With the rise of the Internet, it is now essential for any company to develop a SEO strategy to obtain a consistent positioning on search engines, and thus increase its visibility to attract a maximum of potential customers to its website.
While SEO is one of the key approaches to customer acquisition today, its rules are constantly evolving and it’s important to stay on top of Google’s algorithm updates and upcoming trends for the next year in order to get the most out of this method.
Are you using outdated SEO principles? How do you know if your SEO strategy is still working? All of these changes can seem confusing. That’s why our marketing experts offer a rundown of current SEO rules and new SEO trends that will be established during 2022 in this article.
What is SEO?
The acronym SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is used to designate the optimization for search engines, more commonly called natural referencing.
SEO encompasses all the techniques for optimizing the positioning of your website organically on the various search engines. For this, it is important to understand how the algorithms work, and then to meet their indexing criteria, in order to promote your chances of obtaining a good positioning.
Why do SEO?
The better a website is positioned on the results page of a search engine, the more likely it is to be found and visited. The more a website gathers visits, the more it is appreciated by the referencing algorithm. It is a virtuous circle that deserves to be exploited to develop your business and increase your conversions.
Long-term SEO trends
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The optimization of the text content of your pages
The textual content of your pages must respect the good practices recommended by Google to be highlighted in its algorithm.
First, you must determine the strategic keywords on which you want to index the different pages of your site. To do this, locate the keywords with the highest search volume, to position yourself in the most frequent requests on Google and thus reach the largest possible audience.
Nevertheless, if it was previously recommended to add a maximum of relevant keywords about your subject, we know today that keyword stuffing is penalized by Google. Your text must remain pleasant to read and the sequence of words must be natural. Once this step is over, write your content around these keywords, keeping in mind that the length of your text is important. To optimize your referencing, make sure that each page of your site contains at least 800 words. The length of your meta titles and meta descriptions must also follow the rules recommended by Google. When your meta title should have a number of characters between 65 and 80 characters for an optimal visibility on computer and mobile, your meta description should not exceed 160 characters, with ideally at least 90 characters. Your meta titles and meta descriptions can also contain keywords for a better referencing. Keep in mind that the keywords considered first by the search algorithm will be those located at the beginning of the sentence, and their importance is then decreasing. Also make sure you don’t create any duplicate content. Google penalizes plagiarism, so your texts must be unique. In addition, the content of your meta descriptions and meta titles must not repeat word for word your H1, H2 title tags, or the textual content of your page. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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The optimization of the tree structure of your pages
Pay attention to the tree structure of the different pages of your site. Google analyzes the structure of your pages, and rewards users who respect good practices. Your title tags must be organized in a hierarchical way, with H1 titles, H2 subtitles, and so on. A good tree structure is necessary to properly structure your web page and make users want to scroll down to see the rest.
For a better referencing, also integrate in your header tags the key words of your page. Give priority to impactful words over generic terms.
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The ALT tags of your images
The images on your site are just as important as the text. Remember to fill the ALT tags and descriptions of your images with relevant keywords related to the image itself and the subject of your page. They will be a significant help in the good indexation of your pages.
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URL optimization
The URLs of your pages are important. They are often created automatically on the basis of the title of your page, using all the words in it. You will then have to modify it to keep only the key words.
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Backlinking
To optimize the traffic on your pages, get referenced on other sites in your sector, via links redirecting to your site. You will then get some of the traffic from the referring website. Make sure you use backlinks from safe, secure, and expert sites to bring credibility to your site.
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The use of Google tools
To please Google and to go in its direction, you will have to use, in parallel to your site, the additional tools that Google puts at your disposal such as Google My Business, Google Analytics, or Google Search Console. Once your site is linked to these tools, and their use optimized, you will be favored by Google, which will be able to gather a maximum of information related to your business, to boost you as effectively as possible.
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The mobile responsive aspect
The importance of the mobile is nowadays not to be demonstrated. The majority of web traffic is done on mobile interface. If you have created your website for optimal use on computer, it is time to create a mobile responsive version of your site. The Google algorithm disfavors sites that are not optimized for mobile.
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A secure site
Google tends to no longer display http sites in its search results, as they are considered to be unsecure. You will therefore need to switch your site to https, to prove the security of your site and to appear among the optimal search results. You can do this by purchasing an SSL certificate, which will switch your site from http to https.
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The loading speed of your pages
The loading speed of your pages will also influence your ranking. If your pages take too long to load, Google will penalize the indexing of your site.
New SEO trends for 2022
Today, the search engine Google alone accounts for more than 90% of all web searches, which is why it is important to keep up to date with the various updates of its SEO algorithm.
The constant updates can make the principles on which you base your optimizations obsolete. That’s why it’s important to stay on top of the changes in the rules of the algorithm. We have summarized for you the major SEO developments to consider for the year 2022.
Since the implementation of the Core Web Vitals project, the user experience is the focus. Google evaluates the trust index of a page via the quality of the UX, and passes in the background the more technical aspects, more easily manipulated.
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The Core Web Vitals
They include three parameters, to evaluate the user experience.
- The Largest Contentful Paint, which measures the display speed of your website. Ideally, your page should load in 2.5 seconds or less to be seen by the algorithm.
- First Input Delay, which measures the time between the user’s first interaction with the website and the moment when the browser is able to respond to that interaction. It is recommended to have a FID of less than 100 milliseconds for an optimal FID.
- The Cumulative Layout Shift, which measures visual stability, by analyzing the impromptu shifts that can occur on your page. This score must be less than 0.1 for optimal stability.
The Lighthouse tool, developed by Google, allows you to measure these 3 parameters.
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Mobile Responsive and Mobile First Index
If the responsive aspect was already very important in the previous years, the vise is tightening even more in 2022. So if your site is only designed for computer use, it’s time to remedy that, by making it adaptable to all screen sizes: mobile, tablet, computer, and even TV.
The loading time of your site on mobile should also be checked. If it exceeds 3 to 5 seconds, you will have to optimize your pages to reduce this delay.
In addition, since spring 2021, the Mobile First Index update has been deployed. It implies a new system of referencing sites by Google. From now on, the mobile version of your website will be indexed in priority on Google, and the original versions will be indexed only in a second time. This is why it is essential, in 2022, to prioritize the development and optimization of the mobile version of your site.
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A relevant and rich content
More than ever, in 2022, your content must be highly relevant and rich in information. The more people are interested in your content, the more their average page view time increases, and the more they will be tempted to come back to your site later. The Google algorithm favors the most visited sites, and the duration of the consultation of each page, you have every interest in capturing the attention of your audience as best as possible.
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THE E.A.T.
The acronym E.A.T. literally means “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness”. Given the importance of search engines in everyone’s daily life, Google tries to guarantee the reliability of the information it puts forward. The search engine has therefore decided to evaluate the reliability of websites and the quality of their content.
Your website must meet each of the required criteria:
- The level of competence of a site is determined by the expertise of the writer in the field in question.
- The level of authority will be determined by the number of incoming links from trusted sites that are themselves authorities in your field.
- The level of reliability will increase by switching your site to https, by guaranteeing the confidentiality of your customers’ information, or by getting positive comments and feedback from your customers.
Why consult the experts of our SEO agency?
Our SEO experts will guide you in your natural referencing strategy to bring visibility to your website and guarantee you an optimized online presence. Thanks to our SEO techniques, reach a maximum of potential customers, by positioning yourself on the most searched keywords in your field.
Increase your leads and conversions, to boost your business, whether you want to develop a service company, an e-commerce site, or a physical store.