With more and more websites popping up (and with Google tweaking its algorithm constantly), the online landscape is getting much more competitive. I’m the founder of six businesses, all revolving around search engine optimization, and I believe that if you want to rank in 2020, you’ll have to be one step ahead of everyone else.
It’s a new year and a new decade — and that means it’s time to tackle search engine optimization (SEO) in a new way. Read on to learn more.
1. Authority is king.
Domain authority has always been a huge ranking factor, and it’s no different in 2020. What has changed, however, is how you earn it.
Links used to be the building blocks of a site’s authority. Collecting backlinks was the name of the game. The more backlinks you had, the higher your domain authority.
Does this still apply in 2020? Well, yes and no.
Links are still very important, but it’s more about trust signals and representing yourself as a brand.
If you want to compete with the big sites that dominate the search engine results page rankings, you’ll need to play like the big sites do — by creating amazing content and building up your brand.
So how do you demonstrate your expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness?
First things first: Focus on creating accurate, relevant and interesting content within your field of expertise. Then, clean up your site by getting rid of thin content, broken links and other technical errors. Be transparent about who you are; set up “About Us” and “Contact Us” pages. Finally, build your credibility by getting off-site citations and backlinks from high-ranking or high-authority sites.
Focus on trust, and you will build up your domain authority naturally, organically and sustainably.
2. Organic search real estate will become smaller.
Remember when Google’s search engine results were populated by actual pages, and you had to climb your way up to #1 just to be seen? Today’s search engine results page couldn’t be more different, thanks to Google AdWords, quick answer boxes, knowledge panels and, of course, the coveted featured snippet.
This means that there’s less room for you to rank organically … but it also means that you have more ways to get noticed by searchers.
Featured snippets are a great way for you to outrank your competitors without actually having to reach the #1 rank. Snippets are placed at the top of the results page above the #1 result, which is also called rank 0. – Read more
