I wrote an article towards the end of 2020 highlighting the fact that it was a forgetful year for the human race. However, it was still a blessing in disguise for many online businesses as new opportunities were created and new ways were discovered to expand existing businesses.
People realized the importance of the internet as a life saver more than ever. Thus, data usage grew to a record high. Working from home (via the internet), Online education, Online shopping/purchase are the 3 most popular use of the internet that come to my mind right now. Of course, there are many more ways the internet helped people survive during the pandemic.
2021, however, has been a much better year for the humankind with the much needed Covid19 vaccination and the praiseworthy awareness amongst people. The most recent Omicron variant appears to be causing a bit of concern though. If it turns mild, then 2021 will end well.
So, for 2022, we may anticipate some updates from Google for ranking websites and videos on YouTube. In this post, I’m going to share 7 practical SEO tips and techniques with you that will help you stay ahead of your competition in 2022. Let’s get into it.
Pay attention to your website’s responsiveness
I guess your website is responsive already. If not, do it immediately. If you want to keep separate versions of your website for desktop and mobile users, that’s fine. But it’s always good to make the same website URL responsive for all devices, so desktop, tablet and mobile users can open the very URL on their respective devices without any issues.
Also, the website should be optimized for speed. There are multiple ways you can enhance the speed of your site. You should use responsive lightweight coding and less Javascript elements. Compress all images across the site. These are a couple of basic things you can do, but there are more, and one major issue can always come from your hosting server if not chosen carefully and correctly. Dedicated hosting is the best, but some shared hosting plans from some of the reliable hosting providers are also great in terms of speed and customer service. Why not choose them?
Website speed matters. It is considered as a direct ranking signal these days. Make sure your website is fully responsive and loads fast across all devices.
Optimize user experience
Website responsiveness and loading speed are two such factors that affect the user experience, and there are also some other things that you can implement in order to optimize the user experience of your website. The design of the page, content (text, images and videos) and suitable calls to action elements add to the user experience part.
We have already discussed these factors enhancing the user experience of the website, and you know this already.
So, what’s new in this?
Well, nothing new, but you need to keep up the good work of trying to enhance the user experience and increase the user retention time, thereby reducing the bounce rate. These are common signals for Google to see which pages are performing well and decide on ranking them on the search results.
Your competitors are also putting their best to enhance their on-page user experience and outperform your site. Slight negligence from you can cost you a big price, so you need to keep doing your best all the time.
Google Chrome User Experience Report can be an excellent tool for you to study the metrics, gather the relevant data and improve on your site’s user experience.
Analyze the on-site elements
When it comes to on-site elements there are quite a few areas that you can take into consideration. Take a look at the Design of your competitors’ websites. That is the first thing that users see. If their design is not nice and yet they are ranking, then you have got a strong point in your favor. Make your site visually appealing and that’s how you can beat those competitors whose sites suck look-wise.
Create video content
Start creating videos from today if you have not already.
Written content has not lost its glory, but video is the future. (Hey, don’t get scared if you’re a writer and don’t stop writing!!)
I’m sure you’re watching YouTube every day, so why not use this platform to leverage your business? YouTube is the second largest search engine today, and its watch time is ever increasing. It’s not going to stop, so there are great opportunities for business owners to jump into the pool, maintain a good YouTube channel for their brand and start expanding their audience base. You can connect more and better with your audience through videos, so start investing in this today.
YouTube journey can be exciting. It’s only a matter of a few videos to understand how exactly this whole YouTube thing works. Once you get over that initial phase of struggle and pain you can start creating advanced videos for your audience and learn about YouTube SEO to gain more exposure for your videos. Yes, the journey will be exciting. Start today.
Optimize Google My Business (GMB) listing
Google My Business (GMB) is an ever expanding asset for search professionals and business owners as Google keeps adding new features to it every now and then. And the purpose is to help good local businesses get a chance to connect with their local audiences.
In order to make the most of your GMB profile, you should invest in creating Google Posts, Google Images, Google Q & A, and Google Reviews etc. These are all components of your GMB profile. You need to optimize your GMB profile nicely. If Google notices your activities in those places, it can do wonders for your business. It’s a strong ranking signal.
- Publish on Google Posts regularly just like you do on Facebook and Twitter.
- Upload and update new images and videos on your GMB profile.
- Google adds new categories to the GMB listing, and you need to fill in those categories by updating relevant information.
- Take the Local Business Reviews feature to your advantage. Engage more with your local audience through those reviews.
Strengthen your link building approach
Link building has always been the heart of SEO. I mean SEO cannot exist without link building. For the most part, your SEO performance depends on your link building approach. But the point to remember here is that the type of link building we were all indulged in a decade ago or even 5-7 years ago is not the same today. It’s been evolved quite a lot over these past years and it’s going to continue to change in the future as well.
So, what do you need to keep in mind for 2022 when it comes to your link building strategy?
Traditional inbound links are still going to work in 2022, but this time you need to be choosy. Don’t target just about any platform for linking back to your content or web page(s) only because they are giving you quick links. It’s worthwhile to wait for days to get approval from the platforms as long as they are good sources and their links can propel your SEO performance forward. If you find that other websites have used your content, infographics or videos etc., contact them and ask to mention your website as the source of the content. They will have no problem in linking back to your website as the content source.
For outbound links, ask Google not to count on the links that you don’t like for your SEO growth.
- Use rel=â€nofollow†attribute for those types of links.
- For sponsored links that you want to generate advertising income, use rel=â€sponsoredâ€.
- For links within the user generated content like blog comments, reviews etc., use rel=â€ugcâ€.
It’s all about being creative with your link building approach for 2022 and the coming years.
Target the SERP strategically
SERP means the Search Engine Results Page. Then what is strategic SERP targeting?
Let me explain this to you. When doing SEO we optimize the website with the hope of getting ranked on the first SERP, which shows 10 results on the page. But our aim is to get found within the 5th position because the websites between the 1st and 5th positions get the most amount of clicks.
On the SERP, we first had only the organic search results. Then Google introduced paid Ads results above the organic listing, then Maps and Local listings on the right, and then featured snippets and Q&A section below the Ads. This means there is continuous experimentation to provide the best and most relevant search results to the users but Ads are going to stay there on the top of the search page. If you are only going to target the organic listings, you’re lost.
Therefore, you will have to target the snippets section, the Q&A section, the local listings section on the right etc. The idea is to consume more space on the SERP. This is strategic targeting of the search results page. Try this technique today, and the result will be amazing in 2022.
Learn Google Search Console insights
Google Search Console is one of the best SEO tools available on the market today. It is free. It already has a lot of features integrated to the console that are quite handy for website owners, and they continue to add more features regularly.
If you learn all these features well, you can easily find a lot of useful insights from them. The Performance Report, Index Coverage Report, URL Inspection, Reports Filters etc… – they are all very helpful in providing data, information, and the details of the issues and how to fix those. You can share some of those information and valuable insights with your website developer to get the problems fixed, which in turn can help your search engine ranking flourish.
I’m sure there are quite a number of similar tools available that can provide useful insights. If you want, you can learn them too, but tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, which are provided by Google are very reliable and useful.
So, these were my top 7 SEO tips to up your SEO game in 2022. I believe you’re going to include some or all of these in your SEO strategy for 2022.