We’re always looking forward, with our finger on the pulse of the digital marketing industry, but today we’re taking the time to look back at the top SEO trends that have shaped our agency from the very beginning.
On April 30th, SEO It Right Ltd will officially turn 15 years old. Since starting out as an SEO-led agency in 2010, we have had to adapt to rapid changes in the digital marketplace including the rise of mobile-first SEO, the world-takeover of generative AI, and the seemingly never-ending rollout of Google’s algorithmic updates. All of these developments have influenced our services, our best SEO practices, and our approach to what we do.
So, we started thinking about all the SEO trends that have made their mark on the industry (and the ones that have come and gone), over the last 15 years, and thought we’d share our little trip down memory lane with you.
Our Top SEO Trends
2010 – Optimisation
In the late 2000s, search engines increasingly began to focus on user experience and search intent. This was driven by newly-available user insights, and search engines began penalising bad SEO practices like keyword stuffing and the mass production of poor quality content.
It is from here that platforms like Google rolled out updates that incentivised useful, relevant content that adhered to the emerging SEO best practices, and optimising content for targeted audiences became the new norm.
2011 – Panda
One of the biggest steps Google took to tackle these vast quantities of low-quality content was to introduce the Panda algorithm in February 2011. This algorithm was released alongside guidelines from Google on what makes a quality site, and Panda continued to lower the ranking of entire sites that did not meet the set criteria for quality until 2016, when it was officially incorporated into Google’s core algorithm.
This pushed creators to produce content that Google would categorise as high-quality, and to prioritise targeted audience research and user analysis as part of their content marketing strategy.
2012 – Content Marketing
By 2012, the worst thing a marketeer could do was rest on their laurels. No SEO strategy that stands still will ever succeed, and content could no longer just be published, linked to and forgotten about.
As the rollout of algorithmic updates continued, building links purely to manipulate search engine rankings began to cost websites greatly. Instead, great content, good onsite SEO, and an original message that provided value for visitors continued to translate into a stronger online presence, and relevant and unique content firmly surpassed poor-quality backlinks as the main strategy for businesses looking to attract an audience online.
2013 – Social Media
As we predicted way back in 2012 when social media marketing was seen by many as a bolt-on service, this new way of marketing exploded into the scene in 2013 and its popularity amongst digital strategies has never wavered since.
Marketing through social media gave businesses of all sizes the opportunity to interact with customers, build brand awareness, and allow an audience insights into a corporate brand that they had never seen before. This encouraged everyone to drive traffic to their websites socially and to not just rely on organic search results, and social media innovations continue to revolutionise traditional marketing strategies even today.
2014 – Pigeon
By 2014, using SEO to boost a business in local search results was a well established strategy, and Google launched its Pigeon update in July to ensure that the results users saw were more useful and relevant to them.
The intention was to deliver improved local results for location-specific searches by using a business’ location and distance as a key ranking factor. However, the update was widely unpopular and it is predicted that 50% of local search results were affected by the update, which also changed how Google My Business listings were shown in search.
2015 – Personalisation
Targeting and personalisation, particularly across multiple channels and throughout the entire customer journey, soared to the top of everyone’s priorities list in 2015.
Whether this meant automating an email to include the recipient’s name, or suggesting product recommendations based on a user’s purchase history, delivering a personalised customer experience became the key way to cut through the competition in 2015. As this strategy became the new norm, businesses were also able to optimise their personalisation processes by utilising the user data available to them to automate this process and generate continued consumer engagement.
2016 – Mobile Optimisation
Websites need to be responsive and user-friendly across all devices, which in 2016 (and every year since) meant mobile optimisation.
Over half of all Google’s monthly searches were now being made on a mobile, and marketers had to make their websites as easy to navigate on a mobile phone as they were on a laptop, or risk losing traffic and visibility. E-commerce sites also needed to optimise their sites to capitalise on the vast number of consumers now using their mobile phones to shop, and adopting a mobile-first approach included adapting page layouts, improving landing page load speed, and condensing content for a smaller screen.
2017 – Loading Speeds
Fast site loading speed has always been an important priority for websites aiming to rank high, and the first AMP framework was announced in 2015 and launched in 2016. However, by 2017, AMP pages had become the new norm, with more than 2 billion AMP pages published globally by May of that year.
