It’s a known fact that having a good SEO strategy can greatly help your website. However, it’s also a fact that Google algorithms change on a regular basis. Because of these changes, your SEO strategies should also change and adapt regularly. With the recent Google updates, you should already have an SEO strategy for 2022. If not, here are the things you need to know to prepare it.

On-Page SEO Strategy for 2022

Your on-page SEO Strategy for 2022 will provide the quickest impact when it comes to your page’s performance. Making these adjustments will show faster results as compared to technical strategies. 

A key SEO strategy you should do is to target long-tail keywords that will provide more traffic to your page. Nowadays, people do a Google search by typing questions or phrases on the search bar. This is because users want to have more specific and more accurate results. This is very different from how it was years ago when users used shorter keywords. According to a recent study, 91.8% of searches use long tail keywords. With the improvements in search engines and the accuracy of results, users are now much more comfortable to use long-tail keywords instead of shorter ones.

Another on-page SEO strategy you should use is using keywords in alt texts for images. When you put images on your page, you can put an alt text which is a description of the image. Search engines use alt texts to index an image correctly. It also helps users understand the page especially for those who are unable to see as the alt text is read aloud by the computer. If there is an issue and the page isn’t loading, the alt text appears to help users know what’s supposed to be in the image. Alt text is very important for SEO, according to Google.

In one of our recent articles, we mentioned Core Web Vitals as a top SEO trend for 2022. One of the most important SEO strategies you should look at for 2022 is improving overall user experience. How do you do this? You should focus on your Core Web Vitals which means improving the loading time, interactivity and visual stability of your page. This is a key strategy to improve your user engagement through better user experience.

Technical SEO Strategy for 2022

Aside from your on-page SEO strategy, you have to prepare your technical SEO strategy as well. Adjustments made on the back end side may not produce visible results quickly but they are as important as your on-page adjustments.

The quantity of backlinks were important for SEO back in the day. That has changed in the past years, however. While backlinks are still needed, the focus has shifted to the quality of backlinks instead of quality. Your strategy for 2022 should be to remove spammy backlinks. How do you do this? Check the backlinks you currently have. Find the bad backlinks and remove them. Bad backlinks are sites that are either spammy or those that have a low domain authority. You should also remove sites that you don’t want your site to be associated with.

After you clean up the bad and spammy backlinks, find more good quality backlinks. You can do this by setting up backlinks with online directories. Also check websites that are related to your site or business and connect with them. Check your top competitor’s backlinks and link with them as well.

In 2018, Google introduced the EAT score to assess the overall quality of a web page. EAT means expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness and your EAT score is assessed through your content. Your third SEO strategy should be to increase your EAT score by having content in your web page coming from recognized experts in your team. You can also invite subject matter experts to contribute to your site so you have high quality content.

SEO Practices You Should Avoid in 2022

While executing your SEO strategy, you should keep in mind the practices you need to avoid. These practices can negatively affect your SERP rankings so make sure that you don’t do these or if you’re currently doing it, stop doing them immediately.

First practice you should avoid is having duplicate content. Duplicate content is defined as identical or similar blocks of content that  appear in different parts of your website. Duplicate content can also be one section of your website being identical or similar to a section from a completely different site. This can be tagged as plagiarism if you are not the sole owner of the duplicate content.

Another practice you should avoid is stuffing your content, e.g. blogs or articles with keywords. If Google detects that keywords are used too many times in your content, it will be assessed as spammy. This will then negatively affect your SERP rankings.

It’s important to have your SEO strategy for 2022 and also keep in mind the practices you should avoid. Executing these strategies will help your website perform better and have better online traffic.

Are you all set for your SEO strategy in 2022? We can help you plan and execute your SEO strategy! Call us now on +353 (0) 89 466 2000 or +353 (0) 1 960 9023 or click here to send us a message.