As most businesses already know, search engine optimization (SEO) is key to driving consumers to their online platforms. However, SEO is constantly changing, and you need to stay on top of the latest trends to ensure your content strategy is effective. This means that if you’re still relying on the same SEO tactics you’ve been using for years, it’s time to learn the latest SEO strategies.
However, staying on top of the latest SEO trends can often seem like an overwhelming prospect. As user behavior continues to evolve and search engines like Google adapt in response, we want to help you stay on top of the latest changes in SEO. Here are the trends that will have the biggest impact on SEO in 2022.
1. Artificial Intelligence Will Play a Bigger Role in SEO
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the way people interact with content online, it will start to play a key role in SEO strategy. Of particular note is the AI RankBrain algorithm, which is expected to become one of the most important ranking factors for Google search engine results pages (SERPs) in 2022. Since Google revealed RankBrain, many businesses have wondered how it will impact SEO. How can you adapt your content strategy to the AI algorithm?
While Google hasn’t shared details about how RankBrain internally learns and analyzes content, experts believe that user experience is one of its top ranking factors. This means that click-through rate and the amount of time users spend on a website will be key factors that RankBrain will use to prioritize content. When re-evaluating your SEO strategy, it’s crucial to create content that’s well-optimized and useful so that it captivates and engages your readers.
artificial intelligence in SEO
2. Page Experience as an important ranking factor
Earlier in 2021, Google began a gradual rollout of the Page Experience algorithm . This algorithm update will include several user experience (UX) signals, including Core Web Vitals, which are essentially an assessment of a user’s overall experience with a website.
The update has been rolled out for the list of croatia cell phone numbers first time on mobile devices and is expected to be completed by the end of March 2022. With this in mind, we can assume that page quality will be a more important ranking factor for both mobile and desktop sites.
Page experience is not just about mobile friendliness and responsiveness. The indicators assessed by the Page Experience Algorithm include loading speed, interactivity, visual stability, and HTTPS security.
What can you do to prepare your website?
Recalibrate your site’s performance by checking Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and Chrome User Experience Report.
Focus on usability and how to write articles that will interest your audience? user experience (UX) when redesigning your website if it requires it.
Make sure your websites are secure with HTTPS.
3. Improved Featured Snippets
Target long-tail keywords in your content. Research your audience thoroughly to find out what content is most relevant to them and how they are most likely to express their search queries.
Focus on high-quality content. When writing content, keep your audience in mind, not search engine robots.
4. Smart answers to complex questions
As part of the update, Google also released its Multitask Unified Model (MUM) updated in May 2021, which is also a natural language model similar to, SEO Trends in 2024 but significantly better than, BERT. MUM helps Google use contextual information to provide more comprehensive answers to complex search queries. This is different from the Passage Ranking update because MUM is multimodal; this means that it can simultaneously understand information from different sources (images, web pages, etc.) and provide more relevant content in response. It also aims to overcome language and format barriers to provide better search results.
Google used the following example: You could take a picture of your shoes and ask, “Can I use this to climb Mount Fuji?” With MUM and the bahrain leads power of AI, Google can analyze the image and text query and then direct you to a blog with a list of recommended hiking gear.
5. Voice search will become more important
Thanks to innovations like Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, voice search technology has come a long way. As technology has advanced, it has also become more popular. The percentage of households that own a smart speaker is expected to reach 55% by 2022.
To improve your SEO in this particular area of search, you should focus on keywords and longer phrases, voice search usually works best with longer phrases in a natural way. When people type, they tend to shorten it. This is all to help search engines find you on the web.
6. Video positioning from two types of dedicated structured data
If you’re interested in video SEO, Google has something new in store. The search engine giant announced the introduction of two new structured data elements — Seek Markup and Clip Markup — to help display video content in search results with key moments.
key moments youtube
Currently, Key Moments is available for videos uploaded to YouTube. Going forward, any video platform can use either of the two new structured data markups.
While clip tags manually inform Google about the timestamps in your videos, search tags are an automated way of communicating the same to Google Search. If you want to increase the click-through rate of your video content via the search engine results page, these two tags are a boon.
7. Focus on user intentions
2022 is the year where search intent and user behavior will prioritize everything else.
When businesses understand what users are looking for and provide them with content that answers their questions, they benefit along with the users. SEO experts should instead pay more attention to search intent. Focusing on how to best match your solution to their needs will bring in more organic traffic, keep them on your site longer, and help build trust with your target audience.
In addition, Google is already starting to expand search to include more intuitive and AI-powered results. While this may not happen completely in 2022, it’s best to prepare now by targeting your content with this mindset.
8. Long-form content reigns supreme
Remember how we mentioned that time on page was important to the algorithm? It seems like the length of your writing plays a role in that. This isn’t necessarily new, but there’s been a slight shift in what’s considered long-form content these days.
Say goodbye to 800 words being the norm for blogs and 2,000 considered long. In 2022, you’ll have to try harder if you want to stay relevant, respected, and rank at the top. Long-form content means around 3,000 words.
9. Mandatory compliance with Google EAT
Google continually emphasizes how integral high-quality content is to ranking success , so we can’t afford to ignore it. So what counts as high-quality content? According to Google, the Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EAT ) principle is a good place to start.
Expertise – Having knowledge of your industry isn’t enough. You need to be able to communicate it effectively, which means you also need to be an expert in your niche. Find out what they’re looking for, then create that content. Be sure to understand the “why” behind the search so you can better guide your content. What might your audience be looking for next? Start crafting content to meet those expectations and outperform your competitors.
Authority – Once you have the knowledge, it’s time to become an authority. Quoting experts and adding links from reputable sites adds weight to what you’re saying. By spreading your content, you unlock an additional way to show your increased authority. The more people search for your company name, the better.
Trustworthiness – Google guidelines mention that too many bad reviews are a red flag of poor quality. Make sure your business reads and corrects negative reviews left. If you don’t receive reviews at all, consider sending customers a link to request Google reviews.
In addition to reviews, there are several other ways to promote credibility on your business website and get a good Google page.
– Clearly show how customers can contact your business.
– Include a physical location on your website. It should match the address found in your Google listing.
– Have a secure domain. Google makes sure your site is HTTPS because it means your user data won’t be compromised by some nasty third party.
– Make sure your privacy policy is available on your website.
– Include a returns policy.
– Include details in the description section of the products and services listed on your website.v