Their vast implementation meant mobile users were now used to quick load times and a better user experience. A delay of just one second became the difference between a successful conversion and an abandoned lead, and users continued to expect fast site speeds and responsive design across all device types.
2018 – Voice Search
Just as marketeers had meticulously optimised their websites to be indexed, crawled, and included in search results, they now had to optimise them to be found through voice searches.
Whether it was through smart speakers or mobile phones, voice search was the new way to access information online, with an estimated one billion voice searches being made per month in 2018. These searches used mostly natural, short form speech, and online content needed to mirror these nuances with short-tail keywords, natural language, and specific answers to direct questions in order to be found.
2019 – Mobile First Indexing
From July 1st, all new sites were crawled and indexed using mobile first indexing, rather than their desktop version. This meant that technical SEO now became mobile-first, and if a new website didn’t render well on a phone, then this would have a knock-on effect on its ranking within search engines.
It was also important to balance advanced features like chatbots, auto-suggestions and interactive effects with a fast response time. These engaging features were increasingly needed to draw in users and facilitate a positive user experience, but never at the expense of page speed, and an efficient, fast, mobile-first approach was needed to impress both Google and internet users.
2020 – Local SEO
The SEO trends that emerged during this time were not in response to any algorithm updates or industry changes, but from the universal changes in user behaviour that came about as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown.
Marketeers had to adjust entire strategies almost overnight, and it may be surprising to learn, but local SEO featured heavily in these adapted campaigns. Local SEO, particularly Google My Business profiles and featured snippets, became indispensable for businesses with physical locations as searches made with local intent soared, and businesses needed to optimise these listings in order to reach local customers.
2021 – Machine Learning Integration
By 2021, we were firmly in the era of intelligent search. The global investment in, and utilisation of, machine learning software soared during this time as businesses across sectors began to integrate this technology into their daily operations.
As well as automating tasks and improving operational efficiency, machine learning software unlocked new data insights that could be leveraged to analyse user behaviour and trends. Throughout 2021, marketeers began to use these insights to optimise their strategies and refine their best practices, and whilst AI tools became more popular and sophisticated during this year, it wouldn’t be until 2022 that the rise of AI truly took the world by storm.
2022 – Generative AI
If we had to sum up 2022 in one word, we would only need two letters – A.I.
The launch of ChatGPT in November gave everyone access to advanced generative technology and caused a global surge in public interest. The impact of AI far exceeded any previous SEO trend and its applications continue to permeate all corners of the digital world right up to this very moment.
However, the push to use generative AI also led to conversations around quality control, false information, and artistic integrity as the adoption of this experimental technology far outpaced the development of controls around it.
2023 – AI Search
The utilisation of AI-search engines like Google Gemini and Overview, and the use of AI platforms like ChatGPT, aimed to make it easier than ever for internet users to access the information they needed online.
Whilst traditional search engines analyse keywords, content quality and page loading speeds to connect users with the relevant information for their search, AI search engines were developed to collate this information instead and deliver it as a direct response to the question being asked.
This shift relied upon AI’s ability to interpret queries and apply context, and the platforms favoured natural, question-based queries – so, SEO once again needed to adapt in order to answer these questions and improve their visibility in AI-generated search results, as well as traditional search.
2024 – The AI Pushback
Last year, as generative and search AI continued to impact how people access and engage with online content, we finally began to see the implementation of controls around the use of AI.
Previously, any AI-generated content had come with a disclaimer that AI is a developing technology and could sometimes misrepresent information, but this did little to stop inaccurate, poor-quality content from flooding the internet. Instead, Google rolled out continuous updates that aimed to penalise unhelpful, AI-generated content and to prevent its inclusion in AI search results, and introduced a deepfake ranking system to ensure deepfake content does not rank alongside relevant, factual content.
And that brings us up to today!
Looking Forwards for SEO It Right
The digital world that we operate in may have changed almost beyond recognition since we started out 15 years ago, but we’re still here!
Whilst we might not know what new SEO trends are on the horizon (think AI collaboration, hyper-personalised results, and zero-click searches – what?!), it’s been important for us to acknowledge our hard work, innovation, and continued success across the years.
During our time as a full-scale digital marketing agency, we have had the pleasure of working with so many amazing businesses here in Sutton Coldfield and all around the world. We owe our continued success and industry standing to the support of all our clients and partners, so thank you to each and every person who has been a part of the past 15 years.
