As the new year begins, we aim to do something fulfilling. Like always, the latest SEO trends is the buzz phrase for everyone running a website. Now that another year is over, let’s find out what trends will matter most and help businesses plan their digital marketing strategy for the new year.
You can dominate SEO and crack Google search algorithms to rank your website on top by making fresh changes as per the updates. You must understand the new SEO changes and create a working strategy around those.
By getting to know more about the latest SEO trends, you can keep the website ranking on Google to keep bringing in new visitors and increase overall engagement with your content.
Google's ever-increasing attention toward the content quality
Google will keep giving more importance to the quality of content you write. To rank on top, you must own exceptionally good content. Google loves high-quality content and leverages sites that have strong written information. It is quite apparent that poor content quality works like negative markings. It drops your website ranking and might be treated as spammy by Google.
Poor content decreases user engagement and a higher exit rate, low time spent on page rate, and low conversion rate on an ecommerce store indicate to Google search bots that the website is not adding any value for the internet searchers. Only high-quality content, both website and blog content, will rank you high. Google’s editorial discretion is not so accurate, but it is well known that content is the sole reason for driving traffic to your site.
A content writer is responsible for the content posted on your site. Ensure that you do not post content only for the sake of keeping your blog active. Placeholder or fluff content won’t pay off and will lead your site ranking to fall considerably. To run a successful blog, you have to create content that is extraordinarily relevant and highly valuable to the users.
Make a goal of writing articles around long-tail keywords. These are still highly relevant in increasing the site authority. Publish posts that get you several links and regularly update your site with new and repurposed content. This is the best way to increase your chance to rank on Google. If you lack the budget and can plan only one post a week, ensure that it is a long-form, properly structured and informative post. That can be good enough to stand out and boost your SEO efforts.
Blockchain and artificial intelligence for SEO purposes
Blockchain has become a buzzword this year, and it has uses in making the internet more secure. Webmasters, SEO specialists and content marketing experts are exploring ways of integrating blockchain into websites and potentially profiting from it by driving more traffic by ensuring greater safety and privacy. With the increasing use of blockchain-based modules in designing websites and apps, blockchain is certainly setting up new SEO trends.
Blockchain could also possibly be used to validate backlinks. It’s unclear what the exact effect of blockchain will be on SEO. However, with the experiments currently taking place, we’re likely to see some of the results this year.
Businesses are also seeking out ways to employ artificial intelligence. Google’s use of artificial intelligence could bring about some interesting changes – for example, if it was integrated into the ranking algorithm, it could possibly deal with those using black-hat SEO more efficiently. AI and blockchain have the potential to let you rule over the search engines, aka Google.
As per Adam Audette, Chief Knowledge Officer of RKG, ‘’The days of SEO being a game of outsmarting algorithms are over. Today content strategy and valuable, sustainable strategies are essential, not just tricks and links.”
Content relevance and user intent are a key focus
After the introduction of RankBrain, Google’s ML-based rank algorithms constantly evaluate the search intent of the users, and this is why it is predicted to be the most challenging time for every online marketer. Google has moved to keep the user as the main focus. So, creatively written featured snippets and conversational content is the trending SEO advice for ranking high in Google.
Link building through spammy or low-value sites saw a big shake-up in 2020, and more updates on it in 2021 presented a new challenge for inorganic link building methods. Link building remains the top ranking factor in Google search, but it has now become more relevant, focuses on quality content, naturally placed keywords or anchor texts and values websites that add value to the user search requirements. More such updates in the key ranking factors of Google are expected soon, which means less spam and more value addition to the search results.
The URLs with the highest relevance ranking content are accustomed to being in the first couple of positions in Google search. Unless content meets user intent, it’s highly unlikely to rank in those positions.
Google can evaluate the relevance of online content in real-time. Undoubtedly user intent content has become a central factor in content and search engine optimization.
Websites ranking on Google’s first page tend to have long content – the secret is not in length but in the quality and depth of the content. Engaging, in-depth content is likely to continue to dominate as per the latest SEO updates and trends.
Characteristics of user intent content
· It is highly informational and found to be an integral part of a blog/article.
· Every search query made on Google undergoes various parameters. User intent makes one of those essential parameters that recognizes the semantic meaning of a search query.
Mobile-first indexing
Mobile-first indexing started rolling out in 2018, and Google announced in Sep 2020 its plan to switch all websites by default to mobile-first indexing. Google’s latest development is part of making continuous efforts to make a mobile-friendly web that deeply impacts SEO.
As per a Comscore survey, in 2015, mobile web traffic passed desktop for the first time, and the vast number of people searching via mobile devices continues to grow.
Reports suggest that in 2022 60% of worldwide online traffic will come through mobile phones. This means more than half of the population uses their smartphones to browse Google.
In simple terms, this means that Google ranks websites based on the user experience they offer on mobile devices. A website that isn’t mobile-friendly misses out on a huge amount of traffic. As per Alexa, more than 80 percent of top websites can be accessed on mobile devices. This is essential because a smartphone is everywhere, and the love for browsing the internet over it is necessary for users.
Voice-driven searches gaining traction
As per the latest SEO trends, voice search is here to stay. As per surveys, voice search trend SEO is gaining demand rapidly. More than 50 percent of searches online are voice-based. This has led to an increase in sales of Smart speakers all over the world. Voice searching is growing at a faster pace, and more and more people are using smart devices, such as Alexa, and smart assistants on devices, like Siri.
