5 Important SEO Trends 2022
For this year, we’re looking ahead to the SEO landscape in 2022.
With the correct SEO strategy and strategies, where can you dominate the SERPs and increase your revenue in 2022?
Every year, we ask this question at Search Engine Journal.
Experts have compiled a list of the top 10 trends to watch for in 2022.
BERT and user-centered optimization are the first to emerge as a new trend.
The introduction of Google’s BERT algorithm generated a lot of interest in 2019. Anyone who works in search engine optimization wants to learn how to use BERT. Obviously.
For Hallmark Search Strategist Kelly Stanze, it’s all about user-centered optimization and technical content delivery rather than how to optimise for that certain algorithm.
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The simplest way to describe this is to rethink how users access search and to align content with those access points.
When it came to search, Stanze’s advise was to “look at the mechanics of how something is crawled, indexed, and supplied. Keeping in mind the basics of clean architecture and content delivery is essential for SEOs since more people have more options for searching for things.
This year’s addition of BERT to Google’s ranking and featured snippets algorithm has made a huge step toward making search genuinely about intent matching rather than string matching, according to Eli Schwartz, Growth Consultant and Advisor.
As a result of this, content must “truly reflect user intent rather than simply strings that a user might search,” according to Schwartz. “Keyword research tools may become less valuable if advised searches become the primary dataset for content generation. In 2020, the finest SEOs will have to get out of their offices and meet their customers face-to-face in order to thrive.
At the very least, keyword research as we currently know it will be rendered obsolete. That’s the word from Frédéric Dubut, Senior Program Manager at Bing
Natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning research will not be slowing down any time soon, according to Dubut, and search engines will shift even more from keywords to intent in 2020. ‘Intent research’ and meeting user needs will be the focus for practitioners and tool vendors alike,’ says the report.
Search engines are always tweaking their algorithms to focus on user intent rather than content/page-to-keyword matching, as Jenn Mathews, Senior SEO Manager, Groupon explains.
It is important for SEOs to understand what this means for their content and to have a firm grasp on Google’s previous updates that have led to this trend. “
To quote Duane Forrester, VP of industry insights at Yext, “We’ve all wanted to focus on purpose for the last several years and better understand what our consumers’ journey looks like. Online businesses can no longer survive or flourish without it now being a fundamental part of the landscape.
When you focus on the customer’s intent, Forrester says, you’ll know exactly where you fit in. “You can more reliably capture and convert clients by offering the best solutions for inquiries on that journey.”
What does this imply for you, exactly?
According to IBM’s Sr. SEO Strategist Keith Goode, we should pay more attention to how customers express their problems and needs throughout the buyer’s journey.
‘We’ll also have to extend our efforts far beyond the purchase in that journey to include material that addresses requirements after the sale – support, opportunities to advocate, community building and staying relevant for future purchases,’ Goode said.
Sam Hollingsworth, Director of Search, Elevation Ten Thousand, emphasised the importance of focusing on your consumers.
There are far too many companies that don’t understand what it takes to acquire and impress new clients.” Hollingsworth described what customers desire as “genuine value.” When it comes to building a long-term – and ultimately everlasting – relationship with a company online, clients want to know that you’re on their side, that they can trust you, and that you can be relied upon.
Carolyn Lyden, the Lead SEO/Owner of Search Hermit, expects that 2020 will see a return to the qualitative, human aspects of search.
It’s common for marketers to sell their products and services without ever speaking to their target demographic, Lyden added.
According to Sarah Gurbach, Senior Account Manager, Search and Audience Insights, Seer Interactive, if we don’t get to know our customers, we won’t be able to come up with a comprehensive approach.
“So, in 2020, I propose you sit down with your customers,” Gurbach remarked. Inquire about their buying process, how they used search, and what they thought of your website by speaking with them. Every decision you make should be based on that facts.”
SEO can only be really user-focused if it is integrated into a comprehensive marketing plan. According to Publicis Sapient’s SEO Group Director, Ryan Jones, this will be the most popular trend in 2020.
Now more than ever, firms must stop thinking about SEO as a condiment that they simply add to their digital strategy and instead consider it an essential part of their overall company strategy,” Jones added. As the marketing and digital landscape continues to evolve, SEOs will need to expand their skill sets to keep pace. Fixing SEO problems will take a backseat to addressing marketing and commercial concerns.
The second trend is high-quality, search-engine-friendly content.
One thing has always and will always be the lifeblood of SEO, according to Anna Crowe, Assistant Editor, Search Engine Journal.
Content.
SEO expert Rand Fishkin believes that content is king. “From the structure of your website and internal linking strategy to the types of links you establish,” says the author.
