Search engine optimization (SEO) remains essential for attracting new customers to your business. Whether you run an eCommerce website or a brick-and-mortar store, SEO strategy is likely the focus of your overall marketing strategy. With that said, it’s essential to stay up to speed with emerging SEO trends so you’re not left behind in 2022. From artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to video marketing, several changes are occurring that every business owner should know. Read on for more SEO tips to help you improve your tactics amid the latest SEO trends.
Mobile Optimization and Responsive Web Design
Brands have started focusing on connecting with customers through their mobile devices. To remain competitive, businesses today will need to work on optimizing web content for customers using a phone or tablet. Your content should load fast on an iPhone or Android, and there should be no formatting issues on the pages. Consider adjusting the layout of your website to improve the user experience. Visit your website from a mobile device and look for issues in the page experience like illegible text blocks or confusing formatting. You can also add a ‘Call Now’ button at the top of your pages so mobile users can contact you without needing to scroll or zoom.
Luckily, it’s easy to resolve many of these issues with responsive web design (RWD). You can ensure your content shows up in search engines the same on any device, whether it’s a desktop computer or a mobile phone. This technology detects the device someone is using and adjusts the content layout to fit the screen. If you're not currently using a responsive web design, 2022 is the time to take action.
Artificial Intelligence and Automation
AI has come a long way since the days when a computer beat the world chess champion in the 1990s. Today, businesses use it to streamline tasks like keyword research or content optimization. Here are just a few of the ways AI is changing the way we think about SEO content in 2022.
Faster Content Creation
There are several AI-assisted copywriting tools available for a high quality content production processes. These tools can save you time by making snippets like product descriptions, blog outlines, or meta-titles. Some programs can even produce full-length articles, although it will be a while before AI replaces human writers.
Content Improvement Suggestions
AI can also encourage the Google algorithm to prioritize your business by crafting higher-ranking content and recommending topics to cover. Machine learning tools can check content from competitors to identify ways to outrank their blogs or articles. AI can analyze factors like keyword density or localization, offering insights about how to gain higher search engine results page (SERP) rankings. In this way, it has the potential to reduce content creation costs while boosting your return on investment (ROI).
Immediate Translations
Another invaluable use for AI involves translating content into several languages. If you’re hoping to draw traffic from a broader audience, translation will likely be a big priority on the search engines. One day, AI will be able to translate huge volumes of data in an instant, potentially replacing humans altogether. While Google Translate is a useful example, future AI translations will likely occur in real-time. Automated translation programs may have a long way to go, but they show a lot of promise.
Transcription and Data Extraction
AI can also automate the extraction of key data points from different forms of digital content, including videos or podcasts. You can use it to immediately identify the primary keywords in a text or recommend new ones based on other competing SERPs. However, the capabilities don’t stop there. Services like Google’s AI Video Transcription add-on make it easy to turn audio from a podcast or video into text. This can help with jobs like converting a video into an article or generating accurate subtitles for multimedia content.
Longer, Higher Quality Content
In the old days, businesses could simply attach any string or random words to their website for higher SERPs. With those days long gone, businesses need to provide quality content to earn web traffic. This is why brands have started creating more long-form content than brief articles or blog posts. Top-performing SEO content today can run up to 3,000 words and is organized into smaller subsections for improved readability. A good principle to follow is E-A-T, a term that stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
If you’d like to gain more web traffic in 2022, you will likely need to create engaging content that incorporates keywords and meets these SEO trends. For instance, cite more authoritative sources to produce quality content that's hard to find elsewhere. If you are able to create interactive content, you will be able to keep your readers engaged for the long haul. For the most positive user experience and the most successful content marketing campaign, your blogs, articles, and social media posts should inspire, educate, and instill trust in readers.
More Localization
Search engines like Google tend to generate different SERPs based on the user’s location. In other words, businesses will need to start adding more local keywords to their content. To optimize your content for local SEO, look for ways to add identifiers like city or state that users will type into their Google homepage. You can also raise your rankings in your users' Google search and increase your chance of appearing in a featured snippet by improving your Google My Business rating. To do so, encourage customers to leave feedback whenever possible.
