Looking to start the year off strong? It’s time to look at your current SEO strategy and see whether it’s up to scratch!
Here are 6 SEO trends you need to be aware of to thrive in 2022.
MUM knows best
Set to be released over the next few years, Google’s Multitask Unified Model (also known as MUM) is anticipated to change how we search.
Up to 1000 times more powerful than Google’s last big update, BERT, MUM is designed to produce the most relevant answers for users. It can look at search results in 75 languages and use images and videos to consider context, intent, and conversational queries.
This makes it easier for users to find what they’re looking for and for different methods, such as voice search (more on later).
You can see a full explanation of MUM from Google I/O 2021 below:
While it is unclear exactly how MUM will impact SEO, you can be sure there will be a need to shift your strategy. In particular, you may want to focus more on SEO Sydney and content creation to ensure your site is optimized for users (and, thus, search engines).
We’ll keep you updated on MUM-friendly best practices throughout the release process. Watch this space!
Voice search
As of 2021, over a quarter (26%) of Australians owned an intelligent speaker, double the amount in 2020. Of these Aussies, 88% use their speaker weekly, and 67% use it daily.
These numbers are only expected to rise, and with it, voice search.
To ensure your site is optimized for voice search, you’ll want to focus on more conversational and long-tail keywords that reflect how people speak.
You may also want to tailor your content, creating pages that answer commonly asked questions in your industry or niche. To do this, make a headline that asks a common question, and in the very first paragraph, provide a clear and concise answer that would satisfy a voice searcher. For the rest of the content, include more details and elaborate on your answer for regular searchers and those who want to learn more.
Accessibility
While the notion that a site needs to be mobile-friendly is certainly not new, it is just as vital. By 2025, almost 75% of users will only use their phones to search the internet – if you don’t invest in the mobile version of your site now, you’re saying goodbye to most of your potential customers.
Additionally, Google is still in the process of switching to mobile-first indexing, meaning that the mobile version of your site will soon be the primary version if it isn’t already.
Page speed
Last year, we were introduced to Google’s Core Web Vitals, three metrics used by the search engine to gauge how user-friendly a website is. Chief among them is the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), or how long it takes for a user to see the majority of the content of your website.
Page speed is one of the most critical factors for SEO. In fact, by improving your site speed by a single second, you can increase conversions by 27%!
On the other hand, between 0-9 seconds of load time, conversion rates drop by 2.11% with each additional second.
You can check your page speed using PageSpeed Insights.
Video content
If you’ve been using YouTube to support your marketing efforts (and if you haven’t, why not?), you’re probably familiar with Seek Markup and Clip Markup.
Clip Markup manually identifies key moments from your video, allowing you to nominate a timestamp and label. Seek Markup, on the other hand, allows Google to identify critical moments that will satisfy users’ queries automatically.
This can help your videos stand out from the rest – users know precisely where to find the content they want and are more likely to click through to your video.
In 2022, all videos on Google will be able to utilize Seek and Clip Markup. You can find out more from John Mueller’s announcement below.
Apart from videos hosted on YouTube, short-form content reigns supreme. Whether posting on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or any other digital platform, you’ll want to focus on shorter and easily consumable videos up to 2 minutes and 30 seconds long.
With 30% of social media marketers focusing on short-form videos above all other trends in 2022, you can’t afford to ignore this for your business.
Looking for some tips to get started? Check out our video SEO guide.
Long-form content
The more time users spend on your website, the better. This is why, in every area except for video, long-form content is king no matter the year.
In 2021, 43% of digital marketers reported an increase in their content marketing budget, with two-thirds expecting this to increase even more in 2022. Long-form content gives you more opportunities to rank for certain keywords and position yourself as an expert in your niche.
Invest in evergreen content that consistently brings in traffic and revisit some of your old pieces to update them with new statistics and facts.
And that’s it! You’ll need to consider six SEO trends for your digital marketing strategy in 2022. If you’d like to learn more about how to keep on top of the latest trends and create a more effective SEO plan for your business, contact our specialists for a free consultation!
You can also find more information about SEO, social media, web design, and all other aspects of digital marketing on our Blog.
