7 SEO Trends of 2022
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the biggest investments a company can make for itself. Although it requires patience to see results, if you do it correctly, you will start seeing an increase in traffic in around six to eight months.
The tricky part of SEO is the constantly changing algorithms and trends surrounding it. One has to keep up with the latest ranking factors in order to succeed in this field. But no worries! Here are seven hot SEO trends of 2022 that you should be taking advantage of.
Listicles
When you search for a topic, you will most likely be hit with the ‘5 Ways to……’ or ‘10 Things You Did Not Know About….’ articles. These are called listicles. Listicles are great because they are better at capturing audiences’ attention, and are fairly easy to digest compared to an essay-style debatical.
The great thing about listicles is that they are also easier for content writers to write on, since you do not have to think so much about structure. List-style articles rank well in the search engines since they are in high demand. This article itself is a listicle!
Long-form content
There is a constant battle among websites to create content that tops the rest. The main goal of search engines is to provide the best search results to their audience, so they tend to rank the content that is the longest higher than other content that may be on the same topic, but shorter. However, do not think that you can make up a bunch of garbage to make your content longer and expect it to rank well. The length of an article is just one ranking factor among many, one of the most important ones being the quality of the content.
Leveraging AI Content Generators
In this day and age, companies and individuals find it difficult to crank out good quality content on a regular basis. A single article involves a great deal of planning with keywords, topic, the content being covered, SEO optimization of the article, and more. Most companies try to upload at least one article a week to keep their site updated with the most trending topics, but did you know that you can easily produce up to 10 articles or more a week with the help of an AI content generator?
That’s right. If you find a good AI writing assistant, you can save loads of time and effort without sacrificing on the quality of the writing. Check out Jasper.ai – a content assistant tool that helps with both long-form and short-form writing. It costs around $100/mo. and is completely worth your investment (not sponsored!).
Competitive analysis
These days, you cannot get very far while keeping a closed eye on your competitors. You must be aware of each and every SEO-related movement they make (as creepy as it sounds) so that you can act accordingly in a timely manner. Luckily, there are several tools, both free and paid, on the web that you can leverage. One of the best tools for competitive analysis is SpyFu, a keyword research tool that has other SEO functionalities as well. With this tool, you can see which keywords your competitors perform best on, so that you can get ideas on which keywords you need to be ranking for.
(Special shoutout to Ahrefs.com backlink checker tool, a tool that allows you to find backlink opportunities by spying on competitors’ backlinks. It’s free to see a generous amount of competitor backlinks!)
Mobile optimization
One of the biggest mistakes that website owners make is forgetting to optimize for mobile. It is silly to ignore tools such as Google Search Console’s Mobile-Friendly Test which is free and tells you exactly what issues are preventing your site from ranking well on mobile. Every year, more and more traffic is coming from mobile and there is no reason why your website should rank well only on desktop. Don’t forget tablets as well while you are on it!
Simplicity is key
When the world was first introduced to the internet, quirky websites were in. Web audiences were intrigued by the most stunning and jaw-dropping sites, and everybody wanted to be wowed. Is spontaneity still in? Yes. Do search engines take this well? NO. What does this mean?
If you have content hiding behind images that pops out in a fun way when you hover over it, chances are that this type of content will not overpower content that follows SEO formatting rules (and yes, there are rules). Javascript, if used, must be used moderately so as to not kill a page’s ability to rank in the first few pages of search results. The best formatting to follow is to have H1, H2, and H3 tags in the proper order, and have one main keyphrase that you want the page to rank for really well. Include this keyword in the first paragraph of the page if you can. For a copy of around 400-500 words, you do not want to use this keyphrase more than 2-3 times.
While it is good to care about the look and feel of the page, do not go overboard or else it will backfire.
Expert advice
Scoring experts to share their opinions and experience on a topic is bingo for blogs and other websites. Everybody wants to hear from the experts. People are interested in reading quotes that come straight from a primary source. Another benefit of working with experts is that other blogs will have a hard time stealing the content from you, since you specifically partner with the experts, not them. This is not the type of content one can just take and put in their own words. That is why search engines love expertise-style content.
Once upon a time, spammy backlinks, bolding keywords, and keyword stuffing may have worked. But SEO has come a long way, and search engines are getting smarter day by day. Therefore, it is up to you to keep up with the latest practices to ensure that potential traffic and revenue is not slipping out of your hands. Whether you are a blogger or a business owner, you cannot succeed in the world of SEO without good content.