Getting listed on the first page of Google search is a necessity to thrive in the digital era.
Do you know why? It’s because more than 99% of Google visitors click on the results fetched on the first page only.
Google algorithms get updated multiple times in a year, leading to changes in the Google SEO guidelines. No matter what your industries are all about and team expertise in Digital Marketing, switching to the frequently changing SEO guidelines or strategies may become difficult to implement instantly. For better performance, every business requires SEO services to rank on Google’s first page. Once you become successful in this endeavor, then ultimately you get a loyal visitor who can further convert into a customer.
In the digital marketplace, SEO always plays a critical role in creating website visibility, business opportunities, and brand awareness. Here are the top-5 SEO guidelines which you need to know in 2022.
What Are the SEO Guidelines for 2022
1. Mobile-first Indexing
Rather than desktop, Google primarily uses mobile sites for page ranking, which is known as Mobile-first indexing. Stats show that more than 83% of the population has smartphones, from where most of the web traffic is generated. Therefore, it is highly recommended to have a mobile version of your site, to have that content appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). Here are some tips for you.
Keep the meta tags the same for both versions (mobile & desktop) of the site and all lazy loaded content recognizable.
Symmetric Content
Google has warned not to keep short content unnecessarily on the mobile site. Hence, keep the content identical on both sites.
Mobile Error Fixation
All thanks to Google Search Console and Mobile Usability reports, you can identify issues and fix mobile errors for best performance.
2. Focus on Engagement
In 2021, with the arrival of GA4 (Google Analytics4), major changes were observed. In present SEO guidelines for websites, the Universal Analytics (UA) remains the same, whereas the GA4 is becoming mainstream for website engagement. You can set GA4 and UA properties parallelly for more engagement, user interaction, and events. By 2022, the most important factor will be the engagement rate for a website.
Set your priority to create the strongest engaging content which can rank successfully on top. Although it’s difficult to reach the first page of the Google search engine, don’t get discouraged. An average ranking time of an article is 2-3 years with the usage of various tactics to achieve it.
3. Optimize Website Speed
The loading speed of a website plays a very critical role in Google ranking. When we talk about a mobile site, priority is that it be fast and offer a smooth user experience. Google has launched three web vital rules.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
The LCP is a new signal which focuses on the web page’s largest element and measures its landing time.
First Input Delay (FID)
FID calculates the time of user engagement (clicks, scroll, swipes, etc.) with a page to the time when the browser starts processing event responses.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
The sudden movement of the web elements during page rendering is measured by CLS. Through this, one can know about the stability of the page load.
4. Optimize Featured Snippets
Optimizing a snippet helps google to fetch your page to the top rank when a user searches something related to the topic, whose answer is present on your website. Features snippets can drive organic traffic to your site, which may lead to brand recognition. There are 4 types of featured snippets for your business: Paragraph (70% of featured snippets), List (19%), Table (6%), and Video (5%).
For featured snippets, one can follow a few tips such as gather Featured Snippet Keywords, Understand Search Intent, and Create Better Content.
5. SEO Friendly Website
For online success, your business requires a great website design. For this purpose, you simply need to take into consideration some SEO guidelines for your website development and adequate content creation practices. There are 2 types of SEO performed on the website.
On-Page SEO
It is an integral part of the website which has to be optimized as per the Google SEO guidelines. On-page SEO is categorized into three parts, i.e., content optimization, HTML section optimization, and Meta tag optimization.
Off-Page SEO
The search engine tactics which are performed outside the website come under Off-page SEO. The latest tactics which are included in it are brand building, social media, video promotions, and content marketing.
Conclusion
SEO and the user experience should work parallelly to rank your website on top in the Google search engine. The more SEO guidelines you follow, the better your website will be at converting visitors to customers. At every level of digital strategy, each step has to be analyzed thoroughly before and after implementation. This will provide you with a roadmap to go in the correct direction.
Anuja is the Co-founder and CEO of RedAlkemi Online Pvt. Ltd., a digital marketing agency helping clients with their end to end online presence. Anuja has 30 years of work experience as a successful entrepreneur and has co-founded several ventures since 1986. She and her team are passionate about helping SMEs achieve measurable online success for their business. Anuja holds a Bachelors degree in Advertising from the Government College of Fine Arts, Chandigarh, India.
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