Top SEO Trends in 2022

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is an ever-changing landscape, and businesses must constantly update with the latest trends to stay ahead of the competition. SEO trends and Google algorithms continuously evolve every year due to innovation in emerging technologies. Search engines, like Google, require curiosity and attention all year round.

The year 2021 brought us different Google updates. We consider looking at core web vitals, user experience, keyword research and intent, identifying phrases that people use in everyday conversation, voice searches, mobile responsiveness and more. Different SEO trends continue to evolve as well as search engine algorithms. To help you stay up-to-date, we’ve compiled a list of the top SEO trends for 2022.

Here are some of the 2022 Top trends in Search Engine Optimisation to look out for:

1. Focus on user and intent
2. Focus on quality content
3. Implement Google E-A-T
4. Focus on content updating/repurposing
5. Check your structured data
6. Implement internal linking
7. Clean your site structure and user experience
8. Focus on brand search results optimisation
9. Focus on featured snippets
10. Do link building
11. Improve your local SEO
12. Try voice search
13. Do mobile optimisation
14. Integrate SEO automation
15. Data analytics

Keep these in mind when creating your website’s content and marketing strategy, and you’ll have a good chance of being successful in 2022.

1. Focus on User and Intent

Lately, users have been showing a growing preference for in-depth articles that provide them with the information they need. Because of this user intent shift, it’s essential to focus more on keywords related to user objectives than product or industry-specific keywords. One of the most important things to consider in SEO trends in 2022 is the user. Focusing on User Intent involves understanding what your potential customers are looking for when they enter a query into a search engine and ensuring your web pages content is relevant and helpful. By catering to the user’s intent, you’ll be able to attract more visitors to your website, which can help improve your overall rankings.

With Google’s BERT update, it looks for the intent that matches Google’s BERT algorithm (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) uses Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand better searches and what users are looking for. It works in more than 70+ languages and for almost every query in Google English. With this latest SEO update, Google search engine bots have become much more “conversational,” so now, Google’s algorithm can now interpret the true meaning of queries even if the exact wording doesn’t match what you would expect. For example, if a user types in “I’m looking for something to wear on my next trip to Disney World,” they will receive search results that are much closer to what they’re looking for (in this case, clothes).

Google’s BERT looks at the intent behind each search and uses that information to provide users with more relevant results. However, Google BERT is just the beginning. Last Google I/O 2021 Conference, the famous Search Engine giant company announced a new Multitask United Model or MUM. MUM update said that this model is 1000 times more potent than BERT as it can multitask to unlock Search Engine Algorithmsinformation differently. This MUM model can analyse video content, images and text from 70+ languages that answer complex search queries. In short, this MUM model is an AI that understands the user’s feelings or emotions, context and abstractions.

2. Focus on Quality Content for Search Engines and User

Google has long been favouring web pages with high-quality, relevant content. In 2022, this trend will only become more critical as Google looks to provide its users with the most relevant search results possible. Google search results are based on the content of websites, so it’s essential to make sure your website has quality content if you want to rank higher. Quality of content nowadays focuses on natural language or how conversational it is. It is best to keep in mind the key search query embedded inside the content should focus on the intent of your customer.

While it’s important to focus on user intent when optimising your website, pay attention to the industry-specific search queries as well. You should continue incorporating them into your overall SEO strategy in 2022. Industry-specific keywords tend to be easier to rank for than broad keywords because they’re connected to products or services you offer. However, it is also vital that this information is presented from the perspective of a generic user who isn’t fixated on a specific product or service. Achieving quality content will only work if you continue optimising it by either having natural density, adding quality images, videos or adding internal links. As a business, you’ll need to make sure your website is regularly updated with quality content if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

3. Implement Google E-A-T

If you want to ensure that your website is successful in 2022, it’s essential that it has a good E-A-T score; this acronym stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. In order to rank high in search engine results as well as Google Discover and grow your site’s trust among Google and potential customers, you’ll need to make sure every page on your site follows these guidelines and provides as much E-A-T as possible.

Google’s E-A-T ‘Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust’ metrics measure the quality of a website’s content, its authors and the information it gives to users.

For example, Wikipedia is considered an authority site due to its high level of peer-reviewed content and how trustworthy it is. Sites with great E-A-T will rank higher than those that don’t.

