12 top SEO trends for better Google rankings
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a crucial digital marketing copy strategy for Australian property and financial service professionals; it ensures your web content is discoverable by search engines and more visible to your target audiences.
SEO algorithms, which analyse the content, structure and relevance of your content to determine its ranking on results pages, are constantly changing as search engines strive to deliver relevant and high-quality search results.
It is, therefore, important to stay abreast of these changes to optimise your content accordingly.
Content is still king: 12 top trends in SEO
The latest developments in SEO are largely driven by advancements in AI and evolving user behaviours. And as many of them are connected, your digital marketing copy strategy needs to be all-encompassing.
Here are some of the most significant trends in SEO to factor into your web content creation.
1. Enhanced EEAT
With AI-generated content saturating the web, Google’s latest algorithm changes favour human-like content. The emphasis on experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (EEAT), therefore, remains pivotal.
Google’s EEAT places a greater focus on user intent and content value. Furthermore, as it now emphasises first-hand experience to identify trustworthy content, you should showcase your expertise through real-world examples, case studies, data and author bios.
Content written by experienced creators with relevant experience is more likely to rank higher.
2. Topical authority
Google’s topical authority system prioritises web content that demonstrates expertise in specific matters or industries. Such content ranks higher in search results and is seen as more trustworthy by users and search engines.Establishing your topical authority can be achieved through:
- Content breadth: Multiple high-quality articles that cover all related subtopics
- Content depth: Detailed articles that offer original reporting and insight, and answer all questions related to specific subtopics
- Internal links: Links between relevant pieces of content to showcase the breadth and depth of your content
3. Regular content updates
Google prioritises up-to-date content, so you’ll need to regularly refresh your content to keep it relevant and valuable to users and search engines.
To do this, you should:
- Schedule regular content audits to identify copy that’s factually outdated, not meeting users’ current needs or not performing well
- Refresh your top-performing content every year by updating data and statistics; incorporating new research and articles; offering fresh insights and examples; and fixing any broken links
- Use feedback from your target audience, including comments, questions and suggestions, to improve your content
- Repurpose your old blogs by turning them into videos, infographics or social media copy
It is important to note that while Google’s algorithms value up-to-date content initially, long-term content marketing success hinges on backlinks, topic authority and content quality.
4. Search intent
Search intent remains paramount in organic web content creation, so you need to understand your target audience’s search goals and prioritise their needs over your promotional strategies.
For SEO success, you should:
- Create content that directly addresses your audience’s needs and search queries
- Consider what type of content they expect, such as answers, explanations or product offerings
- Anticipate follow-up questions and answer them proactively
5. Question keywords and answers
SEO relies on creating content that answers users’ questions; use Google’s ‘People Also Ask’ feature and other keyword research tools to see what your target audience wants to know.
To integrate their questions into your content, you could include FAQ sections with expandable dropdown menus on your website, publish blogs that address common questions with detailed answers, and develop dedicated pages for product or service FAQs.
6. Local SEO
Google prioritises local results, boosting the visibility of local mortgage brokers, real estate agents, financial advisers and other industry professionals over national or global entities.
To take advantage of this algorithm, be sure to include your city, state and country in your online content. You should also build high-quality reviews on Google Business Profile and other relevant platforms.
7. Website user experience (UX)
User experience (UX) is becoming increasingly important for SEO. Google prioritises fast-loading, easy-to-navigate and responsive pages that meet Core Web Vitals standards.
Prioritising UX not only satisfies search engine requirements but also respects users’ time and enhances overall site performance.
8. Mobile optimisation
Making your website mobile-friendly is even more critical than website optimisation as Google now uses mobile-first indexing. This means your website’s mobile version is the primary version used for ranking.
To optimise your mobile site, you must:
- Ensure your website is responsive and delivers the same content across mobile, tablet and desktop from a single URL
- Optimise content for mobile users with shorter meta descriptions (around 120 characters)
- Focus on fast loading speeds, clear navigation and easy functionality
It is a good idea to monitor your mobile bounce rate – the percentage of visitors leaving your site after viewing one page. Lowering this rate through clear calls-to-action, relevant links and fast page speeds enhances user engagement and improves SEO.
9. Visual and voice SEO
SEO is expanding beyond traditional text-based searches, with more users searching by voice and images. Thus, optimising content for such searches is increasingly vital.
You can meet this evolving behaviour by implementing schema markup on your images, creating rich snippets – a single search result that generally consists of a title, URL and a description of the page – and ensuring your content is optimised for natural language queries.
10. Video SEO
Google is prioritising videos in search results. To optimise your video content, you should:- Create high-quality videos
- Create eye-catching thumbnails
- Use relevant keywords in video titles, descriptions and tags
- Write detailed video descriptions
- Add transcripts to your videos
- Ensure videos are responsive and load quickly on mobile devices
- Promote videos across social media and other platforms to increase views, engagement and backlinks
11. Zero-click search
Zero-click search allows users to find answers directly on search results pages without clicking through to a website. While, for some businesses, a zero-click strategy for commercial queries might not be ideal, it can help informational websites boost brand awareness and authority.
To adapt your content marketing strategy for this latest SEO trend, you should:
- Establish your business as an authority to encourage clicks when your website appears in search results
- Structure your content to answer common questions and be eligible for featured snippets
- Include social media platforms, forums, email marketing and industry news sites in your web content creation
- Build a dedicated following that recognises your brand as a trusted information source
12. Search Generative Experience (SGE)
Google’s SGE, an AI-powered feature that provides summaries of search results at the top of the search engine results pages, falls under the zero-click SEO trend. It includes relevant links, visuals and follow-up question suggestions.
While this improves UX by delivering instant answers, it also increases competition for the top search result and may reduce website clicks. To optimise for SGE, be sure to:
- Create content that directly answers user questions
- Use bullet points and clear headings to improve readability
- Cover topics comprehensively to establish authority within content clusters
- Include high-quality images, such as infographics
- Maintain a focus on high-quality, user-centric SEO writing
