A GUIDE TOSEO IN 2020FOR SMALLBUSINESSOWNERS

By Helen BaileyMasterplan Marketing

MASTERPLAN MARKETING JANUARY 2020WWW.MASTERPLANMARKETING.CO.UK

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ABOUT THIS GUIDE

Many business owners want to drive quality traffic to their site.

For those that manage to get their website to the top of the search engines the

rewards can be big. In most cases, just a small increase in site traffic can result in

increased revenue and sales.

However, as the online world constantly evolves, it can be difficult for business owners

to keep up. The fluxing world of the online marketplace is constantly changing. As

such, following ‘the rules’ is an increasingly time consuming and complicated task.

Trends, recommendations and tips

With this guide, Masterplan Marketing aims to cut through the noise to give you the

information you are looking for - so you can get on with building a workable strategy

for optimising your site in the months ahead.  

It reveals the seven top trends for the year so you can gain a better understanding of

what's required to maintain a competitive edge.

And, you’ll come across some handy advice and tips that outlines the kind of tactics

you can use to get your site ranked well organically.

  

So, without further ado, let’s get to it.

Let’s find out the top SEO trends in 2020 and examine what can be done to capitalise

on them.

The insight is sure to pay off.

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TREND 1

With its recent ‘BERT’ algorithm update announced inOctober 2019, Google is reinforcing its vow tocontinue humanising search through naturallanguage processing.

What it means...

The update to the algorithm means Google is able to understand natural language

better than ever before. It's also crawling a broader number of page elements to

establish the context of the web page content.

This is all designed to improve the interpretation of complex long-tail search

queries in order to display more relevant and accurate search results.

In light of this, business owners will need to focus on understanding user intent in

addition to - or perhaps in place of - keyword research and phrase matching.

This latest move by Google demonstrates in no uncertain terms that web pages

should primarily be created for human beings, and not just as a way of getting

recognised by spiders and bots.

Google's focus will be on meeting customer ‘intent’

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The way you are able to use your website to interpret and fulfil customer need

will be the key to gaining a competitive edge in 2020. Identify your most lucrative

target market and create web pages that solve their problems and answer their

questions. 

Spend sufficient time mapping out your ideal customer’s journey so you can

concentrate on creating a 'Grade A' web experience for them. This might involve

understanding your customers’ motivations way before the actual purchase is

likely to happen and finding ways of adding value sooner.    

How can you add value? Provide complete answers to questions and avoid using

promotional language. Be candid and refrain from shying away from answering

questions about price or supply chain. Google will favour the bold: Those helping

it on its quest to provide quick and relevant answers to common questions will

be rewarded with visibility in the organic search results.

What you can do...

 

·        

Tip!

Monitor social media forums and take note of the typeof questions people are asking that relate to yourindustry or offering. Note how people tend to structureand word their questions and then use the insight tocreate a Q&A page that’s packed full with useful,relevant and optimised information.

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TREND 2

With a re-emphasis on user – or customer – intent,SEO activities should not be carried out in isolation in2020, but rather as part of a broader marketingstrategy.

What it means...

Companies with a strong brand tend to fare well in the SERPs.

Why?

Because a strong brand evokes loyalty and trust, which in turns translates to more

site visits, more publicity and – crucially – more links. Each of these factors

contribute to your site’s domain authority and ranking.

SEO activities willbenefit from the support of a solid,integrated marketing programme

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Rather than seek silver SEO bullets that will shoot you up to the top of the SERPs,

it will pay to take a more holistic and consistent approach to your marketing

efforts in 2020. Switch from a technically focused SEO attitude to a people-

orientated SEO attitude and meet your customers on their terms.

Create the content on your website to appeal to your target market and always

keep your messaging consistent and true to your brand ideals and values.

Affirming your brands values as well as stating your mission and vision on your

site will help build trust with your audience – and other website owners who

could potentially provide a valuable link.

What you can do...

 

 

·        

Tip!

The content model provides auseful framework upon which to create and buildyour integrated marketing strategy. Make campaignswork to the max and re-create your content fordifferent targets, channels, mediums and purposes.

'Hero, Hub, Hygiene'

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TREND 3

Google's algorithm calculates ‘dwell time’, whichascertains how useful – and valuable – your site is tousers.

What it means...

You’ll want to hold onto site visitors and encourage them to interact with

your site for as long as possible so that dwell time on your site is increased.

There is only one way of doing this:

Make sure your site is as relevant, navigable and as engaging to users as

possible.