As a business, it’s essential that each page on your website presents information that is accurate and up-to-date. Consider hiring writers who have experience in the field or have knowledge about your industry that can help them create more reliable content on your site. It’s also vital to think about building links from other websites to yours; this will give Google another way of verifying its authority among the search. Different ways experts are measured includes authoritativeness, trustworthiness and how much focus is placed on their content. One way you can increase your E-A-T score is by ensuring each one of your pages follows the guidelines. For example, make sure that every page on your website has accurate information with high-quality original content; this will stop users from asking questions about whether or not they should trust certain pieces of information which you provide them.

4. Content Repurposing/Updating

Every business knows how important it is to create great content for their target audience; however, this can sometimes be a challenge when businesses are limited by time and resources. Content repurposing allows you to take existing blog posts or video content or transcripts and rework them into an entirely new format such as a SlideShare presentation or infographic. This not only allows you to reach a new audience but also keeps your website content fresh and up-to-date. This SEO trend will save much of your outdated resources simultaneously, and it will bring new updates to your website.

5. Structured Data

Structured Data is becoming increasingly important for SEO, as it allows Google to understand the content on your website better. In 2022, you’ll need to make sure your website is using Schema.org markup if you want to ensure that your content is being properly indexed and ranked by Google.

6. Internal Linking

Internal linking is a great way to help improve your website’s SEO. By linking to other related pages on your website from each of your blog posts, you’re providing your readers with additional information and helping to improve the overall structure and organisation of your website. This is one of the best practices, and it is now listed as part of the emerging SEO trends in 2022. Internal Linking will continue to be an important part of any good SEO strategy in 2022 as it helps your website structure stronger and more cleaner.

7. Site Structure & User Experience

In order to improve your site’s SEO in 2022, you need to make sure that it’s properly structured and organised. This means focusing on a solid navigational structure and utilising the proper internal linking techniques. Having a good site architecture can help improve your user experience while also boosting your website’s overall credibility and visibility on Google.

In 2021 Google rolled out their Core Web Vitals to improve User Page Experience. Some of the areas they looked at were – Speed, Mobile Friendliness, and Security.

As we move into 2022, we expect these factors to continue, and it is necessary to optimise the website for google rankings.

Google’s push for a better user experience will not go away anytime soon, and it’s only going to become more critical as we move further into the future. Make sure your website is up-to-date with all of Google’s latest requirements if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

Providing a great user experience (UX) is one of the most important things you can do for your website in 2022.

8. Brand SERP Optimisation

As Google gets more intelligent, it can differentiate between different brands and determine which ones are most relevant to the user’s query. This year, keeping a close watch on brand SERPs and knowledge panels is a must. Understanding who you are, what you offer, and what audience you serve will hold a lot of value for other businesses. You may even start to see personalised knowledge graphs and entity-based results in 2022, which search trends and intent will entirely drive.

If you want your website to rank higher in SERPs, you’ll need to ensure your brand is represented correctly across all major search engines. It involves developing a solid SEO strategy that optimises your website for desktop and mobile users and increases your visibility on social media platforms.

9. Featured Snippets Optimisation

One of the most important things you can do for your website is to optimise your pages to rank high in Google’s Featured Snippets. Since these are some of the first things potential visitors will see when searching for a specific topic, you must put effort into making sure yours are as informative and relevant as possible. Optimising Featured Snippets requires excellent content, good information architecture, and proper internal linking and metadata.

Getting a good score in a featured snippet is a great way to get on that coveted first page of results. This means that snippets steal significant traffic from competitors. Featured snippets provide us with a chunk of information, often structured as a Q&A or brief bullet-point, how-to guides. There are also rich snippets, including images, star-based reviews, product prices, and similar bits of information. To create featured snippets is to focus on question-based queries and relevant keywords. We encourage you to use the Google search function “people also ask” for inspiration.

10. Link Building

Linking is an integral part of SEO. Many different SEO tactics revolved around manipulating other websites into linking back to your content in the past. This type of manipulative link building will continue to be penalised in 2022; instead, you’ll need to focus on earning links by producing excellent and relevant content that is worthy of being shared with others.

As a business, it’s essential that your website is well-liked and trusted by other websites. However, this can be a challenge when many people linking to you have never even heard of your brand before. Link Building allows you to partner with similar businesses to increase the number of incoming links to your website. This SEO tactic will become an increasingly important strategy as more and more websites create their own link building opportunities.

