It’s that time of year when we all get the chance to think about what areas of SEO, we should concentrate on in 2022. Using what you have learned in 2021, analysing some key trends and making some predictions about what actions might have a positive effect on your SEO is a good way to create a plan to make improvements to your SEO strategy.
Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start especially in a climate where Google is continually announcing changes to its policies.
To help you out, we have done some research for you. These are our top 15 SEO tips for 2022.
1. Develop a testing strategy
It doesn’t matter how good your SEO ideas are if you don’t take the time to test and analyse how they have worked.
Using any one of the many testing tools available can help you to analyse the results of different SEO techniques and how effective they have been. Simply choose the ones that work best and scrap the rest. Testing needs to be an ongoing policy to ensure your SEO practice is at its best.
2. Audit your Google Title Rewrites
Google title rewrites were a hot topic in 2021 and now you need to make the most of the knowledge you have gained by analysing the reasons for the changes that Google makes.
Find out why Google rewrites your titles and use this information to improve your titles in the future. For example, you might need to shorten them or use more accurate keywords. If you find that you disagree with Google’s title rewrites, then you can correct the titles yourself.
3. Defluff your pages
As well as simplifying titles, Google seems to dislike any fluff in your content. Google appears to prefer direct straightforward answers to questions. Alas, this means rethinking your inventive marketing language and removing unnecessary information that could be detrimental to your rankings.
Make this the year that you take out the superfluous fluff and engage more directly with your audience.
4. Improve Internal Links
Carrying out an audit on your internal links is a great way to ensure they are working for you, and we know how much importance Google places on links.
You can use a variety of tools to help you identify whether your pages have the optimum number of internal links and help you make the most of any opportunities that will see your pages rank higher.
5. Include Some Passage Linking
Google has now brought in passage ranking as a way of evaluating specific parts of a page. To make the most of this you should try introducing some deep links to particular passages on a page rather than just linking to the page URL.
6. Check Affiliate Links and Review Guidance
In the past affiliate links have not been discussed very often but since Google produced specific guidance for affiliate links it makes sense to make sure you are doing them right. Similarly, Google produced guidance for review sites regarding what they consider makes a good review.
The good news is that if your site contains any affiliate links or reviews then it is a fairly simple process to check them against the guidelines to ensure you are optimizing them for SERPS and indexing.
7. How good is your Reputation?
Reputation Research was something raised in Google’s updated Search Quality Raters Guidelines last year. The updates mean that you need to know what other people are saying about you, your site or your product.
Google not only looks at the number of good reviews but also takes into account the quality of the reviews using a specific algorithm. In addition to reviews, Google will also react badly to anything detrimental written about you and this could even possibly lead to you being removed from search.
Make it one of your goals in 2022 to do some regular research to keep on top of your reputation online.
8. Look at Google Discover
Google introduced Google Discover last year as a new part of its feed. With over 800 million people using the feed each month it could be an important driver for traffic to your site.
Google Discover works like social media, showing users content that its algorithms think will be relevant. By optimizing your content for Google Discover you might be able to create another channel for driving traffic to your site. This could be particularly relevant if you publish blogs on popular topics.
9. Think about FAQ
Having optimized FAQs can make a big difference to your performance on Google. The good news is that for many sites FAQs are easy to include as they are highly valuable to users by providing quick answers to questions which is exactly what Google wants to see in its search results.
There are several easy ways you can get more out of them to ensure you do well in SERPS. Make some straightforward changes by focussing on the most popular questions suggested by keyword research. It’s also worth making your answers satisfying for the user and including some relevant links.
For other ideas check out How to optimize your FAQ Schema.
10. Review your Tabs
If you still have content in tabs on your site, then you must take some time to discover whether Google can index and rank the content appropriately.
Depending on what you find out you might want to consider bringing your content out of tabs for easier and more productive navigation.
11. Optimize your Faceted Navigation
Faceted navigation allows searchers to narrow down search results based on exact product features. The aim is to ensure that a product is indexed.
The rules are complex and structured but many tools can help you to look at the traffic patterns for indexing and crawls. Analysing this can help you to refine your faceted navigation by working out the product attributes that match best to consumer intent.
In 2022 make some time to use the tools available to identify what customers will be searching for when they are looking for a product. For example, will it be colour, size, style, or fabric that brings them to your site when searching for a winter coat?
12. Audit your Redirects
Whatever size website you are dealing with you want to improve the crawling efficiency and reduce errors that stop your pages from getting indexed by Google.
Redirects are a common problem on sites where confusing signals and chains block your pages from being found by Google. Ensuring you have single redirects will remove the errors and ensure Google can find you.
It may not be the most exciting thing you can do but an audit for redirects can make a big difference to your rankings.
13. Optimize your Favicon
Not sure what a favicon is? If you don’t have one, then you may be missing out on an opportunity to perform better in search.
A favicon is a 16×16 pixel icon that represents your brand visually. It boosts your branding and acts as quick identification. Whilst they aren’t directly responsible for your SEO, they do act as a tool for improving your rankings.
They make your site more user friendly, they can help you get bookmarked on Chrome and they increase your visibility. All these things contribute to success with Google. This is particularly true on mobile devices where a favicon is more prominent. Since more than half of searches are done on a phone, it is worth ensuring your favicon stands out.
14. Aim to please
Now this one is not about being nice, but it is about satisfying your users. It simply means that you want visitors to get the answer to their questions when they click on your site, so they do not need to go elsewhere.
Everything you do on your website should be about meeting your users’ needs and giving them a great experience. If you get this right, then there is a far greater chance that Google will rank you first.
15. One last Thing…
We have said this before, but it is worth making the point again for 2022. Don’t underestimate the benefit of investing in SEO. SEO guidelines are constantly evolving as Google streamlines and improves its search functions. Keeping on top of SEO is a specialised field that requires time and attention to get results.
If you doubt the benefit of spending money on SEO then consider the fact that Google themselves rate the value of spending on SEO.
In a recent study, it was revealed that sites that rank first on a Google search engine results page (SERP) achieve about a 17% click-through rate. This is reduced to 0.5% for pages that rank tenth. If this converts to sales, then you can begin to see the return on investment (ROI).
Whether you use an agency, buy some tools or hire an SEO manager then it’s time to evaluate the return for yourself.
If you have not got an SEO budget for 2022, then it’s about time you allocate one.
