SEO is one of those things for which you need to be on the cutting edge if you want to stand a chance of moving up in the SERPs and outranking your competitors. The rules and best practices change all the time, especially given Google's outsized control of and influence over the vast majority of the search engine marketing. Below are some of the essential SEO considerations and trends to keep in mind throughout 2021 and beyond.
2026 Update: What Has Changed Since I First Wrote This
I wrote this post back in 2021 and, honestly, SEO has shifted so dramatically since then that I felt it was only fair to come back and give you a proper update before you read the original advice below. Some of it still holds up. Some of it needs context. And a few things have changed so completely that I would be doing you a disservice if I left this page as it was.
The biggest shift I have seen in my own work and with my clients is how search engines are now handling AI-generated content. In 2021 we were all talking about E-A-T. By 2026, Google has expanded that to E-E-A-T, putting real first-hand experience front and centre. If your content does not demonstrate that a human being with genuine expertise actually produced it, you are going to struggle. Full stop. This is not scare-mongering; I am seeing it play out in audits every single week.
Voice search and featured snippets were the hot topics when I first published this. They still matter, but what has overtaken them in importance is AI-powered search summaries, things like the overviews you now see sitting above organic results. Your content needs to be structured so clearly and written so specifically that a language model can pull from it with confidence. Short, direct answers. Clear subheadings. Concrete examples. That is what I am advising clients to prioritise right now, and it is working.
On the technical side, Core Web Vitals are no longer a talking point; they are a baseline expectation. If your site is slow, cluttered, or difficult to use on mobile, no amount of keyword research will save you. Tools like PageSpeed Insights and Screaming Frog remain genuinely useful here, and I still use them regularly. What has changed is the bar; users and search engines alike have far less patience in 2026 than they did five years ago.
My honest take? The fundamentals I covered in 2021 still apply, but the margin for doing them half-heartedly has completely disappeared. SEO in 2026 rewards specificity, genuine expertise, and consistent effort. Read the original post for the foundation, then come back to this update to understand where to focus your energy right now. If you want more current guidance, check out the rest of my blog at lilachbullock.com where I have been covering these shifts in detail.
Localization
Localization is the process by which you make your content geared and keyword targeted towards a specific location. If you are a digital marketing company based out of Brisbane, Australia, for instance, you might use keywords like SEO Brisbane to target local searches. Localization is important because around half of all searches done on Google have local intent. That is a massive number of local searches performed every day. If you are trying to target a local market, you need to focus on local SEO.
Voice
Billions of people around the world use voice and voice-activated assistants to search for things online, and those numbers are predicted to rise throughout the 2020s. If you are serious about a cutting edge SEO strategy in 2021, you need to make sure your content is optimized for voice. The most crucial feature of voice search is that people perform voice searches using what Google refers to as “natural language.” This is more conversational in tone. Someone may type into the Google search bar “chocolate cake recipe” but using a voice assistant to search, they are more likely to say something along the lines of “Google, how do I bake a chocolate cake at home?”
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Expertise, Authority and Trust
Google applies what is commonly referred to as an E-A-T score to content to determine how authoritative it is, how much expertise it conveys and, therefore, ultimately how trustworthy it is. This score is used to determine your site’s legitimacy and bears heavily on your page rank score. In fact, it might just be the most important ranking factor thus far. What it means is that your content strategy in 2021 should be heavily focused on producing high-quality long-form articles rather than a large number of shorter, lesser quality ones.
Video
Video is increasingly an important part of many of the highest-ranked businesses’ content strategies. In terms of organic search usage and market share, video is currently outpacing many other channels. When you consider the fact that YouTube is, as of right now, the world’s second-largest search engine and consumers display a clear preference for video over written content, this might be the year you want to consider investing in video content seriously.
Conclusion
SEO is constantly evolving, and companies who take it seriously make sure they are up to date. Applying out of date or dead SEO strategies will only lose you time and money, so it makes sense to keep your content current and valuable in the eyes of the major search engines. Keep in mind the above SEO trends in 2021 and stay on the cutting edge of search engine optimization.
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