SEO Trends 2020: Which factors play a role in the second half of the year

SEO trends come and go - but central and permanent in Google's guidelines is the focus on satisfying the user and answering his query as well as possible. Accordingly, the content and usability of websites should be right so that users not only stay on, but also interact and convert. User signals, their feedback on the website, can provide valuable insights for website operators and authors. And last but not least, they also influence the ranking on search results pages.

Focus on user satisfaction and conversions

Those pages rank at the top that implement Google's guidelines and specifications. And according to the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, the current focus of the search engine is on user satisfaction: the user should be offered the best result - if possible, exactly the content he was looking for and which corresponds to his intention. Those who satisfy their users will rank at the top. So it is not enough to make the page visually beautiful, it must also be useful. The higher the page quality score, the better the ranking. Marketing and sales can use the traffic generated in this way to boost conversions: if the user feels well informed and satisfied, he will sign up for the newsletter or order a product directly from the associated store. Good content therefore offers added value that can be translated into increased sales for companies.

How users are satisfied

But when is the user satisfied? A whole range of needs should be satisfied by the page to which the user is redirected from the search results page. Central to this are a clear page layout, structured content and functioning technology. This must fit if the user is to be retained: The page needs a good page speed, i.e. fast loading times, and must be mobile-optimized. Buttons must be clickable and videos playable.

The content and information must be relevant and offer added value. Ideally, they are complete, up-to-date and accurate. Readability and ease of use must be given - also and especially on mobile devices. Navigation must be clear, advertising should not clutter the page or limit its usability. Furthermore, trust and security play a role: For example, the encryption must be correct and the backlinks must be trustworthy.

From the author's point of view, it makes sense to deal with the following questions in detail in order to pick up the user even better: What questions does he have about which topic? What is his intention and where is he in the customer journey: does he want general information or is he about to make a purchase? This determines how they can be guided to reach their goal.

Find out search intention 

Comprehensive research makes it possible to find out the search intentions of your users. Google's tools - Analytics and Trends - provide important information about user behavior and give an outlook on expected search queries and trends. W-question tools cover search queries and their nuances across the board, and keeping an eye on the competition also provides ideas and can reveal content gaps. Long-tail keywords can be found via strategic search queries on Google. Broadly, this creates a helpful topic and keyword list with short-tail and long-tail keywords.

The better pages provide answers to user questions, the more satisfied the visitor is and the user signals are correspondingly positive. With their behavior, they send direct feedback as to whether their expectations are being met or not.
Common user signals are these: Dwell time (time on site) and bounce rate - how long does a user who comes from the search results page stay on the page? Does the user use long-tail searches with more than one word? Does the user leave the page immediately and click on another result (short clicks)? How often is a page clicked (click-through rate)? And how high is the scroll depth?

Google evaluates the user's satisfaction based on the previously mentioned metrics. Important to note: There is no generally valid value for a good dwell time or a bad bounce rate. The benchmark is the search results of other competitors with whom one competes. This benchmark therefore takes place at keyword level, not at industry or domain level.

Interpretation of user signals

User signals are not necessarily unambiguous, but must be seen in context. For example, if a user comes to a page from the search results page and clicks back to the search results a short time later, the two metrics Time on Site (time spent on the page) and Bounce Rate (users who bounce back without interaction) are not very meaningful. More important is the intention of the user to correctly interpret the shortness of the dwell time: Was he put off by the page and left immediately because of it? Or did he find answers to his questions at first glance - and the page satisfied his need within a very short time?

The return-to-SERP rate (Search Engine Result Pages), on the other hand, allows more concrete conclusions to be drawn about page quality: If a high percentage of users actually return to the search results page immediately, work should be done on structure and content.

User signals and social signals = ranking factors?

How important user signals are for the ranking, whether they are direct or indirect factors, is not entirely clear. Around 200 factors influence the display of Google's search results - in addition to content and user experience, the core areas of onpage and offpage also play a role. It is clear that Google measures user signals via its own Chrome browser. They therefore probably flow into the ranking and are therefore SEO-relevant. Signals from social media such as comments and likes, by the way, are not supposed to influence the search results of the SERP, regardless of the platform. Nevertheless, one should not focus too much on Google - it is important to satisfy the user and not the search engine. And that's exactly what user signals provide feedback about.

Levers for better user signals 

There is a whole range of levers to satisfy users and thus collect positive user signals. The first is the optimization of snippets - the teasers that the user sees on the search results page. Once a high incentive to click has been created, the page must then satisfy it. Content optimization with adequate text lengths, clean structure and holistic approach is user-friendly. This allows the visitor to quickly grasp the essential information - an important tip here is to offer the answer to the user question already in the visible area, i.e. without the user having to scroll endlessly.

Checklists or flowing text - which picks up the reader better? To answer that, you need to know your target audience. The content should cover a topic comprehensively and be interesting enough to keep the user. Google is a text search engine - that's why text still belongs on every page. Appropriate illustrations, good photos or clear graphics or videos complete the picture, as far as they complement the written word. This means that these media should express things that can be grasped faster on a visual level, both cognitively and motorically.

So it pays to make both the user and the search engine equally happy. An online marketing agency, such as LEAP Digital Marketing GmbH from Berlin, can help with this.

Conclusion

Appropriate content, a clean structure, good usability and the right technical equipment: these factors continue to influence SEO in the second half of the year. User signals can give site operators valuable insights into how well they are doing their job and whether users are satisfied or not. Because in 2020, SEO will still mean meeting users' needs and answering their searches in the best possible way.