2022 SEO trends

SEO can be one of the most effective ways to attract traffic to your website if implemented well. That said, SEO is constantly changing, and staying on top of the updates can be challenging.

If you’ve already implemented SEO elements such as keywords, backlinks, quality content, meta tags, and social shares, let’s look at new SEO trends that you can use to improve your ranking in 2022.

1. Artificial Intelligence

AI has changed how people interact with online content. Therefore, Google’s AI algorithm, RankBrain, is worth noting moving forward because it plays an important role in Google’s ranking factors for search results.

But, how can you optimise your content for RankBrain? This is still a mystery because Google is reluctant to share details about their new technology, but most experts believe that user experience signals will be a big factor. Therefore, you must strive to reduce your click-through rate by creating original, insightful, and engaging content, increasing your site’s speed, making your site easy to navigate, etc.

2. Voice search

The number of digital voice assistants is expected to reach 8.4 billion by 2024. Innovations like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant have made voice search technology more accessible to customers worldwide, and so businesses must optimise their websites for voice search moving forward. To do this, you’ll have to target long-tail keywords with natural-sounding phrasing. Long-tail keywords are also a bit more conversational. For example, a customer may voice search, “How to service a car” but type “car servicing.”

3. Mobile-friendliness

It seems like Google will continue prioritising mobile-friendliness in the future. This is expected given that nearly 73% of users will access the internet from their mobile devices by 2025.

In 2019, Google rolled out mobile-first indexing, which means that they consider the mobile version of a website the main version instead of the desktop version. So, if you suspect that your website isn’t up to par, this is the time to make the necessary changes. You can get your website’s mobile usability report on the Google Search Report.

To improve your user experience further, avoid publishing content that requires user interactions like clicking and swiping. Also, remove any disallow directives that you may have in place to ensure Google can crawl your URLs.

4. Content that fulfils EAT principle

We have heard over and over again that quality content is King, but what does quality mean to Google. The answer is EAT, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google uses these three factors to determine a website’s content quality.

To raise your EAT score, ensure that you create useful and accurate content. Back up your claims with facts and statistics and link to reputable sites. Earning backlinks from quality websites can also help improve your EAT rating.

5. Featured snippets

A featured snippet is a dedicated section of selected content at the top of a Google SERP that features text or video from a website that directly answers the user’s search query. Scoring a featured snippet is the best shortcut to gaining prominence on Google because it puts your website at the top of SERP. It also shows a lot of valuable information such as star-based reviews, images, and product prices, all of which help customers want to visit your website.

Digital Next can support your 2022 SEO Strategy

If you need help taking your SEO strategy to the next level, contact us today to speak to our digital marketing experts.