The SEO industry is fascinating. Each year, Google updates its search engine ranking algorithm by hundreds of times. A SEO approach that was effective last year might not be effective this year, and one that is effective today could not be effective in the future.
We can help if your website isn’t generating as much organic traffic as it did last year and you want to strengthen your SEO.
We’ve outlined the top SEO strategies for 2022 in this piece, spanning both fundamental and cutting-edge SEO strategies, to help you maintain and improve your organic search presence.
Let’s go for it!
1) Start immediately with content optimization
For the majority of people, SEO involves continuously posting material, focusing on new keywords, and obtaining links to those pages.
However, seasoned SEO experts are aware that by “content optimizing” your current material, you can enhance organic traffic in a more calculated manner.
The objective of content optimization is to raise a page’s on-site meta tags, such as:
- adding both primary and secondary keywords in the appropriate amounts
- Having the right word count
- achieving excellent readability
- having good meta descriptions and titles
Here are four quick and simple techniques to swiftly and effectively implement content optimization across your entire website.
A.) Determine the Right Word Counts and Keyword Densities
Each SERP is unique. Some queries are promptly addressed in a featured snippet, while others are better serviced by sales pages that are 500 to 1,000 words long. Then there are searches that demand lengthy articles of 3,000 words or more.
All of this is to suggest that there is no specific word count to aim for because it depends entirely on the search query and the top-ranking pages. If you do this incorrectly, it will be incredibly challenging to rank.
B.) Check the CTR of your meta descriptions
One of the most crucial on-site tags for page optimization is the title tag. description meta tags? Not really. But just because Google doesn’t take a meta description into account when deciding how to rank a page doesn’t imply it doesn’t matter.
You can increase CTR with a strong meta description, which could help you rank better. In a Whiteboard Friday episode from a few years ago, Rand Fishkin described how Google might approach it: “If the position four result is getting more clicks than the position two result, shouldn’t they be switched around? “Reputable sources like CXL and others have also come to the conclusion that CTR is a ranking element.
C.) Use Content Decay to Find Pages with Declining Traffic
The traffic and rankings from your older content will inevitably begin to decline as you publish more.
Posts age, rivals update their articles, you stop constructing new links, and so forth. Whatever the cause, it’s challenging to stay current while also exploring new subjects.
One of the simplest ways to keep track of your older (but still valuable) content and decide where to spend resources on updating older posts in comparison to creating new content is to address your decaying traffic.
D.) Include Related Questions to Match the Purpose of the Search
You may learn a lot about a user’s search intent by using the “People Also Ask” and “Related Searches” sections in the SERPs.
You can get ideas for what sections to add in your post from the “Related Searches” box at the bottom of the SERPs.
You can select the “Research” tab for each topic to view a list of related searches.
2) Deliver a Perfect Page Experience
Page site optimization has historically been a somewhat weak ranking criterion that, naturally, SEO professionals never really took too seriously. Yes, it was important, but not more so than standard on-site optimization and straightforward link development.
However, things move very quickly in the world of SEO. Recent SEO developments such as the introduction of BERT and MUM demonstrate Google’s desire to humanize its search engine by focusing its ranking algorithm on factors such, you guessed it, page site optimization.
Although links and tags are important and will remain so for as long as we can see, they are not the only things to watch out for. Google used this new metric as a key component of their algorithm with the Page Experience Update’s introduction in 2020.
Page experience is what Google defines as:
“a collection of indicators that gauge how people feel about interacting with a website beyond its just informational usefulness.”
Let’s be clear: Google has no means of knowing how visitors actually view a website (although Elon Musk’s Neuralink could soon change that). Instead, they base their predictions on four criteria that relate to the page experience.
The first statistic is the Core Web Vitals, a collection of metrics that assesses how quickly a website loads from the viewpoint of the user experience:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Evaluates the efficiency of loading. An LCP under 2.5 seconds after a page starts to load is what Google advises aiming for.
- Measures interactivity is First Input Delay (FID). A FID of fewer than 100 milliseconds is what Google advises.
Calculates visual stability using Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Google advises a CLS score of under 0.1.
The other three metrics include a page’s responsiveness to mobile devices, the usage of HTTPS, and the absence of bothersome interstitials:
Here’s what you need to do if you haven’t given your page experience any thought.
