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If you are still convinced that all you need to do to get ahead in search is to buy links, write a few articles, and improve your behavioral metrics a little, then you have underestimated modern search engines. In this article, we will look at how search algorithms have changed, and what will only increase in the coming years.
First and foremost: search engines are increasingly moving away from simply evaluating a site as an individual element. A website is perceived as a business card of a business, company or person. If search engines do not trust your business, then, especially in competitive niches, it will be difficult to count on a high ranking.
Search engines use not only the data provided on the site, but also information from other sources, both online and offline. For example, if a visitor enters your store or office, then his visit is recorded via GPS. After some time, this person will receive an invitation to leave a review or answer a few questions, such as: is there convenient parking? What products or services are presented? And based on this data, search engines will draw conclusions about the site, and you will not even know that this information was collected.
In addition, the physical location of your business will be verified through the services. Most often, inspectors will simply take a photo of the sign of your office or store to make sure that your business is real. In recent years, the role of such checks has increased significantly, and this is logical, because search engines strive to avoid scammers and fake sites. Did you indicate that you have an office? Get ready for inspections.
One of the major changes is the consideration of behavioral factors. Previously, it was quite simple for a user to select your site based on a query, and the algorithm would take this into account to improve rankings. However, this system made it possible to cheat behavioral factors using programs that imitate human behavior. Since the end of the year, search engines have significantly improved their anti-fraud systems to cut out bots.
However, anti-fraud systems are not yet perfect. For example, if you use Incognito mode, Adblock, or frequently clear cookies, search engines may mistake you for a bot. If the traffic to your site appears abnormal, it may be classified as bots.
New approaches to personalization of search results are also changing the picture. Today there is no universal search results - it is based on information about the user, his interests, location and other factors. This means that if your site has a lot of visitors who don't make purchases, search engines will show it mostly to those same visitors. Bots don't buy, and poorly configured bots don't interact with the site at the proper level. Real conversions are important for search engines, because the site that sells gets more trust.
Here are two main takeaways from this:
One of the new trends is “clickless” search results. Search engines are increasingly trying to give users the answer right on the search page, before they go to the site. You may notice short answer blocks, product gallery, questions and answers, related queries and other elements that will reduce the number of clicks but provide complete answers right away.
How does this affect SEO? “Previously, this irritated me as a specialist, until I realized that this approach could actually be useful. After all, this helps to weed out unnecessary traffic from people who simply followed the link, found a quick answer and left the site. Clickless search results reduce such accidental clicks.
Thus, clickless search results can lead to more quality traffic and also improve the site's ranking among users.
Approaches to evaluating text content have also changed. If previously the number of mentions of keywords was important, now search engines evaluate the semantic structure of the text, which includes related terms and concepts. For example, if we are talking about “vodka”, then in addition to the keyword itself, search engines will look for words related to this topic, such as “prohibition”, “snack” and others.
The same goes for commercial pages. If you sell flowers, you should not add text like: “Where to buy flowers in Moscow?” on the catalog page. – this is spam, and the search engine may penalize your page. It is better to show the range of products, selections for occasions and related products. The assortment and ease of purchase will be evaluated.
One of the problems that site owners face is that search engines are beginning to generalize queries and show general categories in search results rather than specific pages. This limits the options for sites with low search visibility.
Competing with large sites is becoming increasingly difficult, but this does not mean that small businesses cannot attract customers online. You just need to put in extra effort and use the right promotion strategies.
To summarize, we can say that SEO rules are changing and becoming more stringent. There are fewer and fewer magic buttons to get to the top, but if your business is justified and you can prove your reliability, then even when competing with major players, you have a chance of success.
If you have questions about SEO, you can contact the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" by email info@seo.computer.
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