New Jersey SEO in 2020: Use These Hacks & Watch Business Flourish
There is nothing like a Google algorithm update to keep digital marketing departments awake at night. In the aftermath, uninformed SEO specialists discover that tactics that were once acceptable can now cause the dreaded event of dropping in organic search rankings. New Jersey SEO experts who stay informed about every move Google and its contemporaries make, continue to remain on top of their game. It pays to learn what those Google reports say and how the top marketers interpret them so that your business website doesn’t fall out of favor.
If you’re looking for a strong contender in New Jersey for SEO marketing, look no further than Reclaim Digital. We are always at the cutting edge of technology with all the latest trends to help your business win. We understand and agree with Google’s drive to provide search engine results that are in the interest of the end-user.
To put you on the path for success, we have compiled this guide to SEO in 2020. We will provide you with a reason for any shifting trends, and what your business can do to stay ahead of the competition, keep traffic streaming to your site, and ultimately boost your bottom line.
Attention Businesses in New Jersey! SEO Tips to Flourish in 2020
1. Authority Matters More Than Ever
We’ll be sticking with Google for the rest of our discussion since it’s the largest of the search engines.
In 2019, marketers talked a lot about Google’s E-A-T, which it uses to measure a page’s value. The acronym stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, and a low E-A-T score will lead to lower rankings. By simply following Google’s guidelines about what contributes to a high score, you can protect your website from disastrous drops in search results.
What contributes to a high E-A-T score?
If your business is in a regulated industry like health, legal, or finance where incorrect advice could have devastating consequences, your website content should be written by experts with the correct credentials or at the very least, endorsed by them. A bio section for the author including their image and highlighting their formal qualifications, awards, title and contact information would need to feature prominently on the page.
For industries that are not as regulated, formal credentials are not the main metric used to measure authority, but the response of a knowledgeable audience to the website/author. By tracking what happens naturally when people are impressed by something—they talk about it often—Google can assign a website as authoritative and trustworthy. Take advantage of the following signals that impact a website’s E-A-T:
- Backlinks to authority sites acknowledged by the leading experts in an industry (avoid spam links completely or guest posting on sites with low reputation)
- Engagement on the site in the form of comments from readers
- Other off-page authority signals including testimonials, press coverage, and conferences
- Positive social mentions
- Fast and secure checkout for purchases
- Terms of service and privacy policy
- Customer support and contact details
2. Match Search Intent to Your Content
The reasons for searching on Google are many. The user may be looking to find out specific information, compare different brands, or may be ready to buy a particular item. If your content does not provide answers for a particular search intent, even when you use the correct keywords, your page will not rank well for that search.
What does this mean for your content strategy?
Without using expensive SEO tools, one way to know the search intent for a keyword (it isn’t always obvious) is to simply extract insights from the first page of search results. What do the results tell you about the pages the algorithm is choosing to emphasize?
Now go ahead and use those insights to profit by giving people what they want to see. Also, this should encourage you to have more conversations with your existing customers and anybody who comes into contact with your business. Listen to how they describe their issues, and what they want from their preferred solution. These insights will prove invaluable to the type of content you produce. For local businesses in New Jersey, SEO strategies that take into account the voice of your customers will win over basic keyword stuffing.
3. Voice Search has Exploded
As the number of people using digital assistants like Siri and Alexa grows, the more search queries will be voice-based. These assistants often grab their answers from the first page of search.
How does voice search affect your New Jersey SEO goals in 2020?
For one, because the majority of these searches are questions, it makes sense to include question and answer sections in your content. Even more important is to use the H1, H2, or H3 headers for these questions so that Google can retrieve them easily.
Secondly, you should optimize your content to appear in Featured Snippets. These lists are becoming a regular feature on the first page of results as a way of giving users quick answers without having to click through to websites. Here’s how to appear in the Featured Snippets:
- Know and focus on the keywords you currently rank for and that also have a Featured Snippet (since nearly all featured snippets are pulled from websites on the first page of search results).
- Organize your content to have a 40-60 word block of content that is optimized for Snippets.
- Make sure to use the right type of formatting. Use H2 or H3 headers for each item in your list if you want to feature in a List Snippets. For Table Snippets make sure the data within them can be extracted.
- Use your favorite keyword research tool to discover more Snippets opportunities once you have exhausted your low hanging fruits.
The correct organization and structure of your data make it easy for Google’s robots to crawl your website without a lot of effort and immediately extract the information when needed. We understand that following through with the correct guidelines might be overwhelming, so don’t hesitate to call on professional SEO experts. Reclaim Digital helps local businesses in New Jersey with SEO optimization for both new and existing websites so that potential customers can find them online.
4. Take Advantage of Video Search
Did you know that 55% of all searches in Google (US) return at least one video among the search results[1]? What’s more, out of 10 of such videos, 8 of them are from YouTube. If you are not taking advantage of video in your marketing, you are missing out on a stream of potential leads who are searching for videos to see your type of product or company in action.
Just as there are rules about what makes for great written content, there are a few best practices for publishing video so that it becomes an effective tool in your SEO arsenal:
- Videos should have clear titles, useful descriptions, and tags so that the algorithm can easily decide what your video is about.
- By organizing your video into clearly marked sections, the relevant clip that answers the searched-for topic can show up on Featured Snippets for video search.
- Provide a transcript to go along with your video. While YouTube can automatically generate captions for your video, they are often riddled with errors that could interfere with comprehension.
- Embed your YouTube video into your blog posts or other relevant sections on your website because they are effective at keeping visitors on the page when used to compliment text-rich content.
5. Mobile SEO Brings Everything Together
None of the strategies we have already discussed will be of any use if you have not optimized your website for mobile. Unfortunately, the websites of many businesses are very messy on mobile because they were designed and optimized first for desktop viewing. The wonderful functionalities seen on the desktop version make it impossible to navigate using mobile, whether due to too big fonts, or pop-ups that are hard to close. That won’t do in 2020 when more than half of internet traffic comes from mobile devices.
A better strategy is to build a website for mobile first, and then create its desktop version from there. You should aim for page speed scores above 80 for mobile and above 70 for desktop versions of your site. Any other technical issues should be resolved as soon as possible, as this contributes to losing a valuable search position to competitors.
Conclusion
With new ways to get answers from search engines, such as voice search, SEO may have a new face, but its purpose remains the same: for your page to rank at the top of SERPs, signaling it as a relevant and valuable resource that people can trust. SEO specialists who are more focused on the longevity of your business rather than short-term tactics will implement the tips contained in this guide in a way that best suits your needs and industry. Reclaim Digital offers businesses in New Jersey SEO strategy and execution packages to attract a pipeline full of leads and potential customers. Our SEO experts are at your service.
Source
[1] https://tubularinsights.com/youtube-google-search-results/
