Working your way around the digital marketing landscape in 2022 is not a simple matter. The power of SEO is recognized by virtually every company doing business in the digital environment, which means that the field is more competitive than ever before. Fortunately for you, the fact that there are changes, algorithm updates, and new trends every year, you get a chance to outcompete them all through innovativeness. With that in mind and without further ado, here are the top five SEO trends for 2022 that you should know about.
1. A longer form of content
The first thing worth mentioning is that content forms that are 3,000 words and longer get a lot more traffic and shares than their shorter counterparts. One of the main reasons behind it is that your audience can get all they need from one resource, without having to go anywhere else. Needless to say, a longer content format also means a longer average visit duration.
Keep in mind that it also takes a lot longer to produce this content. In 2014, it took about 2 hours and 24 minutes to write an average blog post, while in 2021, it took 4 hours and 1 minute. There are several reasons behind this. One is that (as we’ve already mentioned), longer content formats have better performance. The second one is that high competitiveness in content marketing raises expectations of the audience.
The best way to satisfy these needs for longer content formats is to allow guest posting (so that the quantity of your posting schedule is honoured). To make this work, you need great guidelines. Getting some of these guest posters (the best ones) to stay as contributors is even better.
2. Mobile-friendliness is key
For starters, we need to define a mobile-friendly website. The simplest way to describe it would be to say that it’s dynamic and responsive. Now, there are several methods on how you can achieve this, one of the simplest (and most popular) being to make a mobile subdomain.
Learning a thing or two about optimizing your website for mobile users is already a great head start, but you probably want to work with professionals. When formatting for mobile devices, everything is different. For instance, while Flash and Java are great for desktop users, when going mobile, what you want is to use HTML5. It’s these simple tricks that make all the difference.
You also want to think about readability. For instance, a base font of 16 pixels is great, but the choice of typeface is just as crucial. When it comes to this, you can’t go wrong with something classic like Arial or Times New Roman. Whitespace management is vital for more than just readability. It facilitates navigation and reduces the likelihood that a person using touch will click on something accidentally.
3. Outsourcing to specialists
While there are so many guides and tutorials online, it’s never a good idea to try and handle your SEO on your own. Sure, you can make a tweak here and there, but it’s better to outsource. According to a prestigious SEO company from Sydney, it’s not even about whether you can do it or not but about doing something in the most time-, effort-, and cost-efficient manner.
One of the biggest bottlenecks of digital marketing (especially SEO) is the learning curve. Why? Well, because you start learning something, perhaps even get good at it, or you find out that new changes are coming in a couple of months. SEO experts are simply more efficient at keeping track of these changes and adjusting.
A content marketing strategy is also fairly difficult to manage. The keyword strategy alone can be problematic for someone with no previous experience in the industry, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. What about a thematic content creation calendar, content marketing, and link building? Not to mention that you need this content strategy to work across various channels? It’s simply better to delegate this to someone better prepared.
4. Learn how to properly do video content
Properly doing video content is something that can propel your SEO campaign into one of the most successful of the year. Still, making and using these videos is one of the things you need to take as your starting point. For starters, the videos you record need to be of the highest quality. Second, you want to use them on your website so that you captivate the audience right away.
Keep in mind that your videos need context. How do you do this? Well, by adding a caption, thumbnail and picking the most effective length for the platform that you’re posting on. You see, YouTube videos are expected to be a lot longer than their social media counterparts. However, when working on SEO, you’re not just focusing on the human audience. Transcribing the video might help with the crawlers quite a bit.
Lastly, remember that video content is still… well, content. Therefore, it needs to inform, educate, or entertain to provide value. With this out of your way, everything will go smoothly.
5. Prepare for future changes
Contrary to popular belief, SEO will not vanish in the next five years. It means that you need to set up your SEO infrastructure so that it’s adjustable to future changes. There are a couple of things you can expect in the future, like social media and search engines getting even more tightly intertwined. That is mostly due to the rise of popularity in social media.
Moreover, messaging apps are driving more traffic than ever before. It also might become the next major focus of SEO campaigns. Overall, we have to wait and see.
In conclusion
In the end, keeping up with the latest SEO trends is the only way to stay competitive in this ever-shifting landscape. What you want is to find expert outside help to assist you, focus your efforts on mobile devices as the rising power in the digital world, as well as rethink your content strategy. By covering these several fronts, you’ll make a world of difference.
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