At its core, SEO is a long-term strategy. SEO requires an ongoing investment. Results are realised over time as the amount of improvements are mainly measured on sales, traffic, leads and other major metrics too. There is no doubt that SEO investment is an indispensable part of your online business. Not only does SEO get you a high ranking on Google but it also means you will come up when people are looking for what it is you sell.
For sure you have explored the basics of SEO so far and studied how it works. But while doing so, you’ve probably discovered that implementing it in your digital marketing strategy is complex and time-consuming. Also, optimising your content is a long game, and it may take months to reap the results. There was probably a point where you were wondering – is it worth all the hassle? Well, rest assured that it is! It can be a good way to rocket your exposure as well as sales. For any business, it can also be a great way to really develop a good sales funnel too.
The main overall benefits of SEO
As mentioned, it may take a while before you start to enjoy the benefits of SEO. Keep in mind that search engine optimisation is an ongoing process. The rules are constantly evolving and to stay on top of changes, you should be up-to-date with the latest SEO trends. An interesting SEO update to keep an eye for in 2022 is the IndexNow protocol. Google has confirmed that they are testing it, and although it still has a long way to go before it’s live, the topic is sure worth finding out.
With the IndexNow protocol, you will be able to instantly notify Google of new pages, updates, and removing outdated content. This can significantly speed up the results of your SEO efforts, and give you a competitive advantage. As you can see, the search engine realm is dynamic, but whatever new changes come our way in 2022, they will most probably contribute to the benefits of SEO for your business.
SEO can also improve the UX of the website
There are many ways you can improve your website and maximize user experience. This includes providing your audience with relevant information, related photos or videos to support text, easy-to-navigate web pages and a mobile-friendly website configuration. For example, if you feature animation on your page but it’s not rendering well, this will lead to an unpleasant user experience.
Optimising animations will make them easier to detect by Google. This way, when the user scrolls down the page and reaches the animated content, they will be able to enjoy it as it will run smoothly, instead of freezing and stuttering. Better user experience results in more clicks, more leads, better brand recall, and higher conversion rates. Both your website visitors and search engines value good UX. Delivering it will improve your ranking and keep people longer on your pages.
In mid 2021, Google added a core web vitals report in the Search Console for website managers. It was made to track the page experience on their properties. Using this feature, in 2022, businesses can easily identify advanced page performance. They can also look at SEO issues and improve how visitors experience their content. Combined with the search performance report, which was also recently improved, businesses have powerful tools at their disposal that enable them to take advantage of the benefits of SEO.
Keyword research is vital
Keyword research matters. Before investing time in new content, you want to know if your keyword can generate results. That’s even more true in 2022 when competition will be fiercer than ever. We want to consider both competition and search demand when choosing relevant keywords. In general, we want to find keywords have relatively high search demand and relatively low competition. In the matrix below that means the quadrant in the upper left area is where we want to focus.
Overall, what you also need to know, in detail
Search engines like Google are constantly in search of the best content (that is authoritative and relevant) to answer the questions that users have. That’s because each successfully answered search query leads to repeat visits and continual monetization on the platform. Google knows that user satisfaction relies on matching that search intent as closely as possible. So for you, as someone interested in SEO, you don’t need to think about semantics as much as simply creating the best, most trustworthy answers (content) to address the questions your customers have.
