Google’s algorithm is changing very often, so every marketer who works with SEO should be aware of these updates to change their digital strategies or create new ones. This makes many companies wonder what SEO challenges they will encounter.
Recently, HubSpot (a North American company that develops and sells marketing software) published a report on web traffic and analytics to find out how websites are performing and what they should have to be at the top of search engine results. Based on the report, we decided to write this article that presents the main challenges in terms of SEO and how to tackle them. Are you prepared?
SEO in 2022: Key Challenges
Let’s take a look at the challenges every marketer and SEO professional should be aware of.
1. Algorithm Changes
Google algorithm is constantly changing and professionals should keep up with it. It is estimated that, so far, there have been six changes to this algorithm in 2022 (to date) and 16 updates throughout 2021. Every time an update comes in, the way Google sees each page changes, and that can be good or bad for your content production.
So, the tip to avoid this type of problem is to be aware of your sector. Regardless of the types of changes, producing content on the top topics in your niche helps you get along with the algorithm.
2. Attention to Detail
We are aware that SEO takes time to generate results, but to get them, we must do everything within our reach. This means that every detail you need to do in terms of SEO counts to achieve a good ranking in Google results.
While some websites produce really great content, they forget to do things that seem silly but extremely important, like:
* titles and subtitles (heading tags);
* alt text;
* best practices for keywords;
* secondary keywords;
* internal an external backlinks;
* content development based on a strategy of topic clusters.
When these points (and many others) are missing, Google doesn’t see the content as good, and it’s not likely to rank in the top pages, especially after an update that takes these points into account.
3. Keywords
A few years ago, keywords were enough to get websites to the first page of Google, even if the content was bad. But fortunately, those times have changed. Nowadays, keywords alone are not enough to boost your organic results, as the most important thing is not the keyword itself, but the user intent behind it.
So, before writing content based on a keyword, use tools like Keyword Planner, Sem Rush and Google Trends to understand what people are really looking for. Write down any topics you find and use them in your article.
4. Attractive Title
Every time someone finds your site in Google search results, the next step is convincing them to click. That’s why your articles should have compelling titles and meta descriptions. Try to focus on the problem your audience has and how your content will help solve it.
The coolest thing is that if your content is really great, Google can give you a featured snippet position, also known as “position zero”, because it’s the one that comes first.
5. Mobile First
Since July 2019, Google prioritizes mobile versions of web pages to index and rank them in SERPs. So, if you know of a website that doesn’t perform well on smartphones and tablets, it’s probably not well ranked on Google.
So when you hire a developer or build a webpage using a CMS like WordPress, make sure the template is responsive and the loading speed is fast. Currently, as Google said, 53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile website takes longer than three seconds to load. So, if your site is slow, surely a lot of people are abandoning it to visit your competitor’s page.
6. Remember the Videos
Have you ever made a Google search and noticed that the search engine offered you a video on Youtube as the first result? That’s because the search engine favors content that works best on video – like tutorials for example. If you have this type of content in your branding strategy, remember to apply SEO techniques to them as well. We talk more about it in this post.
SEO in Vancouver
Finally, remember to do an internal conference from time to time on the content already published on the brand’s website or blog. You can often find good content that hasn’t been optimized according to SEO techniques and therefore didn’t perform well – update it! Google loves this kind of thing.
And if you’ve read this text and are still unsure about how to update or implement an SEO-focused content strategy, please contact us. We work with a number of brands and can help you craft quality content.