There is an increasingimportance on quality – not quantity

– of content

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Imagine your site is a book. Acknowledge how much time and effort you’d put

into creating that book and give your website the same treatment. From the

grammar to the tone of voice; accuracy of information to chapter order and

image quality; you would make sure your creation delivered exactly what it was

intended for before sending it to the publishers. Do the same for your website

and you’ll be on track to creating a valuable, user-orientated resource.

Pay particular attention to the user experience – or UX as it’s often known. Create

a logical site navigation map with internal links between pages and clear calls to

action that help users move around the site.

Make the content interesting and engaging. Give the user what they want fast.

Do this by avoiding lengthy intros or overly technical language that will make

them work hard to get to the point.

What you can do...

·        

Tip!

Arrange a screen share with a new user and observe them usingyour site for the first time. Where do they linger? Where do theydrop off? Where do they spend most time? Are they strugglingto find their way around the site? Use what you learn to updateand improve as a way of keeping your audience engaged, anddwell time to a max.

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TREND 4

Google will continue to consider your businesses’‘expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness’(EAT) in 2020 when ranking your site – as well as thatof the individuals who contribute and publish to it.

What it means...

Using several interlinked factors, Google attributes a quality score according to the

credentials of a web page's content creator. It also looks at patterns to try and

ascertain if something is true as part of the 'trust criteria' – if the same statement

appears on other authoritative sites for instance.

Search engines will also look for reviews, testimonials and endorsements as a way of

collecting evidence and gauging the authority of the website.

Reputation matters - sobuild it.

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"Social media continues to grow. It isessential that we learn to adapt

quickly and be ahead of the game.”

Demonstrate expertise: Use keyword research to establish exactly what your

customers want to know and then use this insight to create 'thought leader'

articles that aim to educate and inform.

Build your authority by linking to other influential websites. Encourage others to

link to your website by creating useful, shareable content.

Develop a network of experts with proven credibility and expertise in related

fields and ask them to contribute to your site in some way. This could be as a

guest poster, commentator, associate or other.

Be candid and open about your achievements as an individual and business.

Create a detailed ‘About Us’ page or resume that outlines who you - and the

people you work with - are.

Complete your social media profiles. Include links to educational and

professional institutions as this will help Google judge your collective authority.

What you can do...

      

   

·        

Tip!

Put biographies and links to social media accounts onevery article you publish and also make sure people can find outeasily how to get in touch with you. Make sure you have yourT&C’s, privacy policy, address and phone number clearlydisplayed. Include endorsements from clients.

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TREND 5

From supply chain excellence to the deliverance ofinnovative, quality products and services; yourconduct and offline existence matters - even in therealm of the digital world.

What it means...

Reviews are a big indicator for Google. Poor service whether experienced on or

offline can easily result in Google demoting your site from the SERPs.

Customers will often turn to their social media accounts to vent their frustration

and this can be detrimental to how Google ranks your site.

You will need to be vigilant and do everything you can to meet expectations at

every turn - from now and to the future.

Online and offline will combine

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"Social media continues to grow. It isessential that we learn to adapt

quickly and be ahead of the game.”

Step out of the online world and look at how your business can up its game

across the entire marketing mix. What are your customer's expectations? Are you

able to meet them consistently? If not, then perhaps you're value proposition has

been overstated. This is something you'll want to address.

Solid, viable businesses are based on their ability to effectively satisfy customer

want and need whilst still being able to turn a profit. If you think your brand

could be performing better, then it might be time to look again at your overall

marketing strategy and plan.

Seek to delight your customer at every opportunity. Recognise the fact that

online and offline worlds are two sides of the same coin rather than mutually

exclusive from one another. You can’t grow a viable business by succeeding in

one, and failing in the other.

What you can do...

      

 

·        

Tip!

Satisfied customers can become ambassadors for your brand socreate a method of monitoring, collecting and distributingpositive feedback – perhaps by incorporating an automatedemail system into your site. Monitor and respond quickly to anyissues before they have a chance to turn into bigger problems.

Link building will continue to be an important part ofSEO in 2020. What is changing, however, is that thecontext of the hosting web page will matter more. Itcould assign some traditional practices to history.

What it means...

Modern day link building will take on an approach that is more akin to traditional

PR than tactical SEO. This is because Google is aiming to give higher rankings to

websites that provide genuine interest and value rather than rewarding low grade

content and practices.

