To rank well in the search engines (and boost your profits), don’t limit yourself to basic SEO techniques. If you want to remain competitive, you have to follow the latest trends. Now, it’s all about technology purposefully. Emerging technologies are slowly but surely changing the SEO landscape.
Build technological change into your digital marketing strategy by exploring the myriad of possibilities it brings about.
AS SEO becomes more sophisticated, you need to keep abreast of the constantly changing metrics to maintain your SERP position.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural Language Processing is the ability of a computer program to understand human language as it’s spoken and written. In December 2019, Google launched the BERT algorithm, which brought NLP into prominence. BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. It’s basically a neural network-based technique for natural language processing.
BERT helps grasp the nuances and context of words in searches. Most importantly, it better matches search queries to results. Thanks to NLP, Google can understand the contents of websites and the intentions of users when searching online.
These days, it’s not just about authority and relevance. Let’s focus for a second on internal link building and context discovery.
You can’t randomly place a link on a page. What matters is the context on the page. The link text should be unique, meaningful when read out of context, and help users understand something about the webpage they’re taken to after they click the link.
If the NLP system comes across a word it doesn’t understand, it’ll attempt to resolve its meaning. Should it do so by referring to the material on your site, you’ll be rewarded with a boost in rankings.
Also Read: A Quick Guide To Brisbane SEO
Voice Search
People are more likely to use voice search to find the information they need. The days of typing into the search engine are nearly gone. The rising ownership of smart devices paired with the increasing eCommerce growth translates into the fact that consumer behavior has changed.
The speech recognition technology in voice search accepts spoken commands and provides direct answers based on the search queries. Here’s how voice search affects SEO:
- Users can search for queries with natural-sounding phrases and get replies in a similar tone.
- Search queries are made using long-tail keywords.
- Voice search places emphasis on reliable and trustworthy content.
- Featured snippet optimization is closely intertwined with voice search.
Most people who use voice search use it to search for local items like restaurants, gas stations, and so on. Take advantage of this opportunity to improve local SEO. One thing you can do is optimize for specific search engines. Take, for example, Google.co.uk.
If you’re a US-based enterprise, it’s a good idea to collaborate with an SEO company London. The experts will provide helpful advice. For instance, the SEO company might advise you to update your Google My Business listing. Don’t go at it alone.
GPT-3 For Automated Content Creation
Back in September 2020, The Guardian made a lot of noise after publishing a story on its website written by a robot – more exactly, an AI algorithm. The editorial staff explained that the GPT-3 wrote the piece. GPT-3, or the Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is the third version of the tool.
It generates text using algorithms that are pre-trained. It needs a small amount of input text to generate significant volumes of pertinent, sophisticated text. GPT-3 For Automated Content Creation has been a dominant topic of discussion in the SEO industry.
Many say that GPT-3 can write copy as convincingly as humans. It can write about unfamiliar topics in any voice, style, or tone. You can leverage GPT-3 for automated content creation.
This technology can help you out with email writing. Provide some key pointers that you want to cover in the email, and the GPT-3 will write it for you. Equally, you can use the robot for first draft writing.
You can edit the draft afterward to make sure it expresses your brand personality. Whatever text you generate, make sure it doesn’t already exist. There’s the risk of duplicate content.
SEO A/B Testing
A/B testing (split testing) involves presenting multiple variations of a web page for user feedback on usability and aesthetics. Put simply, you split user traffic into two groups and serve the normal experience to half the users while the other half encounter a modified experience.
According to the experts at Passion Digital, there are several on-page SEO elements that can be used for A/B testing, such as meta titles and descriptions, headlines, URL structures, CTAs, sales copy, product descriptions, and images or videos.
The users are Google Bots and not end-users. Carrying out SEO A/B testing will help you understand what’s working and what’s not. Your site won’t be negatively impacted by something out of your control.
Also Read: What Makes A Best SEO Agency In Singapore?
Mobile-First Indexing
Finally, yet importantly, let’s not forget about mobile technology. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, it won’t be ranked high by search engines. This is because they recognize the high volumes of traffic that come through mobile.
More and more people are shifting to mobile, leaving behind desktop computers and laptops. Google, in particular, uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and content.
This is what is called mobile-first indexing. Mobile-first indexing was enabled by default starting on July 1, 2019. There are things you can do to make sure you rank well in the SERPs, such as:
- Speed up your site. The loading speed is essential when it comes to the mobile version of your website. Compress everything that you can, decrease the total number of RTRs, and activate Google AMP.
- Manage content for mobile. To amplify your mobile content efforts, it pays to break your articles into short paragraphs, offers a summary or highlights, eliminate unnecessary words, and use high-contrast colors.
- Don’t block CSS, JavaScript, or images. It’s not helpful to block these elements. Without them, Google can’t classify your content and rank it accordingly. Today’s smartphones are more powerful than PCs.
Test how a visitor sees your site on a mobile device. Do you have something concrete to certify you’re mobile-friendly?