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The search engine optimization (SEO) world is always changing, and 2022 is already shaping up to be an exciting year for the industry. 2021 saw numerous large Google algorithm updates, including the Core Web Vitals Update and the Page Experience Update, and there are more coming up in 2022.
Understanding SEO trends is vital to digital marketing. The search engine optimization trends of 2022 focus on accessibility, mobile-friendliness, machine learning, and overall great experiences on Google Search.
Site usability metrics will matter more
Google is prioritizing site performance that creates the best user experience, evidenced by their 2021 Page Experience update. They’ve shown they’re not afraid to penalize sites that don’t meet certain speed and UI/UX metrics (Core Web Vitals) or those with poor accessibility.
One way or another, almost everything having to do with on-page search engine optimization involves UX and UI. You can have the best content in the world, but if users can’t ingest it because of a poor web experience, it just doesn’t matter.
What site capabilities should you prioritize for SEO in 2022 for a better user experience?
Site Speed: If your site takes longer than 5 seconds to load, you can lose 40% of your traffic. Site speed is an important part of any good web experience, and the right UI design elements and technical SEO can keep it quick.
Accessibility: The WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guideline) is an internationally recognized set of guidelines for digital accessibility that are managed by the W3C, the international web standards group. Broken down into perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness, your site organization and usage must be accessible to all users.
Mobile readiness: The majority of users access Google search from a mobile device. As a result, Google now uses mobile-first indexing when indexing and ranking a page. This means it’s essential to check your site loads correctly on mobile and is easy for mobile users to read and navigate. Mobile friendliness is part of many of these 2022 SEO trends.
Interstitial Experience: Interstitials (like popups, ads, etc.) must not reduce the accessibility of the page or appear in an intrusive manner. Especially when using mobile devices. I’ve seen these popups be increasingly penalized by Google.
Content generation with AI machine learning algorithms
Artificial intelligence is changing the landscape of almost every industry, and SEO is no different. With machine learning, AI technologies can intake huge quantities of data at higher speeds than possible for humans, analyze the information, and then use it to automate a variety of marketing tasks. From chatbots to data analysis to content generation, using AI (like GPT-3) in marketing will be one top SEO strategies in 2022 and beyond.
Content generators like GrowthBar and Copy AI took off in 2021. Both tools are built atop OpenAI’s GPT-3, which is a natural language model that creates human-like written content based on inputs and algorithms–in the form of a blog post, article title, short description, social media caption, or more.
Helping save time and money, as well as beating writer’s block and providing fresh ideas, AI-supported content generators are changing the SEO game.
These tools will be a huge boon to digital marketers everywhere. Data-driven software tools specializing in content generation and SEO will continue to increase in popularity in 2022.
The continued importance of backlinks
The 2020 election and Covid-19 forever changed the way we consume information – and sometimes misinformation. To continue winning the trust of searchers, Google will place more and more value on backlink equity for SEO rankings. Link equity is the value a site provides by linking to your site, impacted by domain authority, current Google rankings, and other metrics.
Therefore, building (valuable) backlinks is fundamental to any good SEO strategy. They’re one of the best ways for Google to understand that your website is trustworthy enough to send searchers to via higher rankings.
Backlinks have always been one of the strongest ranking factors for SEO. A link pointing to your site from another site can greatly impact where that page or your site ranks in the search results, with the best links being from sites that are in the same space or niche as you that have a higher DA. When a site like that chooses to link to a piece of your content, it sends a signal to Google that your content is worth being recommended.
So though the importance of backlinks has been debated over the years, strong backlinks to your site are a 2022 SEO trend you’ll want to follow.
Semantic search opportunities
This phrase is oft-used and rarely explained well. Semantic search is an intent and contextual meaning-based search connected to Machine Learning. It uses past data and then trial and error to improve the search experience to make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for.
Google is a business, and its job is to make it as painless as possible to get answers to queries so that consumers keep coming back to using Google. And on your end, you want it to be as seamless to find and use your site, so consumers go back there as well.
For example, let’s say you’ve read the last three books in the Dune series. Perhaps you purchased them online, left a review somewhere, or looked up information about them. Now you’re looking up “good book ideas vacation.” Now a good book to you will most likely be very different than for someone else, but using semantic search, you wouldn’t be surprised to see the next Dune book pop up first on that list, as well as some other popular science fiction novels.
For every site that pops up, they should actually be selling Dune books, and purchasing and shipping this book to the searcher should be as easy as possible. Semantic search is all about taking the work away from the searcher and putting it in the backend.
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