SEO promotion for Google in 2021

SEO factors affecting ranking in 2021

To fully comprehend the challenges an SEO specialist is facing, let’s list the main factors affecting ranking in Google in 2021:

Technical website optimization: correct meta tags, robots.txt settings, 404 errors, 301 redirects and other parameters. Everyone understands the importance of a smooth website functioning. But, after the Google Core Web Vitals ranking factors introduction in May 2021, the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) website loading speed has critically increased.

• Google ranking always depends on an internal optimization: a proper keywords selection (semantic core), interlinking, unique texts quantity and quality, pictures.
• Growth points for attracting TA traffic: a corporate blog, section pages, product or service comparison, pictures, FAQ, varied language and geolocation website versions. You have to look for growth points for every project individually, to use the semantic core to the fullest extent possible and build the traffic up from search engines.
• A set of relevant website external links determine its authority. Despite the algorithm changes, backlinks retain their value. Another issue is that the external links relevance concept for Google has tended to change over the years. For example, a link donor authority for medical websites after 2018 is determined via actually validating their content authors’ medical qualifications on the donor’s site.
• PBN (Private Blog Network) and tier 2 links. PBN satellite network sites on drop-domains are bought or created to get purely semantic links. PBN nets are especially useful when there are no merit-based links options from main pages in a region. Properly built PBN on tier 2 and tier 3 links are virtually untraceable.
• The content marketing, crowdsourcing and outreach (guest posts). The outreach was initially used to obtain topical sites links, which are not on the exchanges, but can be googled. But after the increased behavioral factors influence, content marketing and outreach posts gradually acquired not only links, but also some necessary mentioned achievements of a promoted brand. Posting infographics or videos has long since been top-rated. The crowd-marketing has a little impact on ranking, although Google has promised to consider “nofollow” links. Google’s crawlers have been clicking them and indexing the content since 2020. However, a complex SEO promotion strategy does not yet exist without the crowd-marketing and guest posting. SEO specialists either expand their own skills to perform such Internet marketing tasks or outsource them.
• Google My Business (GMB) has to be done properly, including a local search display and on Google Maps one. Google Maps display queries are based on a different algorithm, but map links often appear in the top 5 of Google search results.

Having all the above ranking factors considered, we can see that the SEO optimizer has become multifunctionally specialized in the last decade. A 2021 SEO specialist is to be a multi-skilled professional as nowadays you have to take a variety of factors for search engines complex promotion into account.

The SSO three pillars: SEO, SMO and SMM

SSO (search engine optimization) is nowadays a lot under discussion due to a high competitiveness and an SEO effectiveness increase for TA traffic attraction. SEO, SMM and SMO (Social media optimization) are to be separated։ all of these are at the same time essential for SSO. YouTube clearly stands out as here you can make a video blog (vlog) and get traffic from YouTube and your search-based recommendations. YouTube videos outrank in the top 5 of organic Google search, so vlogs are normally included in SSO strategies.

SSO includes not only SEO, SMO and SMM, but also other types of internet marketing, by means of which a brand is popularized on all TA sites. For example, for a real estate renting and selling website, it will be necessary to separately make company’s pages in all regional real estate aggregators.

Thus, the full-featured SSO is impossible without SEO. At the same time the SEO promotion launch is now more challenging without the SMO methods involvement. The SEO behavioral factors are more difficult to drive up, not having the live social networks traffic.

SSO includes not only SEO, SMO and SMM, but also other types of internet marketing, by means of which a brand is popularized on all TA sites. For example, for a real estate renting and selling website, it will be necessary to separately make company’s pages in all regional real estate aggregators.

Thus, the full-featured SSO is impossible without SEO. At the same time the SEO promotion launch is now more challenging without the SMO methods involvement. The SEO behavioral factors are more difficult to drive up, not having the live social networks traffic.

In 2021 almost everyone who’s got regular Internet access has a social media account. A worldwide social networks involvement especially increased after 2020 with the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions and quarantines in many countries. Therefore, any website must be optimized for social media (SMO): you have to install social media widgets, comments or reviews plugins and regularly update a site with the relevant content to hit the social media trends.

Why SEO doesn’t work

The phrase “SEO doesn’t work” has become a phraseology unit over the past five years and is often used as a meme. The reason is that over the past decade, it is the SEO promotion that has become a widely spread term and service. But SEO doesn’t have a quick effect in attracting TA. A successful PPC advertising campaign or SMM strategy, on the contrary, provide their users with almost instant results – goods or services sales increase.

