Top SEO Trends You Shouldn’t Ignore in the New Year

Improve Search Results in 2022

Smart business owners know that it’s not enough to simply have a company website. You want customers to find it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical in attracting visitors to your web pages, but the internet is ever-changing. To ensure potential customers can easily find you during a search, you need to stay on top of the latest SEO trends. Take a look at 5 top trends that will impact search results in 2022.

1. Mobile-friendliness
2. Master EAT
3. Include video
4. AI impact
5. Social listening

1. Mobile-friendliness

Google is still the most used search engine and, thus, customers are likely to use Google to find your website. That means it’s necessary to adhere to their rules, including the one instituted in April 2015 requiring sites to be mobile-friendly to rank higher in their indexing. If this is news to you, then you must make 2022 the year you update your website. It’s also crucial now because Google is looking to switch to a 100% mobile-first search index in the near future. Test your website for mobile-friendliness with Google’s free tool. If you’ve got issues that need to be addressed, resolve them in the New Year. 

2. Master EAT

 It’s been said that you are what you eat, and that goes for your website content, too. E-A-T means Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. As one of the concepts in Google’s Search Quality Guidelines, the search engine uses these three criteria to evaluate the quality of web pages. To ensure your website meets this “quality control,” deliver what your target audience is seeking. Creating buyer personas is an extremely helpful step for providing valuable content that fulfills all the criteria of the EAT principle.

3. Include video

 There are numerous benefits of video marketing, including improving your SEO. How? Search engines look for content like rich media. Video ticks that box and, with the explosion of YouTube and TikTok, more and more users today are seeking videos. When you engage with customers in ways they desire, you’ll boost your SEO.

4. AI impact

Artificial intelligence (AI) will have a more significant impact on SEO moving forward. Google uses RankBrain, an AI component that helps sort through the words of a query to understand what the user is seeking and deliver more exact results. For example, a customer may type in “Where can I find a digital marketing agency for my small business?” Google would return related searches such as “digital marketing agencies Irvine, CA” and “best marketing companies for small business” to click and find results.

While Google doesn’t share the secrets of RankBrain, experts believe one of its primary ranking factors is user experience. Thus, it’s essential to have a good click-through rate and engaging content that keeps users on your website longer to get good SEO.

5. Social listening

We’ve addressed social listening in the past and how it impacts your brand, expands your reach, and helps with customer service. Now, with AI algorithms and Google typically introducing nearly 500 updates every year, their focus is on delivering the most relevant and high-quality content based on user intent. Social listening will ultimately help your SEO. When you monitor your social media, all the other places your brand is mentioned, and also stay on top of specific topics, keywords, and the competition, you are able to deliver more exact results with your website.

Rise in the ranks

If you want your company website to be one of the first results users see after typing an inquiry into a search engine, you’ve got to stay on top of SEO strategies. T.E. Digital has years of experience and keeps up with all the changes in SEO. Our experts will work to increase traffic and enhance your ROI. Contact us today! Let’s discuss your goals and how we can help you get you there.