SEO is constantly changing and 2022 won’t be any different. Search Engine Optimization never ends and requires consistency in order to see the largest successes. As SEO experts we are constantly testing and evaluating rank factors in the Google Algorithm to make changes on client sites that will provide impact within search results.
What are the biggest SEO factors in 2022? We still believe backlinks are the single most important factor for ranking but it is only effective if your site is optimized correctly. In this 2022 SEO Trends article we are going to discuss some of the best practices that your company utilize in order to build more traffic to your website.
Fix On-Page SEO Elements
This sounds simple, but we have yet to find a website that doesn’t have at least a few on-page issues. On-page SEO includes everything from your meta titles, descriptions, H-Tags, broken links and images. If you need help identifying what changes need to be made on your website, contact an agency that specializes in SEO to perform an SEO audit on your site.
Most companies do well with titles and descriptions but Google has thrown a little wrinkle in the Algorithm as of late.
Optimize H-Tags for Search Results
Most websites optimize H-Tags for keyword phrases and intent, but during 2021, Google decided to start showing different titles in search results.
As you will see in the example below, the title that was created for this page is not what Google decided to use for the title in the search results. It was common for Google to rewrite your meta descriptions based on the intent of the person searching but rewriting title tags never happened until 2021.
There isn’t a quick fix for optimizing your H-Tags for search. The process should be done manually with care. We definitely aren’t suggesting you keyword stuff your H-Tags but instead rewrite them to better describe the content within that section of the website and use intent based keyword phrases? If you are unfamiliar with intent, there are four types of intent in the SEO. Most bloggers spend their time writing with Informational based intent, but there are three others that can be just as important depending on where the user is in the buying/selection cycle. Navigational, Transactional and Commercial are the other three. For example, the keywords “buy”, “coupon” and “discount” are all Transactional intent keywords.
Spend Time Creating Proper SEO Structure
SEO Structure is the meaningful use of HTML headings that break your single content asset into sections and subsections allowing for easier reading
Structuring content correctly is probably the number one problem that many sites have. It may not be the biggest factor of where your content ranks in search results, but if all things are equal, having proper content structure give you the edge against your competitors in SEO.
Would you be shocked to hear that most sites don’t use H1 Tags by default? Having an H1 Tag on each page is second to optimizing your title in level of search engine optimization importance. Proper SEO structure goes beyond adding or optimizing your H1 Tags. Search engines want to see your content pages structured like an outline. Structuring content in this way helps users better navigate and read the content while at the same time providing great information for the search engines in ranking the content you spent valuable time creating.
Continue to Build SEO Backlinks
You can rank content without backlinks but it’s definitely easier with them. If you aren’t familiar with the term, backlinks are when another website links to content on your site. Backlinks are a vote of authority and a major part of the Google Algorithm. There are many ways to build backlinks and while an SEO professional might tell you link outreach is better or buying backlinks is better, understand that there are pros and cons to every backlink strategy. The backlink strategy you should use might depend on how much of your marketing budget you can assign to link building or how much time you can wait to get backlinks to your site.
Internal links are just as important as backlinks from other website. Make sure you are interlinking pages of your content on your own site. This will help search engines crawl your site, will share authority across pages on your site and also allow the use of contextual links (keyword links) that can help describe what a visitor can expect to see if they click the link. Internal links are the most important on-page SEO factor that businesses fail to do.
Create Videos About Your Website Content
How many videos are on your website? If you are reading this right now and I had to guess, most of you are saying ZERO! Most businesses think creating video is complicated and expensive. I’m going to tell you that can be difficult and expensive if you want it to be, but it can also be simple and affordable. Not all videos need to be professionally shot with commercial intent. Any business can create simple summary videos about the content on an individual page of a website. For example, I spend about 30 minutes creating a video with a green screen, webcam and decent microphone as you can see below.
Using sites like Vimeo or YouTube for hosting your videos provide great SEO benefits as well.
- YouTube is the 2nd Largest Search Engine
- Videos rank on Google Searches
- Videos can be Optimized for Important Keywords
- You can Build Backlinks from High Authority Sites
If you need a little help in developing a video content strategy, we would be happy to consult with you to help develop a strategy that fits your business.
Which SEO Factor Should You Work on First?
SEO takes time and is constantly changing. All of the strategies mentioned will help and will also impact your search engine optimization efforts for many years to come. Without knowing your experience, knowledge and time constraints, it would tough to advise where you should start. But, you can’t go wrong with having an SEO audit done on your site to identify issues that could be impacting your SEO efforts. Copp Media will provide a free SEO audit and consult should you need it to start building out a plan to increase your traffic and search rankings in 2022.