What used to be science fiction is now a reality with computers that can understand human speech. Statistics say that more than 58 percent of consumers have already started using voice search to find local business information in America.
As per SEO trends, voice search SEO will become increasingly important. 20% of queries on Android devices and Google’s mobile app are via voice search. Businesses need to employ voice search SEO to set themselves up for success in a voice-driven search world.
Page speed
Google wants to deliver the best user experience and deliver it fast. Since July 2018, mobile page speed has been a direct ranking factor affecting the website ranking, and it continues to gain even more importance. Pagespeed SEO is defined as the amount of time a webpage takes to load. Slower page speed will impact Google’s web page ranking negatively. Yes, mobile page speed SEO is a distinct category per the changing SEO trends.
It recommended using the updated page speed report to make improvements but also emphasized that the intent of a search engine query is still a strong signal, so a slower page could still rank high if it had relevant content that best answered the query.
Accelerated mobile pages (AMPs) offer the best user experience, loading about 30 times faster. Google, Twitter, and some other companies rolled out this open-source project, designed to make mobile pages super fast. Wondering what Google uses to test a page?
The speed of a single page is measured by using Real User Measurements. The metrics are directly extracted from the Chrome User Experience Report (CRUX).
Page Insight Speed is divided into two categories:
Optimization: Like earlier, optimization is a fresh update applied to the old-familiar 100 point page speed score.
Speed: A newly updated category that implies that even a highly optimized site can run at a low-speed score.
If you find that the loading speed of a page is too low, then you can troubleshoot the page loading speed by following the steps given below:
Compress Images
This is one of the effective ways of increasing the page loading speed of a website. As a blog owner, you must know that, on average, an image takes 50% to 90% of a page’s size. So, only by using the compressed image can you double the loading speed of your webpage. There are plenty of online free compression tools available that you can use to reduce the size of an image.
Code cleanup
This can be another effective way of increasing the speed of loading a webpage. You can do so by getting rid of any kind of bloated code like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and others found on the website.
Updating Hosting
All those who are very serious about increasing their webpage loading speed must upgrade to a dedicated hosting service. Make a wise choice and upgrade to a premium hosting service.
Unleash the power of CDN
Content Delivery Network or CDN is an alternative method that helps to cut down the increased page loading time of a website. It helps to eliminate the issues related to the server loading of a website. With a CDN, you can cache the website using multiple sets of global networks.
Video SEO-optimization: a growing trend
Optimizing video with the intention of getting it successfully indexed and achieving rank on search engine pages is the prime job of video optimization. An AdWeek survey found 88% growth year over year in the time spent watching videos on smartphones. As per Wyzowl, approximately 66 percent of consumers chose to watch a video for product inquiry.
Cisco report states that in 2021, video accounted for more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic. It is not surprising to know that YouTube has become the second-largest search engine in the world.
With the current scenario, video content marketing has become a new phenomenon and plans to extend over the coming years. People preferred watching videos to kill boredom during the coronavirus lockdown, which has meant greater popularity for video content, whether short videos or long-form videos.
As per new SEO trends, effective video ads online on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media channels have a lot of potential to get traffic and increase conversion. With the increasing competition, videos must be fully SEO-optimized if they have any chance of ranking.
TikTok might be the clear winner regarding videos, but open search in search engines like Google continues to be of great importance for internet users. People search for local businesses, like restaurants, travel plans, events, etc., on TikTok, creating a hashtag-based SEO within TikTok, but Google remains the king. It can be understood by some key stats like video searches have doubled for the query ‘which [product name] should I buy.’ Videos on Google are important as they offer a different search experience than a typical social media platform, so you cannot afford to ignore that.
Protection of user data
Since the time the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy that regulates a thorny issue – who owns the data created by the interaction of users online?
GDPR gives users more control over their private information. If you have European customers, you must institute various measures, such as revising your cookie consent form.
Google has introduced certain changes affecting user data – for example, all personal user data, such as demographic and affinity data, expires after 26 months.
Site owners can change the default period and delete individual user data upon request. In 2023, we’re likely to see further initiatives to protect online data and website optimization as per those guidelines will be important.
Be omnipresent
SEO is all about being present everywhere when you are searched for. Your blog or post should not be limited to just Google only. Its presence should be strong on other higher authority search engines, like Amazon.
Remember, it doesn't matter where the traffic is coming from. To rank above all, you need only quality traffic. With the scope of SEO expanding widely, you must put efforts into increasing brand visibility.
So, in the coming year, too, the content will be as important as ever and you, as the website owner, have to make strong efforts to build a presence across platforms - social media, search engines, emails, etc.
Data structuring is important
As Google is moving towards the world of AI, data structuring will set you apart from others.
Nothing can beat the pace at which AI crawls the content, so content processing can only be great if it is structured and streamlined in a well-mannered way. As a business owner, you must have a great understanding of data structuring and direct and indirect search behavior.
Think critically about what will make the search stronger. You can manually increase the findability of the content by connecting the search behavior and driving the relation between them. The writer must create content to integrate the speakable and fact-checked structured data.
The future of SEO
While mobile search is increasing, videos dominate, and voice search keeps evolving, SEO specialists also need to keep an eye on security and the protection of user data. User experience is more important than ever, and SEO experts must continue to create relevant content to meet user intent.
Artificial intelligence and blockchain are other factors to consider in the new year, and it will be interesting to see what impact they could have on the new SEO trends. We may be able to look back at the same time next year and be astonished at the pace of change in Google search algorithms, and user queries in search engines.