SEO works as well, but not immediately, just after several months. In the long run SEO traffic is more profitable even with high competitiveness rate topics. The longer SEO promotion continues, the faster an organic output and search engines traffic grows.

However, even in rather ambitious topics and regions, there can exist a problem in the SEO promotion process. For commercial sites, it is either the TA traffic insufficiency or customers and orders one. Problems typically arise as a result of customers’ SEO incompetence.

• A customer requires a specifically chosen keywords promotion to the top. As a result, the strategy fails due to excessive rivalry and tight deadlines. Either everything works properly, and customer selected keywords get into the top, but it does not make profit to pay the expenses off. There will never be a problem if an SEO specialist personally creates a semantic core and selects a set of necessary commercial keywords for a particular project.
• A customer has not read at least a brief guideline for representing your business on Google and has not prepared the relevant information to optimize a site for the E-A-T factors. A website representing a company but not indicating its office is unacceptable for Google. If there is no office, it’s a business owner’s home address: without a real address, phone number, and other E-A-T recommendations, it’s hard to beat the competition. Google’s 2020 Core Update has affected sites of all kinds: Google fights misinformation.
• The customer does not discuss past mistakes when working with the SEO site promotion and does not waste time on briefings. Website promotion specialists are not consulted on site services or products presented and customers’ characteristics. The SEO promotion strategy eventually cannot take into account all the business nuances and a region, which affects a TA traffic into customers conversion percentage.
• Sometimes it takes more than a year to reach the top on some high-frequency keywords in competitive topics. But it is possible to get TA traffic much earlier due to low-frequency and low-competitive, as well as regional keywords. Some customers demand to be in the list top within a month or a quarter, and stop funding after a few months of the SEO promotion. It would also be a client’s mistake to stop the SEO promotion after an organic traffic drop due to a regular Google algorithms update. For example, a number of medical websites had a Google traffic drop in the fall of 2018 because of the Medic Update. Those medical sites that improved their content and links for the E-A-T parameters were able to regain and even increase their positions, while the rest did not.

SSO is almost always crucial for any modern website selling goods or services, but SEO is to be included in a complex promotion strategy. Problems that are initiated by companies engaged in SSO, including those offering SEO services, ought to be separated.

• An SEO links budget was insufficient as an SSO total was not allocated rationally. That happens when an SSO company, in order to demonstrate real traffic and customers’ results to its client, spends an excessive budget on PPC and SMM advertising. There is a deadlock: there exists no possibility to spend a budget largest part on PPC, and SEO links are not enough to get organic traffic. You may easily avoid a problem if you allocate an SEO aimed budget, especially since an SEO specialist normally plans a seasonal strategy for six months or a year in advance.
• A company offers SSO, signs a contract to promote a site, but initially offers PPC, SMM and other sources of TA traffic as a priority. A customer starts getting traffic, customers and sees no need to allocate additional budget for SEO promotion. SSO will never be full-featured and ambitious enough without SEO. In order not to waste time, the client has to initially make an SEO site audit and be aware of the SEO topic and region promotion prospects.
• SEO does not work at once, so it is advisable to take care of a PBN network building at the early stage of a project development, when you already know the future site topic and specifics. A large complex site development can take several months. For the time mentioned, it is possible to work out the SEO promotion strategy, to look for your outreach donors, necessary crowdsourcing and content marketing sites. In addition, SEO does not work well if a site is designed without taking into account the SEO optimization requirements: even at the development stage, SEO specialists’ consultation will be required.
• SEO sometimes works less effectively if a site is made on a constructor like Tilda. A page loading is relatively slow on some constructors, and in 2021 a majority of people are using smartphones and mobile Internet. If a site takes a few seconds to open, many users close it before it’s fully loaded. In addition, Tilda and other website builders often have problems adapting to smartphone browsers. But most importantly, to get all the website builder platform features for the necessary SEO settings, you have to pay a monthly fee. Therefore, any CMS support site, uploaded to a solid hosting, will be cheaper and more promising for the full-featured SEO optimization than one made on the constructor.

How to choose a good SEO specialist in 2021

An ability to create a proper interlinking, meta tags, semantic kernel and content technical specifications are SEO optimizer’s skills foundation. But link building and link donor selection methods change depending on Google algorithms updates. To understand an SEO specialist’s qualifications, ask him or her the straightforward questions.

