2021 Content Marketing and SEO Trends
John Emoavwodua
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Posted Apr 14, 2025
Predictions for content marketing and SEO trends in 2021 by industry experts.
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Sep 14, 2020 - Oct 14, 2020
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Content Marketing Institute
What are the biggest trends to expect in content marketing and SEO in 2021? And how can you ensure your business is in a position of strength?
No marketer can be 100% sure of what will happen, but some things are certain. As long as there is the internet, there will be content and businesses will always want to be online.
What will happen in the world of content marketing and SEO in 2021? And how can you be a part of the happy crowd throughout the year?
In a webinar by the Content Marketing Institute and Conductor, Patrick Reinhart and Will Reynolds; two veterans in content marketing and SEO gave their expert opinions on what marketers should look out for in 2021.
This article contains their predictions and more.
If you’d want to watch the webinar, you can get the on-demand video. Also, read What’s Up in 2021 for Content Marketing?
Want to know what will happen in 2021 with content marketing and search optimization? Read on.
PPC conversion will go down in 2021
More businesses will start using Google Adwords. This means competition for keywords will increase.
Marketers should expect an increase in the cost of ads and a drop in their PPC conversions in 2021.
“Expect your ads cost to go up. Your paid channel will be less efficient for you. But more efficient for Google”-- Will Reynolds
Google will continue to look for more ways to keep searchers searching so they can serve more ads.
Marketers should be ready to do more with less in 2021
Businesses will increase their marketing budgets and content output. Competition for search traffic (paid and organic) will increase. This means that you would need to do the best from the share of traffic you get.
This requires a focus on converting search ranking to clicks and clicks to leads.
Marketers who focus on optimizing their marketing assets to convert more instead of pursuing traffic will win.
“Increase in ranking does not translate to an increase in conversion. You’d need to focus on converting your traffic”-- Will Reynolds
To strengthen your digital presence, only your dot com will not be enough. You’ll need to utilize your overall digital presence and personality.
“Take control of your entire personality online. Not just your website”- Patrick Reinhart
Marketers who do more will win in 2021
“With content, when quality is the same, quantity wins”- Will Reynolds
Businesses will hire better writers and get more serious with content. This will lead to an overall leveling of the quality of the content published. When quality levels up, the companies who put out the most content will win.
How much content you produce will no longer depend on just your marketing goals. It will now depend on how much content your competitors are cranking out.
This is an example. If your competitors publish one hundred pieces of content in a quarter and you publish 25, you'll struggle. It will take you 4 quarters (one year) to catch up with them from a content standpoint.
Focus on understanding the amount of content that you’ll need to win in your industry. You'll need to gather and work with data on your competitors’ content velocity.
There will be a rise in Voice Search in 2021
More people will rely on Siri, Alexa, or Google Voice for their search. To tap into this trend, you need to start building and optimizing your content and SEO strategies for voice search.
Voice search commands are always very long and specific. So your content needs to cater to the ultra-specific needs of voice searches. This needs the use of long-tail keywords to match searchers' queries and intent.
Core web vitals will take force in 2021
Google is constantly altering its algorithm to serve users better. Expect to see a rise in the impact of core web vitals on how pages are indexed and ranked on google.
Learn more about core web vitals in this post on Backlinko.
The relevance of EAT will increase in 2021
EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google is beginning to take your brand expertise, authority, and trustworthiness into account to rank your pages.
Putting all the predictions for 2021 together
Competition for SERP will increase and search engines will become smarter and better.
Google will look for ways to serve more ads to searchers, the cost of ads will increase while conversion will drop.
Content quality will level up, so be prepared to increase your content velocity. As competition increases, be ready to do more with less in 2021.
About the author
John is a content strategist for SaaS and e-commerce companies. He has written for brands like Coschedule and runs ContentSumo — a content marketing agency for startups and early growth stage tech and e-commerce companies. His expertise includes content strategy, SEO, copywriting, and pillar page writing.
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