Does it even exist – THE perfect SEO strategy? One that quickly gets your content on the first Google page, emotionalizes your target groups or sends your sales through the roof? There is no Ms. Perfect for Dr. Google. But a well thought-out SEO strategy makes sense – and is also feasible. Read on to find out more about the best SEO strategy for 2022.
Here, as in every relationship: Be authentic in what you do. Check your values and subject your content to a critical look in terms of this virtue. Because an “honest”, unique content is still THE key to the hearts of your target group. And should therefore be the heart of your annual SEO measures. Therefore: Ask yourself the following questions on the way to the optimal strategy:
- Do I really know my target group, their interests and needs?
- How can I best serve them with my digital offering?
- Does my content offer added value?
- Do I take my readers by the hand with my content and lead them unerringly to the desired result (for both of us!)?
- And how does my website perform at all?
Let’s start with the last point, which is the playground for your technical SEOs.
Page Experience still important: technical SEO with Google Core Web Vitals
Since as early as 2021, such Google ranking factors as Optimization for Mobile, Page Speed, and Core Web Vitals have kept technical SEOs on their toes. The latter includes Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) metrics. Quick reminder:
- Largest Contentful Paint measures the load time (in milliseconds) of the main content that is in your users’ field of view.
- The First Input Delay metric shows the time (in milliseconds) until visitors first interact with your site’s content. This is, for example, a click on a link.
- Cumulative Layout Shift measures unexpected layout shifts after the page loads.
These important page experience metrics are something your technical SEOs should always keep in mind this year. After all, the quality of the user experience with your website is still important for search engine rankings. Also make sure that you inspire your target groups with content – without losing sight of the numerous SEO trends.
User experience as an important component of a good SEO strategy
How do your users experience your content? Does it meet the expectations – and above all the needs – of your visitors? They “show” you through their behavior on your website by sending the so-called user signals to the search engines. That’s why these three parameters will remain an important part of your SEO strategy in 2022:
Time on page: How long do visitors stay on your website? Basically, the longer the better! However, search engines consider this in relation to the length of the content.
Bounce rate: how many users leave your website without interacting? This is where it counts: The higher, the worse. Because then your content does not meet the expectations of your target group.
Click Through Rate (CTR): How interesting and relevant do users find a search result? The formula is simple: clicks on a search result / impressions of a search result *100. This number should be as high as possible. The lower it is, the faster you should revise the Meta Title and Meta Description.
These values signal to Google how satisfied your visitors are with the search results on your website: whether your content is written in a user-friendly way and offers real added value. A big plus for your SEO strategy, if the individual key figures are right!
Video content: a fixed parameter of every good SEO strategy
YouTube is the most visible platform for Google, ahead of Facebook and Wikipedia. In the past two years, its use has even increased by a whole 15 percent. So the question of the importance of this channel for your successful SEO strategy is superfluous. The importance of video content is due to the following factors:
- Among other things, videos pay off on the page experience: they offer your target group real added value. If they are exciting and emotionally designed, they may even have an entertaining character.
- Videos help you to put all the important information about your products and services into a clear, compact form. Eternally long explanatory texts are no longer necessary. To the delight of your target group.
- Search engines will also give you high credit for the video content: Not least because of MUM – Multitask United Model. This AI approach no longer considers text alone, but content as a whole – and learns to understand content from images, videos and audios. So don’t forget to optimize the metadata and spoken word of your videos for SEO.
Structured data – a big plus for your SEO strategy, even in 2022
Google loves structured data: it’s easy to understand for the search engine that wants to become the answer engine. Internet users also find this development very convenient. While Google has its “fun” in pulling the data itself and preparing it in Rich Snippets or Featured Snippets, surfers get to the desired search result even faster this way.
And this goes even deeper in 2022: with the SEO trend “Passage Indexing”: If a section within your content answers a search query best, this passage is played out in the search results. In this way, Google increasingly tries to include subsections and their topics. Keep this in mind when structuring your texts: Individual passages should contain the information that is important for the search – and also make your company recognizable.
Longtail keywords and voice search: Two trends, one SEO idea
The so-called Zero Click Searches are continuously increasing. Users do not have to click on the link to your website: The answers to simple or common search queries are displayed directly in the search results. Unfortunately, this does not pay off for your SEO strategy. Because you lose valuable traffic as a result. Against this background, longtails are becoming increasingly important: keywords that consist of a combination of words that are not searched for so often. Such keywords do have a low search volume. But they are also not as fiercely contested. In addition, they usually represent special search queries that are usually quite complex and therefore cannot be answered in the SERP.
Optimizing for long-tail keywords has another advantage: it covers another SEO trend that is also permanently gaining in importance – voice search. Initially, use your FAQs for voice search. If you phrase the questions the way your readership asks them, you have an additional chance to rank well with the Voice Search SEO strategy. Also, keep in mind that information search via voice search is emotionalized and personalized. That’s why you should put yourself in your target group’s shoes: What makes them “tick”? Don’t be afraid to think in complete sentences.
Quality before quantity: Our conclusion
Even in 2022, content quality coupled with an excellent user experience is the most important success factor for your SEO strategy. After all, if your target group is satisfied with the search results on your website, the search engines will notice it too. In this context, a new term emerged already a few years ago: E-A-T. The abbreviation stands for
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
This is about the fact that the authors who write for you are trustworthy and reliable. This way, Google classifies your company or website as an expert on certain subjects. Especially with sensitive YMYL (“Your Money or Your Life”) topics like finance or health, this plays an important role. Prove your expertise, for example, by publishing guest articles and interviews in trade magazines or writing Wikipedia entries. And you build authority through content when you work with appropriate links and mentions.
GudComp is happy to support you with your SEO strategy and expert status building. Together with you, we’ll develop a path that leads you and your company to your company’s content marketing goal.
We look forward to working with you! Simply send us an e-mail to gudcomp@yahoo.com or leave us a message.