If you’re running a small business in 2021, then you know how hard it can be to stand apart from the crowd.
Rising above the competition isn’t just about having the best products or services. It’s also about appealing to the greatest number of people through digital marketing. Having an effective marketing campaign will depend on how much time, research, and effort you put into understanding your customers and how to appeal to them.
One of the ways that you can bolster your online presence is with SEO, so in this post, we’re going to discuss the latest SEO trends that are poised to dominate 2022 and beyond. Search engine optimization has become an indispensable tool for small businesses because of its effectiveness with growing brands and boosting traffic, but also because of how affordable it can be if you take the time to master it.
So, keep reading and you’ll have a better sense of where SEO is and where it’s going in the very near future.
1. Optimized Video Content
More people are watching video content than ever before, as is evidenced by the direction social media has gone in the last few years with TikTok and Twitch. YouTube remains one of the most important content mediums and Instagram has made a significant shift towards video content. You could do an entire article just talking about video content, so here are a few stats that showcase the importance of videos for your business:
- 2/3 of people would prefer to watch a video explaining a product over a text-based approach.
- If you include a video on your landing page, conversion rates can go up 80%.
- 33% of viewers stop a video after 30 seconds; 45% by a minute; 60% by 2 minutes.
- 39% of people call a vendor after watching a video.
So, how do you use video to boost SEO?
Create videos on important landing pages to describe products and services, give tutorials and demos, and most importantly, let your personality come through. This will help boost your brand loyalty and entice new customers to come along for the ride. The more views your videos have, the better it is for your SEO strategy.
As far as an SEO strategy involving video goes, make sure to include keywords in the name of the video and the descriptions. Using keywords in hashtags and throughout the video can help too.
2. AI In SEO
Artificial intelligence has gradually taken the spotlight when it comes to content and how people interact with it online. It’s also going to play a significant role in SEO via this new part of Google’s search algorithm, called RankBrain. We’re not exactly sure how this is going to affect SEO for small businesses, but figuring out how to appeal to an AI algorithm is sure to be a trend in and of itself.
In all likelihood, user experience is going to play a big part in how RankBrain does its thing, so factors like clickthrough rate and the amount of time people spend on your site will matter more than ever. Having a high-functioning, attractive, fast, and easy-to-use website will be really important moving forward.
3. Voice Search Takeover
Voice search is something that has been knocking on the door for years, poised to disrupt how we think about SEO. It seems that the time is now for the voice search takeover; the amount of time we spend on mobile devices is far surpassing desktops and laptops, and voice search is intimately tied to mobile use.
Your Alexas, Siris, and Google Assistants of the world have made it so easy to ask your device questions, which means keywords aren’t restricted to just words anymore. Long-tail keywords are more important now because search is more conversational or “natural” sounding. Around 70% of search queries contain 4 or more words now, so to improve your SEO, you’ll have to focus more on naturally fitting these longer key “phrases” in your content and on landing pages.
4. Mobile-First Site Building
Piggybacking off of the last point, because mobile devices rule everything nowadays, your website has to become more mobile-friendly, if not mobile-first. It’s been 6 years since Google has made mobile-friendliness a factor in determining SERP standing, so hopefully, you’ve already had this at the forefront of your SEO strategy. If not, now’s the time to start optimizing your content for mobile devices.
You can easily monitor how mobile-friendly your site is with Google’s mobile-friendly website testing tool.
5. Longer Form Content
Having discussed the importance of video content earlier in this post, you may think that written content has taken a downturn. Though shorter, more to-the-point videos are proven to be more effective than long ones, the opposite seems to be true for written content. Stats show that long-form content (3,000 words or more) gets far more shares and traffic than shorter articles.
At the heart of this trend is Google’s E-A-T principle, which states that you need to showcase E – expertise, A – authoritativeness, and T – trustworthiness in your content to improve SEO standing. Long-form content that is informative about your niche gives you the chance to win over new customers with E-A-T.
You’ll have to ensure that your content is still mobile-friendly, and a 3,000-word article can be daunting to read on a 6-inch screen, so make sure to break up your content into sections.
6. Link Building (Ethically)
Google has begun cracking down on link schemes that build your backlinks up without much rhyme or reason. Lots of companies used this method because it appealed to the algorithm and worked wonders for SEO, but it’s now being penalized and should be avoided at all costs.
If you want to rank higher, then you’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way by making really valuable content that other sites, blogs, and companies just want to share. This is called ethical link building and it can do wonders for your SEO strategy because backlinks still matter. When you write a great post, be sure to spread it on your social media accounts to give it the biggest possible audience and encourage sharing.
Following the Best SEO Trends
These are a few of the top SEO trends in 2021 and 2022, but SEO is something you have to pay close attention to all the time. It’s always changing, so it can be difficult to stay on top of when you’re busy running your business. It can be extremely beneficial to involve outside services to boost your SEO, which is why contentmanager.io is here to help.
We’re a content creation service that can help you grow your online presence organically. Visit our page to learn more about what we do and contact us to find out how we can boost your SEO.
