We are halfway through 2022, and the world of web SEO has seen significant shifts that we must fully grasp to avoid being left behind. Let’s join Markdao in exploring 6 web SEO trends from the first half of this year to see if you’ve missed anything!
Top 6 most prominent web SEO trends of 2022: The AI shift in the SEO industry
Driven by social and technological impacts, the flow of SEO in 2022 is primarily focused on creating intuitive digital experiences and applying artificial intelligence. AI has become an unprecedented trend, increasingly important and influential across all sectors, including SEO.
#1: 2022 is the year of natural language web SEO!
Marketing and communications are no longer what they used to be. Machine learning (ML)—a field of artificial intelligence that allows systems to "learn" from existing data to solve specific problems—and training computers to generate natural language are emerging directions in the content creation and optimization industry.
This is because new advancements in natural language processing and related techniques have enabled AI to better read and understand content, answer questions accurately, and more. Unlike simple language generation methods that work with a limited vocabulary, these ML models can learn deeper grammatical and semantic patterns and use them more appropriately.
This technology saves us time and supports us in building website content. The role of AI in natural language generation includes:
- Gathering basic information: Diving into user insights, analyzing search results, and collecting news related to a specific topic.
- Content structuring: Building basic outlines for articles, extracting relevant questions that need answering, and marking up structured data.
- Writing detailed content: Introductions, FAQs, brief summaries, and more.
- Reviewing content for grammar and semantics.
- Publishing content by delivering it to readers in various formats.
#2: Website SEO with structured data, a direct impact on SERPs
Trend Website SEO is now leveraging structured data, as it directly influences top Google SEO results via the SERP. Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) has been and continues to evolve its layout with new interactive elements, prioritizing the needs of searchers—the primary customers of Google and any other search engine.
Structured data is expected to drive multi-format search results while providing website developers with more ways to interact with Google's services. Consequently, focusing solely on TF-IDF and keyword frequency has become outdated.
Structured data is crucial for search engines. Google currently uses it as a ranking criterion for displayed results. It allows Google to understand the content and structure of a website, and ultimately, helps Google grasp the relationships between different pieces of content on your site.
To effectively leverage structured data, don't just focus on featured snippets; pay attention to your content models as well. By doing so, you will certainly be able to improve On-page SEO and your top Google SEO results as well.
#3 Website SEO by optimizing content based on featured snippets
Simply put, a featured snippet is a concise answer to a user's search query displayed in Google's search results. So, how do you optimize for these snippets? Here are some basic methods you can apply:
- Add relevant questions for your target queries and use structured data markup to highlight these questions.
- The optimal length for these snippets should be between 40 and 50 words.
- Include links within your FAQ answers. These links help maintain a strong CTR and will be highlighted when your content appears as search snippets, featured snippets, or in Google’s “People Also Ask” section.
#4: Optimize for visual search to meet evolving user needs
To optimize your website effectively, investing in omnichannel SEO is undoubtedly a smart move. On-page SEO helps you connect with your target audience and encourages them to engage with you. SEO, especially in the e-commerce space, is about integrating the entire customer experience. Google Lens is a prime example. It uses visual recognition to scan real-world objects and link them to digital experiences. This shift has caused text-based searches to gradually lose favor, as visual search is often a more efficient solution in certain situations (such as when you are at the supermarket trying to select the right vegetables for a macrobiotic diet).
To keep pace with these changes, beyond ensuring your brand remains visible offline, you need to address other factors. First, images must be optimized using structured data to provide Google with the necessary information. With these new digital experiences, we can make significant improvements—from alt text to EXIF/IPTC metadata—to bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds.
#5: Voice Commerce or V-shopping: Improving website SEO through voice
Voice Commerce or V-shopping has become a website SEO method that SEO professionals can leverage. According to Walker Sands, 19% of consumers had already made purchases via voice using Amazon Echo or similar software by 2019.
It is easy to see that Voice Commerce is on the rise and promises an even brighter future in the coming years. So, how can you capitalize on this trend for on-page SEO? The key is to optimize your top-level conversion channels to help consumers find the answers they need about your products and services.
#6: Enhance your brand SERP and Knowledge Graph for effective website SEO
One of the The goal of web SEO is to improve brand reputation and increase business visibility across multiple platforms, from Google Search and Images to Google Discover and Bing Search. To achieve sustainable top Google rankings , you must ensure consistency, strategic planning, an understanding of linked data publishing, and high-quality content.
Building a brand on digital platforms means nurturing and optimizing your Knowledge Graph presence, which includes verification, entity ownership claims, and the use of structured data. This also requires consistency and effective data management.
The future of digital branding lies in connectivity: this creates a unified view of the brand by linking data. Optimizing your presence in major graphs like Wikidata and Google Graph is a crucial part of your web SEO strategy in the coming years.
If you are struggling to grasp and leverage the web SEO trends mentioned above, don't hesitate to contact Markdao today! We are always ready to help your website stay ahead of the competition.
