Some advanced SEO strategies for 2022
SEO tactics are a constantly evolving and growing field. Here are some of the best:
1. Use effective SEO tools
SEO tools will save you from the exhausting work of keyword research and analysis. They will allow you to easily know which parts of your strategies are working well and which ones need adjustments. Good SEO tools will also send you reports that you can use to see how you are doing against the competition and where you can find opportunities. SEO tools can also help you manage multiple websites on the go, saving you hours of effort.
Google search console
Google Search Console It is offered to anyone with a website for free. It allows you to monitor your site's presence in Google SERPs. You must first add a code snippet to your website to verify it, after which you can submit your sitemap for indexing. Using the console, you can now control what is indexed. Google Search Console also helps you understand exactly what keywords your site is ranking for. This way you can optimize your site much better for Google.
Analytics
Google Analytics It is a tool widely used on hundreds of thousands of websites on the Internet. With this tool, you can analyze your web traffic, identify your top content, monitor valuable marketing channels, and also analyze user behavior such as click-through rates, average time spent, bounce rates, etc.
SEO Plugins
For WordPress based websites, plugins like AIOSEO y Yoast SEO They are helpful. These plugins will help you generate perfectly optimized content for search engine crawlers by performing on-page SEO analysis. These tools also help in writing meta tags, generating sitemaps, and integrating social media.
2. Find the keywords customers search for
Keyword research will give you valuable information about what your target audience really wants. When researching online, people search with these keywords. With this information, you can make an informed content strategy (and your larger advertising and marketing strategies too). Here are some strategies to consider in 2022 when researching keywords.
Find long-tail keywords with Google Suggests
Long-tail keywords are longer keyword phrases that contain 3 or more words. It's important that your content has a mix of short- and long-tail terms, because this type of keyword strategy is suitable for both short- and long-term goals. This is simply because shorter keywords are searched frequently, making them much harder to rank for. Some ways to research effective long-tail keywords are:
- Type a keyword into the Google search bar, but don't press enter. Instead, look at the alternative suggestions Google provides. These are commonly searched keywords.
- The “People Also Ask” section is now displayed on Google SERP for almost 85% of searches. It's a great way to incorporate longer keywords, as this feature allows you to understand exactly what questions users are asking.
- The SERP footer will also display search terms related to what you have searched for. This section also provides information about the keywords people search for.
Google keyword planner
Google's keyword research tool can help you understand how often certain words are searched for and how they have changed over time. This will help you find the keywords that are most relevant to your business and then strategize around them. Most people usually just type seed keywords into Google Keyword Planner to get ideas. However, if you enter the URL of your page, the tool will scrape that page and generate many more keywords that you wouldn't normally see.
Popular forums
Reddit has a discussion board for seemingly every topic in the world. This makes it a treasure trove of research for marketers. You can use it to understand what queries people have, and this will give you a significant idea of which keywords you should use. Similarly, you can also use Quora and other popular discussion forums.
3. Optimize your content with keywords
It's important to understand that you don't create content around what you want to tell people. Instead, you should create content based on what people want and ask for. In other words, you want your customers to come to you and not the other way around. This is what makes keyword research so important. However, it will be of no use unless users (and Google) can see these key terms reflected in your content. Here are some ways to optimally plant keywords in your content:
- The first 100 words: This is where you grab the reader's attention. Unless this part is interesting, the user is not likely to read further. This makes it important that you place the right keywords strategically here. This will assure readers that further reading may resolve their concerns.
- Title tag – Use your keyword at the beginning of the title tag of your web page. This makes you much more visible to search engine crawlers.
- URL – Make sure your page URL is short and includes your target keyword.
- Subtitles: If a user chooses to delve deeper into your web page, subtitles are the ones that will most likely catch their attention among all the content. This makes it important to intelligently include relevant keywords in your H1, H2, and H3 subheadings.
4. Find and fix technical SEO problems
There are some technical aspects of SEO that must be taken into account for any SEO campaign to be effective. This is even more important in 2022 as Google's algorithms and people's demands continue to evolve.
Mobile-first indexing
As of July 2019, Google implemented mobile-first indexing. This means that Google “predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.” This makes mobile-friendly websites extremely important. The Google Mobile Usability Test (in Search Console) is a great tool that helps analyze how well your website is optimized for mobile devices.
Fix crawl errors
A crawl error occurs when a search engine tries to reach your website, or a specific web page, but fails. You can use Crawl Stats in Search Console to get a detailed report on this. Search Console also has a URL inspection tool that you can use to check if Google has crawled and indexed a specific page on your website. Crawling is a crucial factor in determining your site's ranking, and any crawling issues should be fixed as soon as they are found.