- First, use PageSpeed Insights to evaluate your website’s performance in relation to the following Core Web Vitals:
- Then, take notice of the suggestions Google provides to fix any problems you may find below the fold:
- To assess your site’s responsiveness, repeat the procedure using Test My Site:
Increasing page speed can increase conversions in addition to organic performance.
To improve page performance for better search engine results and more conversions, use these strategies:
- Minimize unused code on your page.
- Delay loading JavaScript
- cut down on server response time
- Select the best hosting solution for your requirements.
- Switch on browser caching
- Turn on compression
- Image compression can reduce page size by 30–40%.
Once you have improved the speed of your website, check to see if it also satisfies the following three criteria:
- Adapt your website to mobile devices.
- Get your domain’s HTTPS certificate.
- Remove any unnecessary pop-ups (those that open new tabs or windows are problematic; those that are used to build an email list are probably not);
3.) Extend Your Dwell Time
The effect of user experience on Google’s ranking algorithm has long been a subject of discussion in the SEO community. Yes, having a clear site architecture, a quick load time, and a good mobile experience are important, but until recently, none of these elements had a significant impact on rankings.
As you might have guessed, the all-powerful Google once again made the decision to flip the switch and elevate dwell time as one of the most important ranking factors.
Let’s consider it using the following illustration:
- When someone searches on Google for “SEO techniques,” they look at the top results and find this page, which they then click on.
- The user determines they have found what they were looking for and returns to the SERPs to browse further pages four minutes and 35 seconds later.
They would stay there for 4 minutes, 35 seconds. This benchmark doesn’t really matter to you or Google on its own. But if Google determines that visitors to this website spend more time there than they do on the pages of our rivals, they will conclude that our page is probably performing better.
The more content the people are, the better for Google. As a result, people will favor the page with a high dwell duration over its rivals. The amount? We are unsure. However, it might be the extra push a page needs to overtake the top spot for a fiercely competitive keyword.
To be clear: Bounce rate, which counts the number of visitors that arrive on a page and immediately leave without taking any further action, is not the same as dwell time. To be more precise, it’s the proportion of all your website’s sessions that are single-page sessions (or an individual page).
Like good ice cream, bounces come in a variety of flavors: some come from direct sources (like bookmarks), others from visitors who found the page directly.
Dwell time is not the same as time spent on a site, as the latter can include visitors who did not arrive via the SERPs. Like the child of time on site and bounce rate, dwell time is much more SEO-friendly than either of its parents.
The bad news is that, aside from improving your user experience, there isn’t much you can do to increase your dwell time. Any improvement to your website’s usability will probably lengthen visitors’ stays there. The opposite is also true: If your website appears unprofessional, out-of-date, or untrustworthy, new visitors are likely to leave and click on another result in the SERPs. Google won’t appreciate that.
Now that you are aware of dwell time, you can utilize the following SEO strategies to enhance user experience and raise the visibility of your current content on search engines.
A.) Make your posts simple to read, first.
Do you know what “formatting content for the web” means? You must go one step further and optimize your content for readability if you want to have any chance of raising your organic rankings.
The following formatting advice can improve your content’s readability:
- Write high-quality content: Good ideas, persuasive delivery, and error-free grammar and spelling are just as important as proper formatting.
- Use concise paragraphs; strive for 3–4 sentence paragraphs. You can even use one-sentence paragraphs if required, but be careful not to overdo it or your post will read like a shopping list.
Mix sentence lengths: Long sentences can be difficult to understand on a computer or mobile device, but when used sparingly, they can be effective, especially when combined with shorter sentences. The Hemingway app can be useful for this. Here is a great example of how sentence patterns can be changed for the best readability:
- Did you know that the typical online reader spends only 37 seconds reading a piece of content? Subheadings, which make it easier for readers to scan content and quickly understand what the article is about, can greatly increase that time.
- Using bullet points helps a paragraph with a lot of information—statistics, facts, concepts, and examples—easier to understand. This paragraph, for example. As a general rule, whenever you list three or more items, use bullet points.
- Make use of white space by dividing lengthy passages of text with pertinent, illustrative media, such as pictures, movies, and graphs (in addition to bullet points and sub-headers).
- Use pictures and screenshots: The majority of articles should include a number of pictures or screenshots to help explain the points, figures, or procedures you are discussing. You should use more images the more complicated the idea is. (Can you imagine reading this entire blog article without any images? Difficult, no?)
B) Write in the inverted pyramid format.
