SEO trends and predictions 2022, and my top 5 trends to watch out for in the next 12 months

Every year, SEOs across the world try to make accurate predictions about what the next 12 months will bring in the search engine industry. Although nobody every ends up getting everything right, these exercises are super interesting and fun, and this year I just can’t resist joining in.

Based on my experiences and observations, here are my predictions for 2022.

Increased importance of Core Web Vitals

Last year, Core web vitals (CWV) turned the focus of the SEOs to speed, visual stability and interactivity.

In 2022, speed and UX will play a massive role in ranking for the most highly competitive keywords.

Website speed has been a key factor for several years now and that will not change in 2022. In terms of UX, there is nothing more annoying for users than a slow website that takes forever to load, or which has some elements that don’t load at all. Make sure to check your website speed and receive tips on how to improve it using the free Google light house tool or https://pagespeed.web.dev/.

And the CWV metrics concern not only speed, but the whole user experience.

Just imagine that your website doesn’t fully load, and when a user clicks on a link, they cannot because it is not ready yet. Or you click on a link, the whole webpage shifts a few pixels, and you click on a wrong navigation element and end up on a page you did not mean to visit in the first place.

Make sure to test your website performance on the CWV metrics and use free (GSC included) and paid tools to improve it as much as you can.

Dominance of user intent

When you think about it, searching and finding results is like having a conversation. The search query is the question, and the websites that serve the best answer wins.

Everyone gets bored and lost in a conversation when the answers are not helpful. Once a user clicks on a result in the SERPs, soft metrics such as bounce rate, dwell time, exit pages are measured by Google. If the result served is not good, the results in the SERPs drop deeper.

So, make sure that pages on your website are properly optimised and the search intent is answered as well as possible. The relevancy of the results that your potential customer sees will play an even more crucial role in 2022.

Content, new content, refreshed content and evergreen content

You heard it many times, content is a king.

I would say that we will see few trends as regards content.

a.)????Creation of new relevant content will be increasingly automated, especially for news pages, event pages, sports previews and sports results. Some of this content is already automated to an extent e.g., sport results, or sport predictions. I think many automated content creation tools (such as Jarvis.ai) might also be used for more evergreen content in 2022; however, such text will still have to be edited as these tools are not yet reliable and are not able to run research on their own.

b.)???Refreshing existing content regularly will be important in 2022. It is most important to keep spying on your competitors and keeping your content updated better than what they have. I highly recommend using the Skyscraper method. If you do not pay attention to your existing text your will start to disappear from top search results.

c.)????Good evergreen content supported by internal and external links will always drive customers to your website.

Growing importance of good links

Links are important and that will not change in 2022. Links are votes; good relevant links means votes moving your pages up in SERPs. Naturally, the quality and number of links will differ from market to market, so make sure to check your niche and market, so you targeting to create the most effective strategy.

Last but not least, Google discover optimisation

Google Discover became a big thing in 2021 and it will be even more prominent in 2022. If you want to win in SERPs make sure to optimise your pages so that they have a chance of being included in Google Discover. How to do this?

a.)????Optimise your speed and UX – as we already discussed in the first part of this article

b.)???Make sure to have great and fresh content - as already discussed, content is a king!

c.)????Make sure to use quality, engaging, relevant pictures, videos, graphics, graphs…

d.)???Make sure your website is an authoritative source, complying with YMYL and EAT

e.)????Use social media to support your Google Discover strategy - make sure you get followers and engagement

f.)?????Have a technically superior website, easy to crawl, create up-to-date sitemaps, make sure robots are in place

I wish you a very optimised 2022!

Feel free drop your ideas in comments, I am looking forward to reading them and learning from you!