The Internet of Things (IoT) has been the talk of the town lately; however, as is the case with many innovations, no one is quite sure what IoT is precise. IoT is the expansion of the Internet from PCs, smartphones, and similar devices to home appliances and other inventions. Most have previously not been connected to the Web. The implications of IoT for search engine optimization (SEO) are huge, with the addition of new ways to access the Internet. These changes promise to radicalize how people typically search for information. Here are 10 radical ways IoT will revamp your SEO strategy in 2020.
Revamp SEO strategy for 2020.
Check out the following 10 radical ways IoT will revamp your SEO strategy in 2020. Prepare for the inevitable technology revolution.
1. A Shift from Keyword-Driven Searches
For years, SEO has been heavily oriented toward keyword searches, with marketers having to structure entire websites or landing pages to reflect specific pieces of content. SEO has mostly been about keyword optimization for the better part of the last decade. While Google has introduced new software to address this issue (such as AI-based search engine rankings), SEO has somewhat stagnated in 2019.
However, IoT promises to change this by shifting the search medium to gadgets or appliances that typically have fewer input options than a PC or a smartphone. You can’t precisely type a detailed keyword search from your fridge. Because of this, it is expected that searches in the IoT era will be voice-driven with users providing whole sentences or questions to the Internet-connected devices.
Internet-connected devices mean that content optimization could lose its relevance; its replacement would arguably be content management. In other words, the function of your webpages will become that much more important than form. And how is IoT and search going to affect job market search?
2. Using Voice Commands for SEO
Building on this, it could be that voice search would completely replace conventional methods of input by 2025. After all, voice searches currently account for as many as 30% of all search queries in the UK. SEO content in 2020 would mean having a simple structure of questions and answers, all of which could realistically be pronounced verbally by your target audience. The pronunciation is a considerable break from the current paradigm of content management in SEO.
The preferred SEO website structure would change from small landing pages to concise bursts of content accounting for the differences in lexicon and grammar. Yes, this does mean that writing good website content would probably become much more difficult.
However, you’ll also get more explicit analytics when analyzing the performance of your SEO pages. For example, the questions that are typically asked by your clients may be indicative of their psychographic preferences.
3. Shifting Away from SERP Formatting
For years, the search engine result page (SERP) has been the king of SEO. If your website looked good on SERP, you’d get a stable stream of visitors who could be converted into loyal customers. Loyal customers are all about to change. With fridges, vacuum cleaners, and water heaters being connected to the Internet, the term SERP completely loses its meaning.
Users will not actually use web browsers or specific search engines to look for information. Instead, the majority will rely on the apps pre-installed onto their appliances. Pre-installed means that no one will actually see how your website looks on the results page. Re-focusing your efforts from SERP optimization to finding new ways to write SEO content would probably become one of the key strategic trends for SEO in 2020.
4. Moving Toward Greater Personalization
Personalization has been one of the most significant buzzwords for marketers throughout the last decade. The shift toward greater personalization marked the beginning of the end of mass marketing. SEO was not exempt from this, with keywords strongly reflecting the demographic and lifestyle characteristics of the target audiences.
If you were running a business selling designer kids’ toys, your preferred keywords would likely reflect the concerns of an average parent. Nonetheless, IoT promises to completely revolutionize the degree to which you will be able to personalize your SEO-driven marketing. You will be able to receive the usage statistics of the household devices directly from the users without having to conduct extensive market research or hire intermediaries to do it for you.
For instance, if you’re a provider of services for the maintenance of washing machines, you’ll have instant access to data on usage and possible reasons for malfunctions. While it’s difficult to know how exactly this is going to affect the exact practices of SEO, it’s likely that nearly all SEO conventions would go out the window. Instead of grouping keywords, new SEO would focus on individual customers or at least segments with similar habits.
5. Experiencing a Significant Expansion of Marketing Channels
It could be argued that traditional SEO and online marketing (such as email promotions or big data analytics) have stagnated a bit in terms of possible market growth. While more and more people are connected to the Internet every day, the methods of reaching them were limited. For example, paid advertisements were a core feature of Google but did not necessarily boost engagement numbers.
This created a considerable gap between your marketing analytics and your actual marketing performance. You could invest heavily in SEO for months or even years and still fail to see any meaningful results. Analytics, however, have predicted that at least 50 billion devices will be integrated into IoT by 2022. The integration represents an enormous leap forward in the availability of your target markets.
While PCs and smartphones have similar functions, each household appliance is different and offers healthy options for marketing personalization. For example, adverts for ready-to-cook meals could become popular when displayed by smart fridges. While the size of the markets itself is unlikely to change significantly, IoT presents a significant opportunity to increase your engagement statistics through SEO.