The inverted pyramid style of writing, which appears as follows, is one of the fundamental rules for journalists:
The article is organized like a pyramid, with the most important information at the top and less significant information at the bottom. It makes sense to offer scannable readers what they want as soon as they land because they rarely scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
4.) Write in the inverted pyramid format.
The inverted pyramid style of writing, which appears as follows, is one of the fundamental rules for journalists:
The article is organized like a pyramid, with the most important information at the top and less significant information at the bottom. It makes sense to offer scannable readers what they want as soon as they land because they rarely scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
However, don’t expect your website to rank on Google’s front page just by producing content that is keyword-focused. Looking at keywords alone is insufficient; we also need to consider their surrounding context. You must pay attention to what your users are seeking for, often known as “user intent.”
Consider the following two things in particular:
A.) Recognize Your Audience
Your target audience will determine the kind of material you provide. The more information you have about them, including their location, age, and interests, the better your content will be (and the better your SEO).
For instance, let’s say your keyword tool indicates that “Android” receives 2,740,000 searches per month. You should target your content heavily because there are so many potential viewers for it. No, not always.
There are various types of people who look up “Android”:
- Mobile users looking for assistance with Android
- Fans of Star Wars seeking droids
- Robotics enthusiasts seeking Android-related information
You run the risk of writing content for all of these subjects if you don’t know who your target audience is. You can’t please everyone with a single piece of content that is optimized for such a broad phrase, therefore doing that won’t help you get ranks or readers.
However, you’ll be better equipped to focus on issues that matter to your readers while also lowering the likelihood of producing content that doesn’t achieve results by constructing buyer personas that incorporate the shared characteristics of your ideal consumers.
B.) Group Related Content into Clusters
Organize all of your content into various themes rather than concentrating on individual keywords. HubSpot’s topic cluster model works by grouping pertinent content items into “clusters”:
To achieve this, you must:
An significant page on your website that you want to rank for a variety of keywords is known as a pillar page. On an e-commerce site, top-level categories are an example of this.
Pages that surround and link back to their associated pillar pages are known as cluster pages. Typically, they will provide further information on pillar page-related subjects or respond to queries.
The following topics are related to “workout routines”:
This tactic accomplishes three goals:
- Since individuals can quickly obtain additional in-depth information on a topic of interest, it satisfies user intent.
- Your website becomes a better resource for those key subjects as a result. Since Google wants to direct consumers to the most relevant page for their search, this is significant. It’s likely that Google will give your website better rankings if it considers it to be an excellent resource for a particular subject.
- These cluster sites each have the potential to rank highly and increase traffic to your website.
C.) Research your keyword options
You may be wondering why we list keyword research as an SEO tactic when we previously advised you to concentrate on topic clusters rather than individual keywords.
so keywords are still important.
It’s important to organize content thematically, but ignoring keywords altogether is a mistake. Indicating themes and giving Google’s spiders suggestions about the type of content on the website, keywords serve as signposts. Finding out who is searching for the topics you want to write about through keyword research makes it simpler to produce blog posts or other types of content that address clients’ specific concerns and raise brand recognition.
To access keyword data, you can utilize a variety of tools:
- Moz’s Keyword Explorer is a flexible, dynamic program that covers almost every facet of the procedure. It aids in keyword generation, list construction, and topical filtering for marketers. Additionally, you may monitor and evaluate the keywords employed by your competitors’ businesses as well as examine metrics, click-through rates, and other measures of effectiveness.
- SEMrush: SEMrush is frequently considered as one of the top SEO analytic tools, especially when it comes to business information. You can use one of its numerous capabilities to find and examine the keywords your rivals are employing by simply typing their URL into the SEMrush search field.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs provides a variety of products, such as position trackers, content explorers, and backlink checkers. In this article, we’ll concentrate on their Keywords Explorer, which enables marketers to look up about 7 billion keywords across more than 170 nations and evaluate factors like keyword difficulty, click-through rates, related keyword lists, and search volume:
View the 5-minute video below to learn How to Use Ahrefs for SEO Analysis.
Notably, the procedure is the same whether you use Semrush, SE Ranking, or Mangools as an Ahrefs substitute.
5) Produce Content That Is Voice Assistant-Friendly
Do you type as you talk? Perhaps you do when you talk to your friends on WhatsApp, but generally speaking, you don’t when you’re at work. Do you conduct a search on Google right now? Again, you probably don’t.
