With the start of the year, a bit like we have got some new resolutions, Google also will take a resolution to update its algorithmic program for 2022 leading to modification of the seo trends.
And if you are a digital marketer, you know it will influence how you execute optimization across the web pages, which means along with a change in google’s algorithm, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) trends will also be updated. This means whatever worked for your website’s ranking in the SERPs during the past isn’t specifically going to help you in 2022.
However, staying up to date with the recent trends and adapting the new strategies can assist you to keep your traffic and keyword rankings trending upwards.
Here are some of the SEO trends discussed to help you reach your goals and boost your rankings in 2022 :
1. Replacing Third-Party Cookies with First-Party Data Collection:
Due to concern for users’ data getting leaked, Google, in the early January of 2020, announced the retirement of third-party cookies and that this data will no longer be available to companies.
From a consumer viewpoint, this is a great initiative for increasing the privacy of personal information.
But for the marketers out there this is a piece of not-so-good news and that’s the reason why creating a first-party data collection plan should be at the top of every digital marketer’s SEO list in 2022. First-Party data can be either offline or online and can be obtained via websites, surveys, apps, social media, or other means.
For example- when a visitor comes to your website, you can offer email signup in exchange for a newsletter. This will help in collecting contact information on a first-party basis.
Below are some of the first-party data examples:
- Number of Unique Visitors
- Location of Users
iii. Demographics
- Time spent on-site
- User Interests
- Purchase History
All the above data are easily available on a free tool called Google Analytics which will help you in precise targeting, without the need for third-party cookies.
2. Focus On Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals is now officially a Google ranking factor and being a digital marketer, you cannot afford to ignore this crucial part. Core Web Vitals are the page experience signals that measure the users’ experience while they are on your page.
These page experience signals are quantifiable by Core Web Vitals and it includes the following three metrics:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)– It measures how fast the animations, images, videos, text, and other large elements on the web page can load. LCP should not be more than 2.5 seconds.
- First Input Delay (FID)- It measures how responsive is a web page to a first-time interacting user. FID should be 100 milliseconds or less than that, for a better user experience.
- Cumulative Layout Shift– It measures how many unexpected layout shifts or movements occurred on your page while the user is still on-site. It can disturb the users from consuming the content and so CLS should be maintained at 0.1 or less.
Improving Core Web Vitals for your page will provide a better user experience while improving your search engine performance. While you can take the assistance of a web developer, there are also some free tools available that will help you identify where your web page needs improvement like PageSpeed Insights, Chrome UX Report, Search Console, Web Vitals Extensions, and many more.
3. Google Discover Optimization
It is 2022 and if you are not optimizing your website to get featured on Google Discover you are missing out on something big.
Google Discover feed is a place where user gets content based on their recent searches or their interests. To get your website visible on this feed all you need to do this create relevant content that matches your audiences’ needs and interests.
Also, it is important to add a visual photo that matches your content and keyword because Google Discover includes this image as part of the search listing, which will help you to rank in this category. Getting featured on Google Discovery is another effective way to welcome organic traffic to your site this year.
4. Mobile Friendliness
Nearly 75% of internet users will access the internet solely via mobile devices by 2025. This indicates that optimizing your website and its content for mobile devices is a crucial part.
Google officially made mobile-friendliness a ranking factor in 2015, but still, there are so many websites that are not loaded properly on mobiles. It is the biggest mistake digital marketers make, while they give attention to the desktop version of the website, the mobile version is completely ignored. But this year make it a resolution to check that not only on desktop, but your website is responsive on mobiles as well.
Tools of Google such as Google’s free mobile-friendly test and Google’s Mobile Usability Report can assist you to spot the issues with your mobile website and the way you can fix them. Making your website responsive to mobile version will add a positive impact to your SEO.
5. Get Featured on “People Also Ask” Section
People Also Ask is one of the popular feature on Google Search Results and getting your website featured here will top up your SEO game this year. According to a recent sampling of 2.5 million search queries, Google’s “People Also Ask” feature shows 48.6% of its searches.
The benefit of getting featured in this section of Google is that your website can gain more visibility at the top of SERPs even if the web page, where you provided the answer, ranks lower on page one. Isn’t this a great SEO strategy to implement in 2022?
To get featured in “People Also Ask” section you can provide solutions to the common questions related to your content on your web page and then add H2, H3, or H4 tags to the questions. You can also use keyword research tools to identify long-tail question keywords or add a FAQ section.
6. Interactive Experience
When a visitor lands on your website, you probably would want to make it a memorable experience for them. Keeping your customers or potential leads engaged with your content is important, and as a digital marketer, it is your responsibility to make an interactive experience for them.
Have you ever visited Buzzfeed’s website, it is such an interactive site for the users. Users can comment, react to their blogs and also play various quizzes. This is exactly what a user interactive website looks like.
Creating content is not going to be enough in the coming years, to stand out from the competitors within your niche, you have to boost user experience. And to achieve this an interactive experience for the users is a must. Elements like quizzes, games, videos, or anything besides a basic text that draws user attention and keep them engaged.
Hence it is time now that you start to brainstorm ideas for how you can create an interactive experience for users this year and level up your SEO game.
7. Google’s EAT Principle
EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness and while creating content for a website, this principle should be kept in mind. EAT principle is another factor that Google considers to determine if a web page provides quality content.
In order to fulfill the criteria within the EAT Principle, you can do deep research on your existing or desired audience which will help in analyzing the kind of content your target audience values. By doing this you will create content that is interesting and appealing to your target audience, hence, resulting in quality content. Also, make sure that the backlinks you create are linked to reputable sources. Having authoritative links will increase your domain authority and the trustworthiness of your website which will help you to rank easily on Google.
8. Long-Form Content
There is a potent connection between longer content and better ranking. Long-form content of 1000+ words has been shown to get more traffic and shares compared to the short form of content. Focusing more on quality long-form content will help your webpage in search rankings.
Not only this will help you to get ranked, but also, quality long content will captivate and engage readers who visit your website. You can break your content into multiple sub-sections using H2 and H3 subheadings, making it easy for the readers to read. Also, make sure that your content is easily shareable to further improve SEO.
Although content length is not really a ranking factor, but Google associates long content with quality, and the more information you provide to the users, the more you are considered to be the expert in your field which increases the trustworthiness of your website.
9. Add Evergreen Content
This is a basic but very effective strategy to implement for improving your SEO and will never get old. No matter what year it is, content is and will always remain the king of SEO.
Just because your existing content bought you more traffic in the past, doesn’t necessarily mean you will solely depend on it this year as well. To keep your existing audience engaged and bring new traffic to your site, you will have to provide fresh content.
Coming up with new content ideas for your website will make you rank easily on SERPs organically. So this year mark it as an important task to brainstorm new content ideas.
So these were some of the SEO trends for 2022 which will help every digital marketer out there in formulating their digital campaigns. When comes to the SEO industry, is unpredictable and therefore it plays a crucial role in how your website will be ranked. Hence staying up-to-date on the recent SEO strategies is the first thing every digital marketer should do.
The above-mentioned SEO trends are some good tips to get started but always remember an engaging quality content, that provides valuable information and is relevant to user queries will always remain the popular way to gain more traffic and rank organically in SERPs.
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