6. A Stronger Emphasis on Cyber-Security
With an increase in the number of hacker attacks, cyber-security has been on the minds of private and public organizations alike. With many devices exposed to the Internet, the risks of identity theft or downloading malicious software is that much greater. Cyber-security has been a component of SEO in the past with the Google ranking algorithm, taking the perceived security of websites into consideration.
However, IoT means that having mediocre cyber-security would significantly decrease the reach of your SEO efforts. If your website has loopholes or is vulnerable to third parties, it will no longer receive priority ranking for searches made by using IoT software. Investing in improving the security of your landing pages might seem like a hit to your finances, but in a couple of years’ time, it will be worth it.
7. Google Is No Longer a Priority
To say that Google has dominated the SEO industry over the last decade would be an understatement. Google optimization has been synonymous with SEO optimization for quite a bit of time; nonetheless, it’s all about to change. While Google has been rapidly expanding to the OS sector and the gadget market, its presence in the home appliance setting has so far been limited.
With Bosch and other industry giants soon entering the IoT era, Google alone will not be able to provide for a 50 billion-unit industry. It’s much more likely that instead of a single search engine, each device will be outfitted with a series of search apps, each of which will be limited to a specific service.
For SEO marketing, this means that it will no longer be possible to focus on a single search algorithm. Instead, if you want to increase your SEO performance, you’ll need to have at least superficial knowledge of all significant algorithms on the market. Sure, the system will become more complex, but more algorithms also mean more ways to reach your consumers without any intermediate organizations.
8. Facing New Challenges in Website Creation
SEO is not only about keywords but also about how your website looks and how it functions. Slower or clunkier sites attract fewer visitors, which, in turn, could severely affect Google rankings. What’s changed by IoT is the sheer scope of the efforts required for website optimization.
Before IoT, developers were required to make sure the site looked good and ran well on well-documented platforms or browsers such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. With the introduction of a wide variety of new devices, this principle will no longer apply. While your website might still look and feel the same on one specific model of an appliance, everything could change on a different specification.
The changes mean that business owners and developers would be required to create new ways of ensuring a consistent look and feel without going over budget.
9. Losing Control over Customers’ Perceptions
One of the main advantages of the current methodology of SEO is its reliance on well-known software and platforms. When you create a landing page, this page becomes a crucial point of your marketing strategy, with customers needing to visit your website to perform the desired action.
What this meant was that you could arouse positive marketing perceptions by using visual cues (such as specific colors) or relying on website navigation to subtly guide your clients to make a purchase. For SEO, this meant that the content and form of your website was a direct reflection of its search engine ranking and, subsequently, the number of visitors. Unfortunately, it’s all about to change.
During the IoT era, the majority of gadgets will be fitted with simple web browsing software that will probably be unable to handle sophisticated SEO techniques such as the use of meta-data. The majority of search queries probably won’t go beyond the search results page, with customers receiving a simplified version of the content on your page.
While this means you’ll lose at least some control over your client’s perceptions, IoT should also allow you to re-focus your SEO strategy. Instead of using meta-techniques, the focus will be on strong content and organic website growth. SEO will become much more straightforward and will no longer require reading dozens of blogs, books, and academic articles even to get a grasp of the latest trends.
10. Local SEO Will Be King
One thing that we haven’t discussed so far is transportation. With companies promising to revolutionize the automotive market with driverless vehicles, this sector is going to experience a lot of turbulence in the coming years. However, IoT is another contributing factor to this, with cars being one of the most profitable segments in the IoT era.
Cars connected to the Internet are nothing new, but IoT should expand the marketing capabilities of all SEO-savvy entrepreneurs to a new level. For example, if you’re running a small restaurant, you’ve most likely encountered a problem of targeting. Should you focus your adverts on a small selection of neighborhoods? Or focus on the entire city?
IoT should eliminate this problem. You will be able to show your ads to nearby drivers and their passengers as well as anybody who’s been regularly driving past your restaurant but somehow hasn’t yet become a regular patron. The benefits of this are two-fold.
Firstly, you will be able to reduce your marketing budget and become a more cost-efficient entrepreneur by decreasing the cost per click. Secondly, you will also be much more confident about the fact that your ads are being shown to the right audience.
On paper, IoT can look a bit scary. This is particularly applicable to SEO, with the majority of the existing SEO conventions going out of the windows. Keywords and SERP optimization were the most significant examples of this. It’s easy to get intimidated, but remember that at its core IoT represents a significant marketing opportunity.
You’ll be able to reach more customers much more effectively by relying on personalized advertisements and focused content instead of placing all your hopes on Google AdWords or the use of keywords. Just make sure to stay informed of the latest trends, and you’ll come out on top of the IoT game.