The development of voice assistants has changed that, though. With 4.2 billion voice assistants in use worldwide (and an estimated 8.4 billion by 2024), Google searches are now more conversational, fluid, and complex. You also need to optimize your website for voice search in a world where search engines are increasingly conversational.
How to do it is as follows:
A.) Use long-tail keywords, first
Voice search heavily relies on long-tail keywords, typically those with three or more words. You must write content specifically for this kind of keyword for your website in order to rank for it:
Use this guide to find one long-tail keyword, such as “how to wash a car.”
Look for numerous terms that are semantically similar, such as “vehicle washing guide” and “best soap for cleaning a car.”
Create a lengthy, thorough blog content and place those semantically related keywords appropriately throughout.
B.) Use long-tail keywords, first
Voice search heavily relies on long-tail keywords, typically those with three or more words. You must write content specifically for this kind of keyword for your website in order to rank for it:
Use this guide to find one long-tail keyword, such as “how to wash a car.”
Look for numerous terms that are semantically similar, such as “vehicle washing guide” and “best soap for cleaning a car.”
Create a lengthy, thorough blog content and place those semantically related keywords appropriately throughout.
To check if you’ve already implemented schema, go to Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool first:
Check out Google’s guide to Schema markup, which explains the kind of code you need and how to use it, if you haven’t already and need more in-depth information.
6.) Make Your Headings (Not Just Your Title Tags) More Effective!
Every SEO professional experiences a low point in their career when they cry, “Why Google? Why?! ”
The SEO industry was astonished to learn that Google had recently implemented the “page title update,” which saw them begin to automatically change title tags based on a page’s H1 heading.
Many professionals were taken aback by the change even though industry veterans like Danny Sullivan claimed that this practice is nothing new. People were initially perplexed and dubious about the change’s long-term effects.
Then, on August 24, Google disclosed that they had updated the names of their web pages, saying that their “new method is producing titles that work better for documents overall, to reflect what they are about, regardless of the individual inquiry.”
When Dr. Peter J. Meyers of Moz examined the SERPs for 10,000 keywords on August 25, he found that 33,733 of the 57,832 title tags had been revised, or 58% of them. Even though a sizable portion of these rewrites occurred for “natural” reasons, like when Google truncates an excessively long title, many were the result of Google’s peculiar workings.
Here is an illustration taken from MailChimp’s home page:
You can tell the difference between that straightforward, SEO-unfriendly title tag and its accurate equivalent by comparing them:
Google is substituting titles with “header tags, internal links, image alt text, or even made up wholly by Google,” claims Brodie Clark.
There is no way to predict when or how Google may modify your title tags, like most SEO-related issues. Nevertheless, they stated in their update release that they are more likely to modify a tag if it is:
- extremely lengthy
- Keyword-stuffed
- Title tags that are completely absent or that use “boilerplate” wording repeatedly, such “Home” pages for home pages
Google states the following to put everyone at ease:
“Our major piece of advice to website owners on that page stands. Ensure that your HTML title tags are excellent. More than 80% of the time, out of all the ways we create titles, HTML title tags are still by far the most frequently used.
If you need assistance, this article offers SEO page title formulas for various sorts of pages to aid you in raising the visibility of your blog posts:
7) Regularly Repurpose and Update Your Old Content
Why not simply increase an existing page’s word count from, say, 1,200 to 2,000 if you’re finding it difficult to muster the enthusiasm to write a lengthy blog post?
There is already credibility and, in some circumstances, a readership for existing content. By updating an old post with new information and material, you can improve its performance in the search results far more quickly and easily than by starting from zero.
How then do you decide what content has to be updated?
Time-sensitive topics (i.e., those like SEO that are always changing) and those that are already receiving some organic traffic but have the potential to receive much more are the greatest candidates for content refreshes.
Once there, switch the segment you’re watching to “Organic Traffic” and use your search bar to narrow down the results. For instance, all you need to do is type /blog into the search field if you want to see the traffic to material that resides in your site’s /blog subfolder.
When you’re prepared to update previous blog entries, adhere to the Single Grain updating recommendations:
- Redo the introduction and conclusion.
- Cut or merge any ineffective passages
- Do as much research and writing as you think will improve the quality of the content.
- Update any statistics, facts, or quotations, and make sure all citations are no older than two years.
- Replace any out-of-date or pointless pictures
- Any examples or case studies should be changed with more recent ones.