Page loading speed
This is also a very important factor that determines the Google ranking of your site. Sites like PageSpeed Insights and WebPageTest can effectively tell you how well optimized and fast your web pages are, and you can work on them accordingly. To rank better in Google SERPs, your website must pass Google's Core Web Vitals Assessment for both mobile and desktop.
5. Great content
Good content forms the backbone of any SEO strategy. When combined well, content and SEO can easily push a website near the top of the SERP. It leads to visibility and traffic, often also encouraging people to buy your services/products. Here are some tips for creating great content:
- Choose a topic and then look for content about it that seems to be popular. Read it and analyze the reason for its popularity. Identify the type of language used, the structure and tone. Once you've done that, write something better than what you just read and then promote it.
- Try to cover the topic you have chosen in depth. Once someone visits your page, you should have all (or most) of their queries satisfied from your own page.
- Break your content into pieces. Don't write long paragraphs and make sure paragraphs are preceded by subheadings. Use images, graphics, and bullets to make your content much more readable. Use infographics to better express everything you are writing.
- Topics covering “Why” and “How” are likely to get many more backlinks, significantly increasing your page's web authority. Infographics that easily convey complex topics also get a higher number of backlinks.
6. Backlinks
What makes backlinks so valuable is that they are a “vote of confidence” from one website to another. They serve as signals to search engines that your content is warranted. They are evidence that your content is valuable. If multiple sites link to yours, your website is much more likely to appear in search results. Here are some great backlink tips:
- Publish great content. This is the only way people will visit and revisit your website. If your content is solid, it will create a much higher chance of other bloggers and writers backlinking to your website.
- Write guest posts on related websites that have good domain authority. You can then use that content for backlinks.
- In 2022, it is a great idea to get backlinks from podcasts. If you have your own podcast, nothing like that. Or you could also go on podcasts as a guest. Nowadays, podcasts are popular and building backlinks through them can be very valuable.
- Consider mentioning influencers in your selected field within your content. Don't forget to promote these influencers. Chances are, many of them will also share and provide you with backlinks.
7. Delete irrelevant pages and update all information
When you allow your website to grow too much, you are not only wasting valuable crawl budget, but it can also lower your rankings. Having hundreds of poor quality pages indexed by Google that don't help any visiting users can cause something known as "index bloat." This will result in search engine crawlers spending unnecessary amounts of time crawling irrelevant pages, and not the ones that can actually bring you business. Index bloat not only slows down your site but also creates a poor user experience.
Older, outdated, and irrelevant pages can cause them to receive crawled, currently not indexed status. This means that Google can access these pages, but chooses not to display them in its search results. This can be due to several reasons, and needs to be addressed as well.
If you have old posts that aren't exactly irrelevant, but have outdated numbers and information, be sure to update those pages. Facts, data, images and infographics should always be accurate for current times. You absolutely do not want a visitor to leave with incorrect information. This can significantly reduce the reviews on your site.
8. Improve CTR
Click-through rate (CTR) is the relationship between the number of clicks on a link and the number of impressions generated. A high CTR means that a large number of people who saw your link clicked on it. To improve your CTR, make sure you provide a link that potential customers will actually want to click. You can search Google for specific keywords and analyze the results that appear. Find titles and descriptions that are attractive and look like something you want to click on. Understand how they are writing these titles and descriptions, and what they are doing differently (or rather, correctly). Finally, rewrite your own titles and descriptions, incorporating the knowledge you've gained.
9. Animated images
The ranking of a web page has a direct correlation with the average session duration on that page. The greater the amount of time people spend on your website, the better the ranking you are likely to receive. This means that you must somehow convince visitors to spend more time on your web pages. And a very effective way to do it today is animated images.
The best part about animated images (like motion graphics) is that they are usually short and to the point, play themselves and require no additional interactions unlike videos, and are sometimes even entertaining. When someone captures a moving image while browsing your website, they are likely to stop browsing the page. This way, they read more of your content and effectively spend more time on your site. There are many new and innovative ways to include motion graphics on your site, such as moving elements as you scroll down the page or special visual and sound effects when someone interacts with the page.
10. Content “Theme + Year”
This refers to content that specifically addresses key trends occurring around a topic in a specific year. Like this topic itself. For this strategy to work, your content will naturally have to be 100% geared to the year in question. At the beginning of each year, people across all businesses and verticals want to know what trends they expect for the year. This makes this type of content very valuable, especially towards the beginning of the year. It can then be used to reinforce the rest of your pages as well, so that people visit your website all year round.
Conclusion on SEO best practices
If you want to continue improving your site's organic reach and increase your organic traffic, you need to take your SEO strategy to the next level. A good SEO agency will go beyond the basics and delve into the SEO techniques that can achieve this. And this is imperative because almost every business website today has some SEO strategy. In a digital landscape as competitive as this, advanced tips and tricks like these are sure to help you beat the competition.