• Find out what an SEO expert knows about the E-A-T factors: this is especially relevant if your site has something to do with YMYL (Your Money or Your Life). However, the instructions for Google assessors are applied to sites on many different topics.
• Find out to what extent an SEO specialist is aware of regional promotion specifics. For example, in U.S there are laws that make sites accessible to people with visual impairments or disabilities. Your SEO optimizer should consider the SEO promotion country laws. Thus, a promotion site in Google in the United States at least should not block a text selection, so you can always enable reading from the screen in Windows.
• Ask if an SEO specialist has assistants, and, if it is a company, what specialists are in its staff. The fact is that SEO specialists come in different specializations. A large project will require a lot of link donors: in this case, outreach and crowdsourcing are physically time-consuming, and one person cannot physically cope with it. A linkbuilder is frequently a highly specialized SEO expert, who purposefully negotiates the links placement. If your site is not a one-page landing page, but a large online store, then you will probably need not the only SEO optimizer, but a fully equipped SEO specialists’ team.
• Check if there are any PBNs satellites, or reliable contractors who make them. Ask to see examples, cases. If an SEO optimizer only relies on stock exchange links purchased, then it is unlikely to take all the competitors over.
• Ask directly how an SEO specialist selects quality donors. The fact is that, dating back to 2019, The Wall Street Journal conducted a study and found that Google maintains black lists queries. Google representatives at the time said that they were fighting against misinformation that is too complicated and the company does not want to dive into it. But in June 2021, Google announced that it would begin warning in searches “about unreliable information.” All things considered, there is a proof that link building is constantly evolving: the link donors’ selection principles are constantly becoming more complex. An SEO specialist has to be on top of all the news and be aware of all the up-to-date links relevance.
• An SEO specialist should understand your site topic, so feel free to interview him/her, asking questions about work experience and understanding of your topic. If you have experience, check to see whether this SEO specialist is promoting your competitors currently, so you can avoid conflicts of interest.

How to make SEO work

Even if you have found the best SEO specialists, success within a given time frame is not guaranteed. That will depend on you a lot. It is necessary to understand the SEO promotion risks and prospects in advance. At all times, people have been disappointed in SEO because of rather inflated expectations or lack of its work understanding, or because of constant changes in search engine algorithms.

The most frequent problems in working with SEO specialists come from the relatively long terms of cooperation, which is not always built appropriately. To make SEO work, follow these simple principles.

• Order a technical site audit from several SEO specialists. Be sure to fix the bugs and errors you find. Additionally, order your competitors audit analysis to understand the way they ranked at the top.
• Start planning your SEO promotion strategy at the website development stage already. Follow the recommendations of your SEO specialist, allocate a budget for the necessary code fine-tuning and a website structure.
• Companies that offer full SSO promotion rarely have a well-set SEO department. At best, they hire third-party contractors to do SEO work. Therefore, try to order SEO from professionals who specialize in this promotion type.
• Allocate a sufficient SEO budget, separately from PPC and SMM advertising. Plan it together with your SEO specialist for at least a quarter in advance, or better, for six months.
• Consider your topic competition level. If the competition is extremely high, choose a strategy of selecting low-competitive long-form queries to promote them to the top of Google. For example,in tourism, long search queries are best converted to customers.

• Prioritize correctly, trust the keywords promotion selection for your SEO specialist and try to implement his/her recommendations for the SEO promotion. For example, he/she may advise to maintain a corporate blog or implement a FAQ section.
• It is necessary to order SMO and SMM additionally for a number of websites. Hire reliable contractors so you don’t get negative feedback due to unqualified social media contractors. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of effort to fix just a few negative reviews, meaning posting lots of adequately positive feedback.
• Allocate a content marketing budget, posting articles in a profile and regional media, and paying experts who will create professional content for your site by signing their name to it.
• Regularly monitor the SEO promotion outcomes and have briefings with your SEO specialist. Tell him/her all the nuances about your business and clients.
• Do not stop allocating your SEO budget, even if after six months the outcomes do not satisfy you. If there is a reasonable doubt of competence, change your SEO specialist, but do not stop the SEO promotion.
• Allocate your additional Business Research budget from independent experts if you have TA traffic from commercial search engine queries, but too few customers. Perhaps your products or services are not in demand, or are not that affordable in a region chosen. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic may be the reason, as well as being too late to promote for the season.

SEO has always worked somewhat unpredictably. New search engine algorithms could at any time reduce site visibility and organic traffic. However, traffic from search engines on many topics is relatively cheap in a long term perspective, because you do not have to pay for it daily, as you might do for contextual advertising.