experience across all devices. Mercato makes it easier for its mobile visitors to find their favorite flavor by integrating it on the home page.

4. Increase Dwell Time

Dwell time refers to how long a visitor stays on your site after they’ve arrived via search results. 

If visitors bounce back as soon as they land on your website, it sends a signal to Google that they couldn’t find what they were looking for. This can make it difficult for you to maintain a high ranking position on Google. 

Add a “related content” widget. This will help you keep visitors on your site even after they have completed reading the page they’re on. This will also help to increase your visitors’ dwell time. 

5. Improve Your Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to the process of ensuring that search engine crawlers don’t face any problem while indexing your site. 

Many marketers focus so much on creating high-quality content, building backlinks and other SEO tactics that they forget the technical aspects of it. 

One of the best ways to improve your technical SEO is by adding rich snippets. This will help you add extra information to your pages, thereby making sure your pages stand out in the search results. 

Add schema markup to help search engines better understand and categorize your website, which improves your rankings.

Additionally, use tools like SEMrush to conduct a technical SEO audit. It will help you identify technical problems on your site that need fixing.

6. Monitor Your Visitors’ Behavior to Better Understand Prospects

Understanding your visitor’s behavior opens many doors for you. It helps you offer personalized products and offers that match their needs and desires. Marketers who personalize the web experience see a 19 percent uplift in sales.

If you run an eCommerce store, the “shopping behavior analysis report” in Google Analytics can give you a better understanding of your visitors. 

In the shopping behavior analysis report you can check:

• All sessions (the total number of visits on your site)
• Sessions with product views
• The total number of people who added something to their cart
• Sessions with check-out
• Sessions with transactions
• The total number of people who didn’t perform any shopping activity
• The total number of people who visited product pages but didn’t add anything to their cart
• Cart and check-out abandonment rate

  

You can even separate users based on where they are coming from. This helps in understanding how visitors from different sources behave. 

You can then use this data to enhance the user experience, from source to order confirmation. This, in turn, will increase website conversions. 

Another way to understand your visitors’ behavior is by analyzing on-site search queries. The report will tell you what terms people enter on your site. 

You can also check how effectively the search results created a deeper engagement for your visitors on your site. 

You can then leverage this information to increase conversions by:

• Creating personalized email campaigns
• Personalizing the web experience by recommending products
• Creating new landing pages revolving around common search terms
• Crafting content that answers your visitors’ questions related to search terms

Wrapping Up

SEO has always been an integral part of a digital marketing strategy. However, you need to continuously improve your SEO strategy and optimize your site for speed and mobile-friendliness. 

Post content on social media regularly to increase social signals. Add internal links and related posts to increase dwell time. Conduct a technical SEO audit to find and fix issues related to indexing and crawling.