Top 5 SEO considerations for 2020

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is constantly evolving and maturing. As Google continues to improve upon trying to provide the most relevant results to its users, the SEO landscape has those working in the SEO industry constantly on their toes. Below are the top 5 SEO considerations for 2019.

1. Domain Authority and Page Authority

The first of the top 5 seo considerations is domain authority and page authority. Ever since MOZ (www.moz.com) introduced Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) to be somewhat of a replacement for Google’s PageRank, the race has been on to build up quality backlinks for not only home pages, but interior pages as well. Most SEO specialists will tell you that after they optimize a website (and all its pages), they spend 95% of their time building up quality backlinks to a website using the desired keywords.

Domain Authority takes quite a long time to build up, and for new websites, this task can be even harder. One caveat here: Going from a DA of 1 to a DA of 25 is quite easy but going from a DA of 30 to a DA of 32 is much harder, as domain authority is a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100.

In a mildly competitive market, a DA of 35-50 is quite common and certainly achievable.

Another thing to note is the importance of building slowly. Too many links too quickly can trigger a warning to search engines that something is amiss. For a new website, 30-50 new links a month is the norm.

As your DA and PA rises, all search terms that are used to find your website will also rise in unison.

2. Quality Unique Content

Second on the list of the top 5 seo considerations is quality unique content. Quality and unique content has always been very important to search engines. After all, why would Google want to show you 100 of the same results? And, unless you are the first to produce and get indexed for that content, you will not rank well for it.

All websites should have unique pages for their content, but also a blog type area where fresh content is being added weekly. Also, it should be noted that this content should reflect the subject matter of your website, with internal links to other pages of your site.

Quality content always gets shared with others is you have a good initial distribution system (like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and others).

3. Mobile First Design and Delivery

Google announced a few years ago the push for mobile first indexing. This means that it is concentrating on websites that are optimized for mobile delivery, very fast, and are AMP indexable.

It might surprise you to learn that in the USA, most of your users will access your website from cell phones and tablets rather than a desktop or laptop. In other countries this number is even higher. In fact, I have been to Thailand and Philippines and have witnessed firsthand that over 90% of all internet searches and use is on cell phones. This is for many reasons but mostly because of the availability of cell phones, the ease to refill them when needed, and the economic hardships of not being able to afford a desktop computer.

4. Security

Nowadays, security plays a very important part of internet browsing and SEO. In fact, the major browsers will either warn you or not allow access to websites that are not secured. This is quickly becoming standard practice.

Every website should be secured with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificates at the very least.  Once that is done, the website should also implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS). HSTS is a header which allows a website to specify and enforce security policy in client web browsers. This policy enforcement protects secure websites from downgrade attacks, SSL stripping, and cookie hijacking. It allows a web server to declare a policy that browsers will only connect using secure HTTPS connections and ensures end users do not “click through” critical security warnings. HSTS is an important security mechanism for high security websites. HSTS headers are only respected when served over HTTPS connections, not HTTP.

5. Social Engagement

And finally, the last of top 5 seo considerations is social engagement. Ah, social engagement. Love it or hate it, social websites are here to stay. Places like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube and others can either be a goldmine for your company or can send your company into the ruins in a matter of seconds. However, this is where your potential customers are, and if you treat social media like old school networking meetings, you might just be ok.

I was once asked from a client, “How much time should I spend on social media marketing?” The short answer is: Every idle moment. However, this is not often feasible for most business owners. The large companies have dedicated teams for social media marketing, but as a small business owner, your time is limited. My general rule of thumb is at least an hour a day to engage potential new clients, get involved in specific groups online, and spread the word about the awesome product or service that you provide. This can all go under the subject of “New Customer Acquisition”.

When it comes to SEO, Google DOES see social engagement. Google DOES see what is hot and trending, especially if the user is logged into a Google service, Gmail, or using an Android phone. Reviews (good reviews) matter and are also the backbone of a great social media engagement plan.

These are the top 5 SEO considerations for 2019

Here at U2Them, we leave most of the social engagement in the clients hands. We assist the client in setting up their social media, and the socials are part of our backlinking process, as well as assisting to push out new content that the client provides. The actual engagement part is up to the client as they can speak better for themselves than we can.  Please get in contact with us to review your site and SEO and SOCIAL strategies for 2019 and see how we could participate in making your 2019 your most successful year!