Search engine optimization is the center of attention for all businesses when it comes to a digital marketing strategy. However, Google continuously makes changes to its SEO algorithm, and the most recent one came out in May 2022.
Therefore, if you are a business wondering how to make the most of your SEO digital marketing plan, you have to ensure that you are optimizing your content according to the latest Google SEO algorithm requirements.
In order to compete in the digital world and make your business one of the most prominent competitors in your niche, you must keep up with the SEO changes. This post will give you insight into some of the recent changes in SEO practices and what your approach should be to ace them.
9 Changes in SEO Practices for Digital Marketers in 2022
Regardless of your business’s industry, if you are considering developing a digital marketing strategy, the following SEO trends and practices can help.
1. Data Analytics is King
Data analytics provide valuable insight into consumers’ behavior and how your digital marketing campaign performs. You can use this information to verify which of your content is getting the most traffic and make adjustments to your campaign, website, and its content accordingly.
You can use various tools for data analysis and optimize your technical SEO, local SEO, on-page SEO, link building, etc. With this data, you will learn to proactively identify your strengths, weaknesses, and issues and instantly improve your SEO rankings.
2. Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are a must if you want to climb Google’s SEO rankings. Google introduced this change in 2017 as a shortcut for businesses to gain prominence for what theyhave to offer. Think of a snippet as a summary of content available on your website or webpage.
When you search a query on Google, you might have noticed a box at the top of the search engine result page – that is a snippet, and it can help you score significant user traffic away from your competitors. Your snippet can be an image, product description and prices, information about your company, customers’ reviews, etc.
To create great snippets, you must research relevant keywords and queries your target audience may type in when searching for products and services you offer.
3. Getting to Know Google’s RankBrain
Google introduced RankBrain, an AI algorithm, a few years back, and it now plays a critical role when it comes to ranking on Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs).
According to Greg Corrado, a Google scientist and the mastermind behind Google’s RankBrain, this tool has the ability to learn based on insights and data analysis from users’ search habits. This includes factors such as users’ click-through rate and time spent on a web page.
Therefore, you must create SEO content that is engaging and captivating enough for the visitor to click on your website link on SERP and stay on-page. You can use an on-page SEO check to assess your pages’ current strength for backlinks, readability, and more.
4. Go Mobile-Friendly
Google’s AI algorithm primarily focuses on mobile versions of the websites. This is due to a change in users’ behavior as 73% of online users now access the internet via smartphones and other mobile devices. If you want to see how your website ranks, you can check its ratings on Google’s free mobile-friendly test.
To make your website mobile-friendly, you have to ensure that there is no “disallow directive” on your website. GoogleBot will not load if your content requires user interaction, such as swiping or clicking. Plus, make sure to use the same meta-robot tags on your desktop as well as mobile website.
5. Google EAT Principle for Content
Whether you are a startup or a seasoned digital marketer, the quality of your content is the epicenter of success for a high Google SEO ranking. Therefore, your content must primarily fulfill Google’s Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EAT) principle.
EAT determines if your website has data that is useful and of high quality. If your business falls in the Your Money, Your Life (YMYL) niche like finance and healthcare, EAT is a must-have component for your SEO practices. To ensure that you follow the EAT principle, you can seek the assistance of the top-rated SEO company near you.
6. Optimize your Images
Google requires you to optimize all your images with proper marking. If you have not done so, you must immediately act and incorporate this change in SEO practice into your digital marketing optimization strategy.
Use a high-quality image with an optimized file name and label. You have to ensure that the images are relevant to your content, products, services, or business sector. You must use alt tags so Google’s crawlers can classify your images, and do not forget to add images to your website’s map.
7. Predictive Search
This is Google’s AI-driven tool. Have you ever tried typing a query in the search box and seeing a dropdown list of suggested queries appear? That is predictive search. Google has learned from users’ search behavior over time and proactively identifies what a user might be searching in order to offer a great user experience.
Having SEO-optimized content with relevant keywords and long-tail keyphrases might help your SEO ranking and appear in Google’s predictive search list. This will help increase organic traffic to your website due to a higher click-through rate.
8. Visual SEO
Online videos are a hit amongst internet users. From entertainment to advertisement, users now prefer consuming information in a visual format. Cisco predicts that video consumption will beat all other forms of content in the future. Therefore, you must incorporate visual content into your website or pages and optimize it.
9. Voice Search is the Future
Voice search assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant have been around for a while. Experts predict that 55% of households will own a smart speaker/assistant by the end of 2022. Therefore, you must optimize your keywords for voice search. Learn to identify long key phrases that potential customers may use to search for products and services your business offers.
Best Digital Agency in your area
Whether you are a digital marketer or a business owner working to improve your SEO ranking, FireStarter SEO can help. We are a Denver-based marketing firm with expertise in search engine optimization using the latest practices and trends that search engines such as Google introduced. Speak to our SEO experts today!