According to Tony Wright, CEO of WrightIMC, in order to be successful in the year 2020, you’ll need to generate content that’s both relevant and meaningful.
Therefore, SEOs must either learn how to write or pay others who are proficient in the art of writing. It is true that Google’s editorial discretion isn’t perfect now — there will still be content that ranks but shouldn’t. “However, the best material will eventually prevail.”
According to Perficient Digital’s General Manager, Eric Enge: “Make it a mission to have the finest material on the web for your topic,” or at least an important subset of your field. As a result, your firm will be future-proofed by Google.
To compete effectively for long-tail searches (which remain roughly 70 percent of all search inquiries), this will help grow your site authority and demand for content, and it can be done in a directly ROI-positive fashion,” Enge stated. Additionally, this approach to content is exactly what Google needs to meet user wants and reflects the type of market investment that Google is unlikely to make, as Google is about doing things with enormously scalable algorithms.
There will be a shift away from keyword fixation in SEO in 2020, according to IBM’s Jesse McDonald and Jessica Levenson, SEO and content strategy consultants. Let go of the “spraying and praying” approach to content marketing.
Mcdonald advised concentrating on specific issues.
It is important to focus on topics rather than keywords, as McDonald explains: “The purpose of shifting the thinking to a more topic-focus is to develop material that covers a complete discourse holistically.”
A intentional and methodically arranged cluster of information that provides comprehensive and intuitive thematic experiences while achieving corporate objectives should be adopted, according to Levenson
It is important to know what the user wants to know next, Levenson advised. “Boiled down:
Recognize your target market and how they conduct their online searches.
Recognize their motivations when posing inquiries or attempting to solve difficulties.
Make sure your information is on-point, high-quality, and authoritative, and that your customers can get it in the formats they want.
Make sure you follow this strategy at each point of their trip to ensure that they have a positive experience that meets their expectations time and again
“Just because you do something well once doesn’t mean the intent will not change or someone else won’t do something better,” says Iteration.
Aja Frost, HubSpot’s Head of Content SEO, warns against content cannibalization.
There may be some overlap in your content’s rankings. If so, Frost advises performing an audit of your entire site and merging or redirecting pages as necessary so that each page ranks for a different set of keywords. It doesn’t matter how many times you write about the same subject, “your pages will knock each other out of the results” if they all cover the same issues.
According to Aimclear’s CEO, Michelle Robbins, the year 2020 is the time to take a critical look at your content and optimise it for users rather than search engines.
A part of Robbins’ advice was to “put out outstanding content, with consistent brand message, in all your platforms” in order to remain successful in search marketing into the future. Ultimately, “the best-written information – in all forms – will win the day” as search algorithms get better at interpreting natural language.
AJPR’s Motoko Hunt, President and CEO, emphasised the importance of appropriate localization of content in the area of worldwide SEO.
According to Hunt, “Many global websites have poorly translated text that hasn’t been revised for the local language.” “Writing for a local audience is more important than where your keywords are placed.
E-A-T & Your Unfair Advantage is the Third Trend
Lily Ray, SEO Director at Path Interactive, predicts that in 2020, Google will continue to consider a firm’s overall reputation and the E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) of the employees who write content on behalf of that organisation.
If a company has terrible customer service, poor reputation, or other trust concerns that make it difficult to compete, Ray says it will have a difficult time. In addition to reviews and criticism about your business, these trust concerns can also present themselves in the form of technical or security issues on your website.”
According to Ray, getting organic visibility for YMYL searches (Your Money, Your Life) would become increasingly difficult without the necessary experience and credentials to write on those topics.
According to Grace Kindred, a News UK junior technical SEO analyst, “trustworthiness” will be extremely crucial for publishers in 2020.
“There will be a major focus on quality material and the fight against fake news,” Kindred stated. ‘Trust value of authors (verifying authors and showing their authority for certain subjects) and sites as a whole will be more crucial than ever.’
Nofollow was an attempt by Google to learn more about news pieces, sources, and academic studies, according to Loren Baker, founder and editor of Search Engine Journal.
In combination with the author’s credentials (which can be defined using structured data markup) and any fact-checking oriented schema, “we now have an easier way for Google to weigh authority and trustworthiness of a piece of content, whether it is news or publishing storey,” Baker said. “
Founder and CEO of Kalicube.pro, Jason Barnard, says that the offline is moving online. Every company requires an unfair advantage to succeed.
