Omar Kattan, CSO, Sandstorm Digital breaks down SEO Trends to watch out for in 2022 in order to get ahead of the curve.
Multitask United Model [MUM]
We saw major algorithm changes with the roll out of MUM, this is the way Google processes and understands content on a page and improving quality of search results using advanced artificial intelligence. The natural language processing is 1000x more powerful than BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) and capable of multitasking, enabling analysis of video, images, and text within 75 languages to give users the answers to complex search queries.
MUM is still in the testing phase but will expected to soon be integrated into Search algorithm. This means more relevant results with just one query input. You should definitely look to optimize all types of content, images, text, and video to be able to be more searchable.
Shopping Graph
Google expanded its shopping product catalog by implementing a shopping graph and the realization that online shopping has taken off with the pandemic. Google is focused on creating a better shopping experience by partnering and incentivizing sellers. Google further expanded the relationship with Shopify with 1.7 merchants .
For ecommerce business this is an important trend to stay on top of, Google is looking to integrate reviews and merchant info to optimize for shopping.
Passage Indexing
According to Google, It will now start using natural language processing feature to index webpages , which basically captures sections on the page to show up on search results relevant to the query. This will be beneficial for long-tailed and question-based search queries as it takes abstracts from the page that are relevant and not the page as a whole. A web page that is highly structure with high quality content will greatly benefit from this.
Some methods to make your content stand out is by utilizing Google video structured data with Clip markup and Seek markup.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are critical for Google rankings, page experience is expected to be a major factor for ranking in 2022. It short, Google wants you to provide the best page experience possible to users, and this ensures the best user experience. In a user experience centric environment, you must optimize your site for 2022.
Question & Answer Ranking
Frequently asked question (FAQ) pages are invaluable to SEO. They help answer questions for your users that are shown on search . Your business should tap into this by researching the most common questions asked and answering them. (providing a solution to the prospective customer). In doing so in a structured and intentional way, you are most likely to be features it the People Always Ask (PAA) boxes. The Q&A type ranking is also important to consider as we moved more into voice searches.
Topic Clusters
SEO is now shifting to a topic cluster model, where a single page acts as the main hub of content for a topic and multiple content pages that are related to that same topic link back to the main page and to each other. This linking action signals to search engines that the pillar page is an authority on the topic. this will enhance your Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (E-A-T). Check out our episode on YMYL and E-A-T to learn more.
2021 was an exciting year for SEO in terms of algorithm updates, In 2022, we see much more emphasis towards advanced artificial intelligence results and more of a focus on user experience.