Link swapping, paid links and links in social media accounts are likely to do little - if

anything - for your ranking. Grey/black hat activities are increasingly likely to

jeopardise and harm your site.

More than ever, Google will favour websites that follow a logical, contextual link

strategy. Methodical, organised linking between web pages within a website will

help search engines understand the structural and topical nature of your site.   

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TREND 6

Link building will - more than ever - look like PR

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Following rather than flouting the search engine guidelines might mean shifting

focus away from some of the tactics of old and instead towards building long-

term strategies that focus on earning links from high-quality sites. Avoid cloaking,

buying or hiding links, or placing links on low-quality or irrelevant third party sites

at all costs.

Adopting a PR mind-set rather than an SEO mind-set when it comes to link

building is by far the preferred approach. You can do this by following editorial

calendars; sending out timely, newsworthy stories and contributing to online

features and relevant, third party blogs. The links you get are then symptomatic

of good practice.

Look for link opportunities in historical content: Conduct a name search and

approach any website owners that have referred to your brand in their content

but who have not linked to your site. Ask them to link to a relevant page on your

site as a way of providing more information for the user. They can only say no!

What you can do...

 

 

        

Tip!

Conduct a survey, write a report or uncover some interestingstats that relate to your industry. Releasing original research intothe public domain is an excellent way of generating newsworthycoverage and earning high value links to your site.

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TREND 7

Ongoing, technical SEO maintenance and bestpractice should be carried out with vengeance if youare to beat your competition in the SERPs.

What it means...

Whereas the shift towards a more humanistic approach to SEO is gaining ground,

creating a structured and well organised site that helps Google crawl pages to

ascertain their context is vital for good online exposure.

Fast, mobile friendly and secure sites will continue to be vital for optimisation in

2020 – and it’s important to cover these basics before drilling down into more

advanced activities.

Tried and testedtechnical basics will still apply

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Avoid over-stuffing content with keywords but use meaningful and topical

keywords in URLs, title tags, meta tags and image alt tags. This will help Google

identify and understand the content of your pages and rank your site accordingly.

The is a sophisticated and free SEO tool that will help you

get your site shipshape. Set up an account and submit your sitemap to make sure

it is crawled regularly. It’ll help you spot broken links, check your site’s loading

time and identify crawl errors.

As well as building back links to your site on third party web pages, it’s important

to also link out to high authority sites at the same time. Make sure the sites you

link to are trustworthy (remember EAT) and also link internally within your site

using keyword rich anchor text.

What you can do...

 

 

        

Tip!

SEO is all about outmanoeuvring the competition. Run an SEOaudit to spot any opportunities your competitors may havemissed to fulfil user intent. It’ll help focus your efforts, elevateyour site and stand you in best chance of beating your rivals tothe top spot in the SERPs.

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Google Search Console

ABOUT MASTERPLANMARKETING

ABOUT MASTERPLANMARKETING

From SEO to publicity; advertising to direct marketing Masterplan Marketing is a multi-

disciplined and full service agency.

Based in Berkshire, England, it works with directors and entrepreneurs to launch,

promote and grow their businesses through the development of a sound marketing

strategy and efficient, tactical implementation.

It's mission is to provide a first-class service to all kinds of small business - regardless of

size, industry or budget.

Visit www.masterplanmarketing.co.uk for more.

ABOUT THE AUTHORHELEN BAILEYBA (HONS) MKTG&PSYCH PG DIP DIGM (B2B)

Helen Bailey is a qualified marketing consultant with years of multi-discipline marketing

and promotional experience. She recently completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital

Marketing from the prestigious

She has run - and continues to run - marketing campaigns and programmes for a number

of B2B and B2C clients across a range of industries including graphic arts, energy and

environment, recruitment, construction, retail, coaching and software.

Helen started out in SEO in 2009, link building and running digital PR campaigns for a

successful comparison site business. Her endeavours saw her earning links and coverage on

prestigious sites such as those belonging to the BBC, The Telegraph and The Independent.

You can learn more at www.masterplanmarketing.co.uk or email Helen at

hello@masterplanmarketing.co.uk.

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IDM, London.

GET IN TOUCH

Web: www.masterplanmarketing.co.ukTel: 07852 334178

Email: hello@masterplanmarketing.co.uk

Facebook: @masterplanmarketinguk

LinkedIn: masterplan-marketing

Twitter: @masterplan_mktg

        

MASTERPLAN MARKETING / HELEN BAILEY 2020