As Google regularly implements algorithm updates, it’s important to be aware and keep your strategies up to date. One notable trend is the rise of no-click searches that threaten to diminish the organic traffic that earnest content creators strive to create. Trends like this leave SEO professionals scrambling to adapt and formulate a response strategy.

Although many question whether SEO is a dying industry, with a valuation of over $80 billion, it’s clear that this is still a powerful industry. How can you adapt to the consistent bombardment of updates? How do you gain a foothold in the industry? Is an SEO company right for you? Continue reading to gain insight into the future of SEO in 2022.

How to Capitalize on SEO Trends in 2022 and Beyond

1. Prioritize Topic over Keywords

Google does little to prioritize keywords, instead, topic modeling holds much more significance. The search engine is now much more capable of defining user intent with just a few words. This means that information structure is increasingly important.

Pretend your site is selling running shoes. You could write full-length informative blog posts about different running paths and trails, or additional health benefits from running.

Later, you can group these blog posts into different topics. When users and data crawlers are searching for information, this topic clustering makes it easy to navigate and discover your content.

2. Organic Searches receive the most traffic

While Google continues to cram ads into SERPs, the majority of traffic is still given to organic results. Although Google tries to keep them discreet, people are still very aware of these ads. Consider alternatives before throwing your future SEO budget into an ads campaign.

3. Artificial Intelligence is Key

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has played a significant role in the advancement of SEO recently. Not long ago, Google disclosed the future of SEO in AI, Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT). Bert uses natural language processing to decipher and interpret the context and nuances of words. This allows computers to understand language in a manner similar to humans. Through this advanced understanding, Bert can assist in creating improved matches for users’ inquiries.

There is a catch, optimizing for this AI through practical means is doubtful. One technique to utilize for BERT is writing a solid piece of content at all times.

4. Brand building is key for SEO

Although it is downplayed, brand building is crucial for the future of SEO in 2022. Branding helps you stand out among competitors because of 2 components, authority, and trust. Consider these tips to strengthen your brand.

• Define your brand’s story. People are captivated by stories they relate to. Brand stories full of personality and charm that resonate with the audience often perform extremely well.
• Foresee user experience. Your website is the digital embodiment of your brand. It’s essential to deliver an exceptional user experience. Establish this by ensuring your site is prompt, responsive, and easy to use.
• Utilize social media. Social media is often used to discover new brands. With potential customers browsing your social media content, ensure your profile is meaningful and productive.

While it’s important to build ties with potential customers, consider reaching out to experts in your niche as well. This improves your chances of earning natural and quality backlinks if they share your content.

5. Contemplate your Voice Search Approach

Voice Search is becoming an integral ingredient in the future of SEO evolution. Figures have shown that a compelling amount of current users search Google through voice, and this figure is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. With this in mind, it’s important to optimize your voice search going forward. Consider these tips.

• Speak casually. Many will speak using voice search in the same way they would talk to a human. This is commonly done through spoken questions. Be sure to include question words like “why” and “how” in your web content.
• Establish fast loading times. Users will commonly opt-out if the site takes more than a few seconds to load. If needed, seek help from web design and IT professionals who can help improve the speed at which your page loads.
• Enhance your web images. While this may seem like a tedious task, it is well worth it as it makes your site more voice search-friendly. Institute this by giving your images relevant captions, titles, and tags.

When refining your strategy to be more voice search friendly, remember that this will only work with noteworthy content. A 2,000-word in-depth article will always beat a 600-word post that barely scratches the surface of a topic.

To Conclude

The future of SEO in 2022 is ever-changing. With regularly made updates, things can surely be overwhelming for the average digital marketer. Those who are prepared to adapt and change will separate themselves from the competition. SEO is here to stay, it’s up to you to keep up.