One of the most important, resourceful skills digital marketers can possess is search engine optimization (SEO). With a strong understanding of optimizing content for search and internet-related rankings, marketers can increase their company website’s visibility in the search results pages, which helps them gain more traffic and achieve higher conversions.
However, a lot has changed over the past decade in the digital marketing and SEO arena. A few years ago, you could optimize your website with primary keywords and link-building strategies and see great results. That’s no longer true. Today’s SEO is much more sophisticated and time-consuming. In addition, SEO trends rapidly change as consumers adopt new technologies and best practices evolve with any digital marketing discipline. The successful marketer will keep abreast of these changes to ensure they use the latest techniques to optimize content and generate traffic.
Mobile Search Engine Optimization
Mobile devices are becoming more popular and expected to dominate the world in 2022. That’s the reason mobile search engine optimization (SEO) has secured a place in the list of top trends for 2022.
You should design and optimize responsive web pages that automatically adjust according to the user’s screen size or orientation. Doing so will help you attract and engage more customers and improve your ranking on search engines. Moreover, if you optimize your website for mobile devices, users can easily navigate through your website without any difficulty. That will help you increase your conversions and sales volume.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have already impacted virtually every industry, and now they’re on the precipice of changing digital marketing and SEO.
But, what role can AI play in the SEO game?
Search has become so complex, and the searcher’s intent is too difficult to understand and scale as human beings. Fortunately, Google uses RankBrain, a machine-learning algorithm that can process search requests using pattern recognition rather than pre-programmed rules. In other words, it learns like us and has the ability to best match user intent with results despite having over 200 Google ranking factors. AI will make it easier for search engines to understand semantic keywords and related search intent. As a result, search engines may be able to return more relevant results for long search queries and long-tail keywords, which will improve user experience.
For example, Google might predict what users want based on their past behavior instead of just using keywords.
Localized SERPs & SERP Changes
SERPs are localized and based on the user’s search history, location, and language. Also, the standard search engine results page (SERP) is no longer just a page of 10 blue links. Instead, the user can see images, videos, maps, and more in the mix of results. Now, Google and other search engines can deliver results that are not just relevant to a given keyword but to the location where they are being searched from. Therefore, businesses must optimize their sites and content for local search engine rankings. For example, if someone searches for a “ digital marketing and SEO agency in Chicago ,” Google may return different results based on whether that search was performed in New York City or Kansas City.
In addition, searchers are increasingly relying on voice-based queries, whether through smart speakers or voice searches performed on mobile devices. As a result, Google will be better able to tailor results to those search queries based on its knowledge of specific locations.
The Dramatic Shift to Multimodal Search
It usually refers to using multiple modes in a single search query. So, for example, if you ask your Google Home a question like “Where can I find Italian food near me?” you might get different types of results.
It may provide an answer with a visual interface on your phone or computer, an audio response over the device’s speaker, and possibly even directions on how to get there in your car. Multimodal search queries are becoming more common as voice-only interactions become more prevalent. Moreover, voice and image searches are becoming more prominent, and Google has started incorporating featured snippets into its search results.
If you want to stay ranked higher in SERPs, consider optimizing your site, web pages, and content for voice, images, and different locations.
Long-Form Content
There’s a lot more competition for keywords than there used to be. As Google continues to introduce new features like Featured Snippets , it’s become clear that the search engine values explicit content that covers a topic in depth. As a result, it has led to a dramatic shift towards long-form content, usually over 1200 words. Such content was initially considered a way to improve search rankings, but it’s now being used to increase user engagement. That means that website owners need to work harder to get noticed by the search engines. Incorporating long-form content in your marketing strategy can help you improve your SEO rankings and drive more organic traffic .
While the trend of long-form content is here to stay, the word count is not the only thing that matters. Search engines now look at how many times a word appears on your page and its relevance to the topic at hand. If you have lots of irrelevant content on your pages, you won’t rank as highly as you would like.
Search engine optimization is constantly changing, and it’s become critical for businesses to keep up with changing trends and new advancements associated with SEO. However, it might be hard to conduct in-depth research or learn everything with their busy schedules. To ensure that you don’t fall behind in the market and competition, consider hiring a professional SEO agency in Chicago to improve your SEO efforts.
Whether you want to rank higher in organic search results or show video previews in SERPs for relevant queries, we can help. To talk to our digital marketing consultant , Jim Falotico, contact 1-262607-4323 and get help developing a Digital Marketing Strategy to optimize your marketing spend. Between 262-607
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