SEO Trends 2022

Since the inception of search engines, they have been updated regularly and the way they work has evolved a lot over time. 2019 saw a lot of new updates in Google’s algorithms. SEO is very dynamic and big updates for natural language processing, improved user journey, mobile-first, etc make it more dynamic. If you want to rank higher on SERPs, ensure you are aware of the SEO Trends and are working as per them.

Let us understand how the SEO landscape is going to look like in 2020.

Key SEO Trends 2020

#1. Relevant High-Quality Content

Content is King & SEO is Queen. If the marriage between your content and SEO is a successful one, you will rank higher automatically. But, in most cases, there are compatibility issues, mismatch & poor quality of the relationship between these two.

This results in poor performance of the website on search engine results pages. Your content and SEO go hand in hand. Amazing content is incomplete without SEO & SEO is incomplete without good quality content.

If you are not creating high-quality relevant content, then you will not succeed. The emphasis is on the word “relevant” as Google is looking about not just for high-quality content, but also for the relevance factors.

Recently, the BERT update was rolled out. It focuses on natural language processing to deliver results that match the context of the search. Earlier, only the keywords were matched, now the language or the tone of the keywords will be identified too.

Hence, creating content which is going to help, which is of high-quality and relevance will be one of the key trends for success in SEO in 2020.

#2. Voice Search

Voice Search is booming like never before. This is an era of digital assistants and digital assistants work on voice search.

Whether be it booking movie tickets, shopping, play music and much more, digital assistants work on voice & if your content is not optimized for voice searches, your competitor will grab the opportunity.

The stats above clearly indicates the importance of voice. If your digital marketing strategy is not yet revolving around voice content, it’s high time to optimize for this SEO Trend in 2020.

#3. Mobile Friendliness

Searches are made from mobiles by users and Google emphasizes on mobile responsiveness too. This means both the users and Google are focusing on mobile UX.

As per Google’s guidelines, having a responsive website is more beneficial than having 2 versions of your website – one for desktop and other for mobile phones. Also, the mobile-first indexing makes it very important for a website to be mobile responsive in order to get indexed by Google.

60% of Google searches are done via mobile devices

Statista

#4. Featured Snippets

Zero-click searches are common now. Search engines provide you with answers to your questions in SERP itself. Ain’t this amazing? It is.

But, imagine your blog describing a particular topic & the reader gets what he is seeking in a Featured Snippet of a top-notch blog. Will your blog be discovered?

So, how do you solve this problem? The answer is by optimizing your blog for Featured Snippets. Let your content be discovered in Featured Snippets. Featured Snippets not only let you rank at the top but also drive a lot of traffic to your blog. They steal clicks from the first ranking result. Try to answer questions & create content which helps people.

#5. Secure Websites (HTTPS)

Google is emphasizing on HTTPS. Websites with HTTPS are trustworthy, the users feel safe on them and thereby they enhance the overall user experience.

For Google, user experience is the topmost priority and hence securing your connections by switching to HTTPS is a must. It is a key factor that affects the ranking in SERP.

Also, on Google Chrome, it is very clearly visible whether your website is HTTP or HTTPS. So, if you want to sustain your traffic and be good in the eyes of search engines, take an SSL certificate today and become HTTPS.

#6. Video Content

The attention span of consumers is decreasing. People spend more time watching video content. Mobile phones and the internet are reaching a lot of people.

Platforms like Tiktok and Youtube are being widely used. Recently, Tiktok crossed 200+ million downloads in India. This is a clear indication that how much is the scope of video content is increasing.

With the power of social media platforms, users are now capable to create videos and post them. Edutok campaign by Tiktok is another example of how in a country like India, small video content can be used for educational purposes too.

Influencers are switching to video content, bloggers are starting Youtube channels and almost every kind of content is now available in video format.

Search engines are smart and provide video content in featured snippets too. Video is going to boom much more and is one of the key SEO trends for 2020.

#7. Long-Tail Keywords

Long-Tail Keywords helps in understanding the context of the search in a much better manner. Consider a user searching for “shoes”. The search is ambiguous.

On the other hand, consider the following search “black formal shoes within 1000 in Delhi”. In this search, a lot of information is discovered. Here, the user is quite clear about what he wants, what is his budget and where is he. And, the websites optimized for such keywords/keyphrases would rank higher.

Just imagine if you had a blog post “Black Formal Shoes in Delhi within 1000”. Then there would have been high chances of it ranking for this search if it would have been properly optimized.

That’s the beauty of Long-Tail Keywords.

Customers are smart now. They know the art of search. They search for specific things and want specific relevant results.

Also, the updates like BERT makes it quite evident that Google will also have more weight for Long-Tail Keywords.

The cherry on the cake is a voice search. Yes, the increase in voice search is one of the SEO trends for 2020. It is also correlated to long-tail keywords. When a user searches something using assistants, he speaks entire sentences in a conversational tone. Long-tail is of great use here too.

Well, the glories of long-tail keywords don’t end here. But, these examples and explanation should be enough to make you understand how important is focussing on long-tail keywords in 2020.

#8. Artificial Intelligence

The future of SEO is AI. AI/ML is spreading at exponential speed in every industry and they have impacted the digital marketing industry too.

A lot of SEO activities will be automated. Machine learning algorithms are smart enough to identify patterns and help marketers make a decision. Chatbots are everywhere and everyone wants to integrate a chatbot on their website and social media pages. Emphasis is on the personalized experience and AI in SEO will leverage this to a great extent.

The voice search and updates like BERT too signifies the importance of AI in digital marketing. AI will choose your content topics, keywords, review SEO data, and much more.

Conclusion

The trends mentioned above are definitely going to transform SEO in 2020. If one religiously works on them, one can become the leader in SEO and one who fails to understand their importance will see fall in SEO of his website.

This is the right time to start working rigorously on these SEO trends. It’s never too late. Start now and devise a rocking SEO Strategy for 2020. Also, get in touch with me if you need any help.

I am on a mission to help people create an effective digital marketing plan and SEO is a key aspect of digital marketing. If you wish to have one-to-one FREE mentoring then get in touch.

Also, if you know any other trends besides what I mentioned, please feel free to mention it in the comments sections. We will make sure that we update our content if we find your trend relevant.

Thank you for reading 🙂