SEO Trends in 2022
Search engine optimization tactics and strategies change quickly. And constantly.
So much so that it’s easy to “forget” about making sure you “keep up” with it. (After all- you have a lot of other marketing things on your to-do list.)
Here are five SEO trends of which you definitely should be aware.
User intent.
User Intent is also known as search intent (or audience intent.) This term describes a seeker’s purpose when searching online. A good way to understand this is to ask yourself- Why is this person conducting this particular search?
Drilling down just a bit, the searcher is looking for something. Is it the answer to a question? Do they want to purchase something? Are they looking for a specific website?
Do you see a bit of a pattern here? All of the questions above pertain to questions or needs someone has as they move through their user’s (or buyer’s) journey. These questions often represent different levels of that journey.
There generally are four different types of user intent:
- Informational, in which someone is looking for information.
- Navigational, the searcher is looking for a specific website.
- Transactional, the person is looking to buy something immediately.
- Commercial, they’re looking for the best service/product and are using the internet for research.
Here’s a nice thing about user intent.. searchers usually give us hints as to their intent via the keywords they use. (Keywords such as buy, deal, discount, a product’s name, etc.)
Knowing a searcher’s intent is important. It will help you understand what type of information they want, helping you create and provide the type of content that will help them and also rank high in search engines, as a result.
Content quality.
Google and other search engines want to make sure that the content you provide is actually valuable, so instead of adding dozens of generic (blah, blah, blah) content to your site, it’s important to research your target prospect’s true interests and then organize your content by topic, while also prioritizing the content by its relevance to your business’ goals.
In other words, focus on the content that’s different from others and make sure to highlight your services/product as the solution.
Non-stock images.
Informative and valuable content is exceedingly important, but it also needs to look attractive. Photos and graphics are important.
Many marketers have been relying on stock images for years; many SEO experts believe this will decrease in the future because search engines “reward” sites with original imagery. As a result, this will be an incentive for marketers to create original imagery, thus helping them better understand their prospects goals, needs and challenges.
Automation will grow.
Savvy internet marketers will use automation for real-time validation of their SEO efforts. In-the-moment alerts also within automated platforms will help ensure that issue notices will take place immediately, helping human monitors fix problems immediately and thus avoiding common SEO errors.
Better automation is needed to overcome gaps in skills, resources and technology in order to scale SEO execution and its quickly becoming a necessity rather than a “it would be nice to have…someday.”
Machine learning and natural language processing is here!
Multi-modal search is evolving quickly on Google, hinting that there will be a larger focus on what are called “search journeys” rather than one-off and individual queries.
Google also is moving to being able to figure out subtopics from a website’s broader pages, which indicates that stronger content will perform better in long-tail queries than before.
Understanding of the focus of a search and its keyword relationships means marketers will be able to scale the creation of valuable and highly informative content, content that will be well positioned in search engine rankings.
SEO strategies and tactics constantly evolve
Evolve with them with the help of Ingenex.co.