11. Voice Search

With the increasing popularity of voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa, it’s no surprise that voice search is becoming an increasingly important SEO trend. To maximise your chances of being found via voice search, you’ll need to optimise your content for long-tail keywords and make sure it’s easily accessible on mobile. As per Google, a staggering 27% of the entire global population, voice search is using voice search on their mobile phones. In 2020, it was reported that more than half of smartphone users are engaging with voice search technology. However, most of the voice search queries are long-tail and very specific. Users look for specific answers to their queries when they use voice search. And such users are at the consideration stage of the funnel and are more likely to convert than the rest of the users. So, if you can provide the answers to their questions through your content, you stand a good chance of converting them into customers.

12. Mobile Optimisation

With so many people using smartphones today, having an optimised website is no longer an option – it’s essential. Mobile SEO will continue to increase in importance, and search engines like Google are placing an increasing emphasis on making their rankings reflect site responsiveness. Last May 2021, Google began rolling out the Core Web Vitals, and it gained prominence as a ranking factor. This means websites will need to be optimised for a good user experience, including quick loading and response times and easy mobile site navigation in order to make the coveted top 10.

Google’s Core Web Vitals means websites should have a mobile-friendly responsive UI design. Also, it should be quick and easy to load on the users’ phones. This is because smartphones have slow loading speeds as compared to desktops or laptops. Also, smartphone users are impatient, and if the content isn’t being loaded quickly enough, they might go somewhere else for their search needs. The other thing that could help your website rankings in Google would be having a faster web page speed (even if your website is not mobile-friendly). The reason behind this is the speed of your website affects its usability; people don’t like waiting around for things and will move on pretty quickly if they aren’t able to.

This means having a mobile responsive site design that looks good on all screen sizes and optimising your pages for mobile users with the right search query, keyword, and metadata. If your site isn’t optimised for mobile sites, there’s a good chance you’ll end up losing out on traffic from most of your potential clients.

13. SEO Automation Integration

Keeping up with the latest SEO trends is no easy task; however, many tools can automate some of this work for you. In 2022, most businesses will likely use some form of SEO automation to help them stay on top of all the latest updates and perform routine tasks such as backlink analysis and keyword research.

In time, it’s expected that Google will utilise machine learning algorithms to determine which websites should rank first for your given query. The right SEO tools can help you get the information you need to outline your business’s SEO strategy. If you want your website to be successful in 2022 and beyond, it’s essential to make sure that you’re taking the necessary steps now to prepare for these changes. SEO includes making sure your website is compliant with the latest SEO guidelines and investing in SEO automation tools to help you stay ahead of the curve.

14. Google Search Data Analytics

Data analytics is vital for tracking how well your website is performing and keeping up with current industry trends for SEO. By utilising Google Analytics or another similar tool, you’ll be able to easily track the sources of traffic to your website as well as the pages that are receiving the most visits. With this information, you’ll be able to make adjustments to your website or marketing strategy if need be.

15. Local SEO

In 2022, local search results will play an even more critical role in determining which businesses rank at the top of SERPs. Mobile devices have already begun to dominate Google queries, meaning it’s even more difficult for small businesses to stand out among their competition when so many people are searching for services on the go. Local SEO means that location has become an even more significant factor when considering what information users are looking for in Google.

As you’re strategising about your SEO plan in 2022, it’s crucial that you understand your target audience and precisely who they are trying to reach. If most of your potential customers live in a specific area or city, promoting your business within that region rather than across the entire country or world makes sense. It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and rank highly in national or global search results. Still, it does mean that your efforts in local SEO will need to be more concentrated on driving up visibility for a particular keyword or search query within the area.

SEO trends are constantly changing, and keeping up with them can be daunting. However, if you want your business to be on top of the competition in 2022, it’s essential to focus on the following areas as part of your best SEO Strategies for 2022: creating quality content that is relevant to their target audience, content repurposing, data structure, internal linking, core web vitals, E-A-T, brand optimisation, featured snippets optimisation, and SEO automation integration. Additionally, optimising voice search, checking technical SEO health, and mobile devices will become increasingly important in 2022. By implementing and adopting these tactics into your overall SEO strategy, you’ll be well on your way to achieving great SEO for its investment.

For more information on SEO and how it can benefit your business digital marketing efforts, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Move Ahead Media today.