SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of getting your content posts rank as higher as possible in search engines such as Google. Here we will also be talking about what we will have in 2022. According to statistics, about 65% of people all over the world having access to the internet caters to online shopping. In the USA alone about 79% of the total population does online shopping. Of this huge chunk of the population, more than 60% prefers search engine to inspect any product or service. Therefore ranking higher in search engines can lead to an increase in traffic to any website. This in turn leads to more sales.
Search engine optimization results in organic traffic. Organic traffic refers to those visitors who land on your website without any paid sources like advertisements. For this reason, traffic that comes via SEO is often referred to as ‘Organic Search Traffic’. About 97.8% of online visitors come through organic traffic.
Benefits of Search engine optimization on online marketing:
As you might have observed when you search for any information or product in the search bar of Google, results are presented in an ordered list. For example, if you search for ‘protein powder’, you will get a list of results. You will probably opt-in for the first, second, or in some cases the third option. But according to statistics, the number one option receives about 60% of the traffic. For the second and third pages, it is significantly less. Only 2-3% of people make it to the second page of the search results. Thus small improvements in the form of Search Engine Optimization are required to stand out your business among the competition.
Because of this businesses and website owners try to manipulate the search results to rank their site higher up the ladder. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in.
The Working of Search Engine Optimization
Every search like Google uses an algorithm or set of rules to determine what pages to show according to a given query. These algorithms are complex and involve thousands of ranking factors to determine the ranking of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). But there are some core metrics that the search engine need to evaluate to determine the quality of a site and how it should rank:
Links
Links can be internal links or outbound links. Internal links are those which link one page or post of your website to another. Whereas outbound links are those which link your posts or page to another website ( outside of yours ). You might also have heard about backlinks. If someone links your website from other sources then you have a backlink from them. Such links are seen as a vote of quality from other websites since other people won’t link to your website without any value. Sites acquiring all such links gain authority in the eyes of search engines.
Page Structure
This is one of the most important components of SEO. Webpages are written in HTML. The way the HTML code is structured impacts a search engine’s ability to evaluate a page. These include relevant keywords in the title, headers, and URLs of the page making sure that a site is crawlable. Site owners can take action to optimize their site to improve the SEO of their site.
Content
Search engines like Google also crawl through your entire content to check whether your content is relevant for any given search query. A large part of creating content is towards targeting keywords that search engines’ users are searching for.
Now let’s look at what you should look for in 2022:
Trends to look for in 2022
Page speed
This aspect of SEO is sometimes overlooked. It will become critical for every company out there to provide fast website experiences. There are several tools out there like page speed insights or gtmetrix.com where you can put your URL to check your page’s speed. Google always checks how long does it take for your page to load or how fast viewers can access other information on your website. All these determine how well you are going to rank. Page speed is both present and future of SEO
Focus on user search intent
This was popular in the past and it still holds true for 2022. User search intent specifies why someone conducts a search is critical in ranking. For that, you should look at what’s already ranking in your pages’ key terms. Based on search results you get an idea of how to approach your content.
Creating a mobile-friendly website
More and more people nowadays are interacting through and making transactions through their smartphones. Google also uses a ‘Mobile first Index’ which means it considers your mobile version of your website to rank your site in search results. So this aspect becomes crucial for online businesses to focus on to rank higher up in the search results.
Focus on Semantic Research
Semantics is the study of words and their relationships and what their words mean in specific contexts. It is used to determine the context and intent of search queries. It focuses on delivering the best user experience for your audience. The weightage of this aspect will increase in the coming years. Thus it encourages the creators to focus on their audience and give them the best experience.
Incorporating omnichannel marketing
While Search engine optimization is one way to get noticed but it’s not the only one. People can discover your business through multiple platforms. It may be through social media ads, pay-per-click ads, or organic social media posts. Once people discover your business, you might want to keep them interested through email marketing and social media marketing. This way you can nurture your prospects towards converting.