Entity-based search, knowledge graphs, and E-A-T are all contributing to Barnard’s prediction that the ability to accurately and convincingly reflect our offline environment online will become a key differentiator. “All those offline events, conferences, awards, partnerships, etc. that Google can’t see suddenly take on immense significance.” To satisfy Google’s desire for knowledge and trustworthiness, bring them online and push them to Google.”
It is possible to have a digitally-based competitive edge, according to Merkle’s SEO Senior Manager Alexis Sanders.
Delivering within two days (or less) and providing pertinent status updates are examples of supply chain excellence.
Answering user questions quickly and easily (e.g., without a lot of hassle).
Being sought after by people who want to do business with you due of your online charisma or branding (e.g., Love letters? Do you write most of your reviews like that?
It’s all about the user experience.
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User experience (UX) and technical SEO
According to Brock Murray, Co-founder of seoplus+, the most important trend for savvy SEO practitioners in 2020 is UX – user experience.
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Even after they leave your site (think remarketing, drip advertising and personalisation for returning customers), “Murray said. This includes everything from the initial contact in the SERPs through the complete landing page experience.” In order to give the best possible experience for your visitors, consider what value you can provide to them while they are on your site.
According to Goode, technical SEO is an important part of the UX discussion.
Despite Google’s efforts to compensate for our site’s own weak technical foundations (such as canonical corrections and hreflang corrections), SEOs will have to put more effort into strengthening their own technical foundations, according to Goode’s assessment. In my opinion, it is not by chance that Martin Splitt devotes so much time to promote Google’s view of solid technical best practises. That, in and of itself, should be taken as a signal.
When discussing technical SEO and user experience, it’s important to mention page and site speed.
Google’s new Chrome “slow warning badges” and speed statistics in Google Search Console have renewed debates and focus on site speed, according to Dan Taylor, SEO Account Director, SALT.agency.
For many, Taylor said, “this will restart dialogues with developers, and in some cases lead to systems requiring essentially full redesigns of page layouts and reengineering of how assets are loaded,” he added.
It’s no secret that SEO is becoming more technical as more JavaScript frameworks are being used, PWAs are becoming more popular, and there’s a growing need for SEO automation for larger websites.
“It’s been going on for a few years, but this year it’s become much more visible,” Solis added. To put it another way, it’s only going to get bigger in 2020 as JS frameworks become more popular and app-first businesses shift their focus online as PWAs become more popular. Python-based machine learning can be used to automate SEO tasks for larger websites.
- Mobile SEO as a Trend
Are you surprised that mobile SEO will be a significant trend in 2020? Don’t worry about it. In Wright’s words:
There is a problem with “almost every potential customer’s mobile site,” said Wright. It is imperative that you use 2017 strategies and fix your mobile in order to survive in 2020.
What does that imply?
Prioritize mobile-first development and then make your site compatible with desktops, Kindred said. As a result, they will not require any post-launch optimization for speed.
If you don’t have a mobile-friendly and mobile-optimized website, you need to take action immediately, according to Kris Jones, the founder and CEO of LSEO.com. You’ve run out of time.
For many, Taylor said, “this will restart dialogues with developers, and in some cases lead to systems requiring essentially full redesigns of page layouts and reengineering of how assets are loaded,” he added.
It’s no secret that SEO is becoming more technical as more JavaScript frameworks are being used, PWAs are becoming more popular, and there’s a growing need for SEO automation for larger websites.
“It’s been going on for a few years, but this year it’s become much more visible,” Solis added. To put it another way, it’s only going to get bigger in 2020 as JS frameworks become more popular and app-first businesses shift their focus online as PWAs become more popular. Python-based machine learning can be used to automate SEO tasks for larger websites.
- Mobile SEO as a Trend
Are you surprised that mobile SEO will be a significant trend in 2020? Don’t worry about it. In Wright’s words:
There is a problem with “almost every potential customer’s mobile site,” said Wright. It is imperative that you use 2017 strategies and fix your mobile in order to survive in 2020.
What does that imply?
Prioritize mobile-first development and then make your site compatible with desktops, Kindred said. As a result, they will not require any post-launch optimization for speed.
If you don’t have a mobile-friendly and mobile-optimized website, you need to take action immediately, according to Kris Jones, the founder and CEO of LSEO.com. You’ve run out of time.
For Jones, “all your internet reporting should reflect insights into your mobile performance as a priority.” It’s important to remember that most users will access your website via a mobile device rather than a desktop computer.
It doesn’t end there, though: mobile SEO is just the beginning. Take a look at the mobile SERPs.
As a CEO of MobileMoxie, Cindy Krum says that “SEOs need to be looking at genuine mobile search results in order to have a better sense for what they’re up against, what type of traffic they can expect and what kind of optimization will truly have an impact on the bottom line.”