SEO is an area that is constantly changing, either due to updates to the Google algorithm or due to the emergence of new positioning factors such as EAT or Core Web Vitals. For this reason, it is useful to review the strategies each new year positioning and review what changes are affecting websites.
Updating the content, creating an attractive favicon, or offering a good user experience are some simple measures that will improve a website’s visibility in 2021.
-Favicon: One of the best strategies to attract clicks in 2021 is to optimize the favicon. Since 2020, Google has been showing this little logo on the search results page, so that pages with an attractive favicon get more attention from users.
-Numbers: The introduction of numbers in titles has always been the subject of discussion. Many experts claim they attract more clicks while others believe they don’t. With that in mind, a recent SearchPilot study showed that they are getting more user attention. Hence, it might be a good idea to try this, albeit in a natural way.
– Metadata description: Although 30% of websites are one of the oldest ranking factors, they do not yet have a meta description. This element must contain the correct keyword and be attractive to readers as it will help them click on the result.
-Update content: One of the big problems with evergreen content is that it’s often forgotten after it’s published. With current “content saturation”, it’s a good idea to find the content that has worked best over the past three or four years and update it without changing the URL to provide more current and, if possible, more complete information.
-Internal links: Another best practice is to check and update the internal links. With this in mind, and continuing with the previous point, it is possible to update old content by only linking to current articles. This way the audience can discover new content.
-Extensive content: Although the length of the content doesn’t affect its positioning, the long content works better for users. This type of content gets more readings, more shared, and more linked. Because of this, this content performs better on Google.
-Headers: It’s important to use H2 and H3 if you haven’t already. These elements are perfect for inserting semantic keywords and related terms that you want to position.
-Topic clusters: Instead of publishing individual pieces of content, this year we recommend creating content groups that revolve around the same topic. These articles can be linked together so that the reader can switch from one to the other.
-Core Web Vitals: They will undoubtedly be the protagonists of 2021. These performance factors allow Google to determine whether a page is providing a decent user experience, with fast loading times and no elements that disappear as they load or move around the screen. With that in mind, it is best for WordPress users to use Cloudflare or similar tools to cut load times.
-Sitemaps: Although the link limit on a sitemap is 50,000, ideally it shouldn’t exceed 10,000 links. With that in mind, these pages should be included in the main website, which gets rid of anything secondary. In the same way, it’s also a good idea to create dynamic sitemaps, reduce the number of links to 1,000, and select only those that may be of interest to Google and users.
