SEO services in UK are evolving at a rapid pace, with many shifts in how users interact with the web and new technologies growing by leaps and bounds every day. As trends shift and change, it can be difficult to stay up-to-date on what’s popular, what works, and what to avoid like the plague. In order to help you stay on top of your game and know what the future might have in store, we’ve compiled five of the biggest SEO trends to look for in 2022.
1) The Rise Of Augmented Reality
For marketers and businesses, augmented reality is going to become a bigger and bigger deal as time goes on. The easiest way for brands to get started with augmented reality marketing is by promoting contests or other events that integrate with existing apps like Pokémon Go. However, there are plenty of other ways brands can use augmented reality, including some very innovative things being done right now by Disney. As AR grows as a technology, we’ll likely see businesses take even more advantage of it than they already are; it’s easy to imagine all kinds of interesting uses from Amazon and Netflix leading up until 2022. Right now, AR seems kind of gimmicky (I mean…people are playing games that make them walk into traffic), but that’s sure to change over time.
2) Voice Search Will Overtake Keywords
With voice search growing so rapidly, it’s difficult to believe that search trends won’t be affected. In fact, Google predicts that nearly 50% of searches will take place through voice by 2020. In order to provide users with exactly what they’re looking for, keywords may need a little fine-tuning. Not only will you have a tough time ranking organically if your page isn’t optimized with conversational phrasing, but you also run into problems if your keywords are too broad or too specific. The best way to counteract these issues is through analytics – not only can data provide insight on how people search today, but it also gives you insight into what they might want to search in five years.
As voice search continues its rapid growth, marketers are still trying to figure out what that means for their businesses. Some experts say that keywords will become a secondary component of SEO, since conversational search commands are much harder to track. Fortunately, voice searches are optimized differently than text-based searches – conversational keywords differ from general or informational keywords by being shorter and more direct. Since these phrases aren’t as well defined or common, they can be more difficult to optimize and rank organically on Google; however, they do help determine user intent and have a higher conversion rate once you land on a page with matching content.
3) Better Navigation (in Google search results)
Our research shows that there’s a major opportunity here. When people search, they expect links to appear above organic results. It’s important to note that we don’t think it will happen right away—it might take time, as searchers get used to seeing things like Google Posts (which allow businesses and individuals who have verified their identities on Google Plus with a secure verified badge) in those coveted real estate above search results. But we expect it will happen eventually; when it does, it will be an opportunity worth taking advantage of.
4) A New Mobile Interface
Not all inbound links are good. Any mention on a website that doesn’t have a positive reputation, or that could potentially damage your site’s reputation, is not really worth pursuing. For example, if a site you link to has too many instances of keyword stuffing or spammy backlinks, Google might penalize your own site and could even de-index it all together. To avoid such trouble with your professional SEO services UK make sure you only choose domains with an established history on page one of search results. You want links from relevant websites that produce well-crafted content related to your industry. An aged domain name is always more trustworthy than some newly registered domain name that has little traffic yet!
By now it’s been pretty well established that mobile optimization is essential. This will only be true in five years when mobile searches overtake desktop searches. To avoid being penalized, always take mobile optimization into account when doing your professional SEO services in UK. Although site speed is a more pressing issue on slow connection speeds, Google does look at it, and can even penalize you for having too many redirects or using plugins that increase loading times excessively. Review your internal linking as well to ensure both links are relevant and also add keywords where possible within your anchor text while keeping links short and easily identifiable.
5) Not All Inbound Links Are Good
The concept of quality and value can be confusing, especially with links. There’s so much content out there and new articles are being published constantly—which makes sense, but it also makes distinguishing quality sources a bit more difficult than ever before. It’s no longer about how many links you have or how popular your pages are; those still play a role, but they’re not as important as they used to be (and aren’t at all tied to Google’s current algorithm). Nowadays, you want links from trustworthy sites with lots of engaged users and authority on your subject matter. This doesn’t mean that every link has equal value—quality matters most!
Quality over quantity is becoming more important by the day. Although it’s still important to have a good link profile and a solid number of inbound links, they won’t do much if those links aren’t from reputable sites or from sites that don’t bring value back to your site.