Top SEO Trends to Follow in 2022
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the art of ranking your website/webpage in search engines. If done correctly, then it is the best way to attract customers to online platforms. SEO is continuously evolving technique and staying updated every-day can be challenging. However, its worth the efforts paid : A survey shows that around 70% to 80% users depend upon organic search results, and refrain from paid listings. Additionally, around 28% of those searches convert into sales.
SEO is built upon a large set of metrics including traffic, social sharing, backlinks etc. In this blog we are going to discuss about the latest SEO trends in 2022, to help you prepare your SEO strategy accordingly. Let’s go now :
1. Artificial Intelligence is the Future of SEO
Over the years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed the way people communicate with content online and therefore it will be playing a key role in the SEO strategies. Google’s AI algorithm named RankBrain was unveiled a few years ago and is going to be one of the major ranking factor for Google’s SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) in 2022.
Although Google has not revealed how RankBrain is going to work, but experts believe that User Experience is going to be one of its prime ranking factor. It means that Click-through Rate (CTR) and the amount of time a user spends on a website will be key factors that RankBrain will use when prioritizing content.
So, when you are re-evaluating your SEO strategy, then ensure that you create well-organized content that is capable of captivating and engaging prospective readers.
2. Longer Form Content will Generate Higher Traffic and Sharing
There are reports that to keep yourself in competition, you’ll need to shift towards longer-form content of 3000+ words on your website. If the content is able to engage readers, then it will hugely impact search results as it will be able to get more traffic and shares, as compared to short content. So the basic point is, to improve your search ranking results, you need to shift your focus towards building quality long-form content that is capable of keeping readers involved.
While creating long-form content, it is important that you break it into various sections using H2 and H3 subheadings. This will make you content more appealing to users and easy to browse. Also, don’t forget to include social sharing links at the start and end of you content to make is easily shared for further SEO enhancements.
3. Mobile Friendly pages will Impact Ranking
Ever since Google officially made it a ranking factor in 2015, Mobile Friendliness has been a keystone of SEO. But it became more crucial when Google rolled out Mobile-first indexing in 2019. What it means is that search engine gives priority to the mobile version of a website and seeing it as the “primary” version instead of prioritizing desktop version. Going through the fact that the mobile users accessing internet through their mobile devices has grown tremendously over these years, this change makes sense. And this number is going to increase where, it is expected that, by 2025, nearly 75% of internet users will be accessing internet exclusively via their mobile devices.
Luckily, Google has made it easy for you to check the efficacy of your mobile site using its free mobile-friendly test. You can even utilize Mobile Usability Report in Google Search Console to check if there are any problems with the mobile version of your website and various remedial actions to fix these issues. These tools are useful in assisting you to check and resolve mobile usability issues found in your website, which might negatively affect your SEO.
4. Content Fulfilling Google’s EAT Principle will Rank Higher
Google has frequently highlighted that content quality is crucial for successful ranking. Nonetheless, it often confuses businesses about Google using parameters for “quality content”. According to Google, you need to refer to the EAT principle when trying to improve your content quality. EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness and Google us using these parameters to check whether the web page is providing quality content or not. It is important that all businesses are aware of this when crafting their website’s content. Also make sure to add facts and statistics wherever possible. Try to get backlinks from authoritive/reputable sites like “.edu” and “.gov” URLs, another step to fulfil EAT standards.
5. Videos will Play Crucial Role in Effective SERP Rankings
Online Videos are the future of SEO. If you haven’t started creating videos on Youtube and other channels, then Now is the time to do so. As per Cisco, video is expected to beat all other content forms in the next few years. So, if you want to be in competition, then it is important that your current SEO strategy includes video.
You must consider including optimized video content creation, as an essential part of your SEO strategy. But how can you do that? One way to do that is by ensuring that you are optimizing your video channel name and description. Don’t forget to include keywords in the description, but don’t overdo that. Just describe your channel in a user-friendly way. A few important keywords and hashtags can help reach your video content to its target audience.
6. Voice Search will Play Important Role in Search Queries
Thanks to voice assistants like Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, voice search technology has progressed a lot. With new technology enhancements, it is getting more popular and widely used by all users worldwide.
For voice search optimization, it’s the same keywords that play important role. Consider using longer phrases as people tend to speak complete sentences when using voice search, as compared to using short keywords when they type text for searching anything.
7. Image Optimization will Boost Ranking
Over the years, visual image search has progressed enormously. Earlier it used to enhance webpage appearance only, but not anymore. In future, it will enable people to purchase products, get product information by just clicking on the images. So its better that you start optimizing your images too. Use high quality and relevant images, add labels & alt tags for better classification and add images to sitemap where they can be crawled easily by crawlers.
8. Semantically Related Keywords will be Given More Importance
We all know that primary keywords are crucial for any page to rank for that particular keyword on Google SERPs. But secondary keywords are equally important too. Semantic search and intent optimization are gaining more prominence than ever now. It’s important to keep in mind that you are writing content for people, not solely for bots. So, try to focus on user requirements, what questions they would be searching and are you able to provide satisfactory answers to their query. Try to optimize content for subject groups instead of concentrating only on keywords.
The list doesn’t end here, as there are others metrics too like featured snippets, predictive search, local search listings and many more.
Final Words
Gone are the days when SEO was just about optimizing keywords and meta titles. SEO is getting more intricate with each passing day, all thanks to the constant changes to the current SEO trends. I hope this article will help you design a smart SEO strategy to help you retain your top position in the rankings.
