Even though SEO includes a huge ROI, the landscape and face of SEO changes rapidly nowadays, and Google itself – Who make no money from SEO – are making it harder and harder to rank for organic keywords.

There are a variety of reasons why it’s becoming tougher, there'll be a follow-up article in a very few weeks titled “How to dominate Google in 2021”, but first lets target why SEO is getting harder and that we will answer the question “is SEO still worthwhile in 2021?”

1 You don’t have time to stay up with the strain of SEO.

SEO takes time, especially if you're doing it yourself. There’s technical SEO, competitor analysis, backlink analysis, content creation, updating old content, link sourcing, building backlinks, and content distribution…

And that’s just on your site!

Then there’s maintaining to hurry with the most recent SEO trends, keeping your SEO knowledge innovative, and finding that small extra edge to remain at the highest of Google earlier than your competitors.

Then there are other things outside of your control like Google Ads, Facebook ads, Google Places, and every one these other things that are distracting you from SEO and making you wonder if SEO is worth it at all!

2 You don’t have the budget of your competitors.

Depending on your industry there are also some serious players with deep pockets who throw money at TV advertising, Brand advertising, PPC and hire the simplest SEO agencies.

This doesn’t need to be a large downside, especially if you'll find the time to stay up with SEO and make point #1 irrelevant for you.
You can still rank above competitors with deep pockets and greater SEO budgets, SEO doesn’t must cost that much, but it'll require a much bigger commitment of it slow.

If your Technical SEO is top notch and something you constantly obsess over to boost upon then the opposite part of the puzzle where most competitors win is thanks to their quality of backlinks, if you've got time then you'll be able to build your own top quality backlinks by following this guide.

3 Google is making it harder to rank!

Take a glance at the Google search results.

Previously the Google ads wont to be down the proper hand side and now they're the primary thing you see on a desktop so there’s the Google places map and so sometimes even a featured snippet box – referred to as Ranking Zero – so finally there’s the #1 position in Google.

Compared to previously, the #1 result on Google accustomed be top of the page with the primary 5-6 ends up in clear view and now it's hidden below the fold beneath 4 ads, a map and sometimes a featured snippet – And this is often out of your control and all the way down to Google eager to make money from their Ads.

It’s even tougher on a mobile – hunt for a keyword like a web design company in Toronto, in Google, and just have a look at what dominates the screen – Google ads, the primary google ad takes up the bulk of space and screen on a mobile pushing the organic search results even further down the screen on a mobile device.

There is a debate about what number people actually click on the ads or simply scroll all the way down to the organic results, but that’s how Google makes its money and you'll be able to bet your bottom dollar Google will make the press thru rates on Google ads even more over the approaching years.

4 You don’t have the correct tools.

Again, if you're doing SEO yourself and are really dedicating yourself to improving your SEO then you wish the proper tools to try and do it.
There are great tools out there like Uber Suggest from Neil Patel which is totally free except for us, our team of SEO experts recommends AHREFS which we feel is one of the simplest SEO tools on the market.

It’s not cheap, over $100 a month, but it helps offer you that edge over your competitors who won't even consider spending that a month on software.

An excellent piece of software like that makes keyword, competitor, and backlink analysis a breeze, which saves time and offers you a bonus over your competitors.

Make life and SEO easier and invest within the right tools to provide you the foremost accurate insight.

5 Voice Search is on the increase.

Voice search is growing year on year due to the advances in technology like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home.

This makes ranking lots harder and puts attention on ranking zero within the Google featured snippet.

This means… Voice search gives only 1 result… And it's going to not be the one at the highest of Google but the featured snippet that ranks zero.

The way people search using their voice is different.

When doing a pursuit for Google you'll just use a generic keyword like web design Toronto where like voice search a user may ask to seek out the most effective web design company within the Toronto area, or ask Alexa “who is that the nearest web design agency to me?”

This all makes it very difficult to rank on voice and an entirely new voice strategy needs developing.

6 Google and users are becoming smarter and expanding on their searches.

Some people still hunt for short-tail keywords like web development Toronto and obtain the results from that, but now users are becoming more specific and using long-tail searches.

Searches like “The best-rated web design companies in Toronto” “top-rated web design agency” have become the norm as users expand upon their searches.

Think about it, if someone jumps onto Google for a pair of latest trainers they're just trying to find “trainers”, they likely have a mode, brand, and color mind that their search becomes “size 10 Red Nike air max trainers” so the search is even more specific, highly targeted and losing dead set top-level keyword traffic.

This is also all the way down to what Google calls “intent” and “in-market”.

Google has all the information, and with RankBrain becoming even more powerful it now knows the difference between someone researching a subject and someone who is within the market to shop for a product/service today.

Searches also are becoming plenty more local, so things like “Chinese restaurant near me” will show results supported by the closest Chinese to your location.

In simple terms, Yes, SEO could be a digital marketing strategy that's still worth doing in 2021.

You need SEO to keep up a minimum of some presence online unless you're visiting do Google PPC etc.

Searching habits are changing all the time and you a minimum of must be in with an effort of getting traffic to your website.

Remember how you search – does one just open the primary result on Google and stick to it, or does one open some tabs of the highest 5-6 end up in Google and check all of them bent to some extent?

As of now, our SEO efforts usher in much more work and inquiries than our PPC efforts do, the very fact is people don’t always click on ads and a few are even blind to them and easily scroll past them and also the map and click on on the primary 2-3 Google results, over time this might change, except for now and with ourselves because the evidence, although SEO is getting harder: SEO remains definitely worth the effort.