What’s going to be big for SEO in 2022?
Google in 2021 gave us a lot of new features to think about as SEO’s, meaning that future SEO strategies can no longer be quite as black and white as perhaps they have been. So what does this mean for site owners?
Thanks to Majestic SEO for sponsoring this webinar, Dixon Jones for hosting it and David Bain for the excellent production.
My own take on SEO strategies for 2022 revolves a lot around technical SEO, site architecture, internal linking and creating topic hubs – focussed groups of information.
Google’s Multitask Unified Model (MUM) means that there are going to be some exciting changes to how search works by creating a more visual service. It won’t necessarily apply to all websites, but by understanding more about what it means, you can at least make an informed decision.
Rejoice Ojiaku had some excellent insights into repurposing content – taking content you already have and making it more current, rather than having to come up with lots of new ideas.
Rejoice goes on to say “I will add that when repurposing content, within the strategy, think about how you can work with other channels such as Social. Can the content be turned into an Instagram post? Infographic? Don’t forget that repurposing can also mean content format as well as content copy.“
Lidia Infante then spoke about how some of her goals were to try and make Big Commerce’s websites more agile and fit for business purpose, rather than focussing only on SEO – a great idea that any business owner will benefit from.
So to summarise…
- Creating solid topical clusters of information to help show Google your most important pages.
- Repurposing content you already have, rather than coming up with something new. Think about social and format as well.
- Creating agile strategies foryour websites without compromising on quality.
Will backlinks still matter in 2022?
You’d better believe it! Backlinks are just as important for any 2022 SEO strategy as they were in 2021, 2020, 2019, etc.
They are probably one of my biggest business areas now and account for most of what clients want – and with good reason! When you see your already-optimised pages start to rise after you start link building, then you are going to want to continue with that.
Keep in mind that Google loves to see votes for sites, so in the same way that an internal link is your internal ‘vote’ for a page on your site, backlinks pass a similar signal back to Google. They are a 3rd party site saying to Google “Yes, I vote for this site by giving them a mention”. The anchor text will tell them more about the page and site they lead to.
Will content still matter in 2022?
Of course – Content continues to maintain a top-5 spot for what is going to be important in 2022, so if you don’t have a content strategy planned yet, I would advise starting soon.
Keep in mind though, Rejoice advises that you should repurpose content if you can. No point in trying to re-invent the wheel!
However, keep in mind that content doesn’t necessarily belong on every page on your site. An e-commerce website, for example, won’t want hundreds of words of SEO copy to try and improve the page – this would actually have a detrimental effect.
An easy way to gauge what it needed, is to look at your competitors – what are they doing?
Will page speed and Core Web Vitals matter in 2022?
Another very easy ‘Yes’.
Who doesn’t want to continue improving their page speed? And while this might not be a direct correlation to a shift in search positions, indirectly, this can have an impact.
If your site continues to frustrate visitors and they leave, Google knows this and knows they have visited a competitor instead.
You need to be very aware that Google has as part of their many algorithms, one that focuses on user satisfaction. You know this is going to have a negative impact if visitors aren’t happy.
Don’t ignore your best practices
Google want to see so much more than what is mentioned above, so don’t forget the basics, such as:
- Page Titles
- Meta Descriptions
- Canonical links
- Use of Headings (H1, H2, etc)
- 404 links pages
- +many more
Consider the best practices being those that you would want to have correct on your site and pages, no matter what.
Search Intent and User Journey
Although there is so much I could talk about on this topic, I’m going to end with a reminder of just how important the whole user journey is.
When someone searches for a product or service that you have to offer, does your page have everything they need to know? Does it fully satisfy the user’s request without them having to leave and go somewhere else?
Don’t be afraid about being critical of your pages – if you feel there is a gap in what you’re offering, then fill it. If visitors are leaving, ask yourself why?
Have a watch of the full video above for some additional thoughts and information.