The 2022 SEO Trends You’ll Be Happy You Knew

[{"selector":"#anim-9067ddca-7395-4ed6-8e01-573f2c1765c9","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":400,"duration":600,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-a2882630-5693-432d-867c-bcf460b3d0e7","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":400,"duration":600,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-3b8b797e-5da4-4dbf-883b-1c1f01327909","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":350,"duration":600,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] See More

1. Reputation research

2. Core Web Vitals — minimums

3. Ditch AMP?

4. Google Discover

5. Local SEO GBP categories

6. Favicon review

Want to promote your site quickly and for free, but don't know where to start? Learn more about website promotion and making money online by visiting our website

The 2022 SEO Trends You’ll Be Happy You Knew

1. Reputation research

All right, moving on to different topics, reputation research. My friend Lily Ray talks about reputation research a lot in terms of E-A-T. The idea that Google can evaluate your site based on what other people say about you. So if you’re Dr. Mercola and an anti-vaxxer and everybody is

1. Reputation research

1. Reputation research

1. Reputation research

advice, reputation research is a little bit more important for those sites.

2. Core Web Vitals — minimums

Boy, last year we talked about Core Web Vitals a lot. One of my happiest things is that we are talking about it much less. Google announced a big update. It was a big hooplala. It didn’t quite work out the way Google

2. Core Web Vitals — minimums

kind of explained that it might. What happened was Google released Core Web Vitals, and some sites saw a boost, other sites saw a decrease, but it wasn’t as intense as we thought it might be. A lot of sites did improve. But we’re finding in 2022 maybe we don’t

2. Core Web Vitals — minimums

need to worry about it as much as we thought. My colleague Tom Capper did a study that showed that slow sites were still ranking and fast sites were ranking even higher, but the effect wasn’t as much. The one thing Tom did find though, that was important, was sites that failed

2. Core Web Vitals — minimums

all three Core Web Vital requirements were definitely in the dumps. So we should optimize for speed always, but perhaps in 2022 we don’t need to obsess over it as much as possible, based on Google advice. Speed is awesome.

2. Core Web Vitals — minimums

You should make your sites as fast as you can. But Core Web Vitals, don’t sweat it as much as we were in 2021.

3. Ditch AMP?

Other things we might want to consider not sweating, AMP. 2021 was the year that we’ve seen a lot sites start to ditch their AMP. This is because Google no longer requires it as a ranking factor in their top stories.

3. Ditch AMP?

It does provide some speed benefits. It’s kind of a neat technology. We know people who work on it. It’s really cool. But a lot of companies were stressing out trying to maintain two different versions of their

3. Ditch AMP?

website to get that ranking boost. A lot of sites are starting to like, “Well, we don’t want to have two different versions. It’s a lot of overhead. It’s a lot of engineers. What if we just got rid of it?” They’re finding it really doesn’t make a difference.

3. Ditch AMP?

They can just work with one platform and still get as much rankings as they want. So if your company is struggling with AMP, this might be a year to experiment with ditching it. Or keep it if you like. It’s great, but a lot of people seem to be walking away.

4. Google Discover

On the flipside, a lot of people are flocking to Google Discover. Google Discover is interesting. It’s not traditional SEO traffic, where you research a keyword and people are converting. It’s a little bit more like social media traffic.

4. Google Discover

In fact, social media sharing seems to be one of the ranking factors that can influence how much traffic you get from Google Discover. But what we’ve seen in the last year is some publishers are optimizing for Google Discover, publishing those stories, and seeing huge amounts of traffic for that.

4. Google Discover

Great for like news sites, blogs, popular things, things that talk about popular topics. We’ve gotten some Google Discover traffic here at Moz. We’re going to link to a couple of articles to show you how to optimize for Google Discover. But if you haven’t tried it yet, it may be a

4. Google Discover

channel for you to explore in 2022.

5. Local SEO GBP categories

We’ve got to squeeze in one local SEO tip. We’re doing this for our friend Darren Shaw, who publishes the Local Search SEO Ranking Factors every year, doing an awesome job at it. If you have a local site and you just have five minutes to do one thing, the number one

5. Local SEO GBP categories

SEO tip for 2022, get your GBP categories in order. Ranking factors studies show that it is the number one thing that can influence rankings. Do an audit of your Google Business Profile categories. Darren has a lot of tips over there with that Local SEO Ranking Factors.

5. Local SEO GBP categories

I would encourage you to look at it. Also Joy Hawkins is doing a lot with experimentations. I’d encourage you to look at her site as well.

6. Favicon review

My tip, the tip that I’m going to die on this hill — favicon optimization. Why favicon optimization? I talked about this last year, but I don’t think people took me seriously enough. Over 50% of search results take place on a mobile phone where your favicon shows, and

6. Favicon review

people are not optimizing those favicons. A good favicon can draw attention. It can zero you in on a very busy SERP, and it does it with just a few pixels. A good favicon can raise your click-through conversion rate one or two percent, which is awesome.

6. Favicon review

How does it work? What do you notice on this screen? You notice the tip with a favicon. A good favicon is usually bright, it’s usually high contrast, and it draws your attention to your search results. So optimize your favicon, folks. I’m dying on that hill.

Want to promote your site quickly and for free, but don't know where to start? Learn more about website promotion and making money online by visiting our website

seogeorge.com