Is search engine optimization still important in 2022? Absolutely. It’s become more complex, its focus has shifted from keyword stuffing to user intent, and ranking in the Google SERPs has become more difficult. However, it is unmistakably here to stay. So let’s take a look at the 5 most important SEO trends that you’ll need to know about in the coming year.
Introduction of new Algorithm – MUM
Google’s algorithm became increasingly capable of comprehending the link between words and the purpose behind a search query after the debut of BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) in 2019.
BERT was a novel way for Google to service users of voice assistants. People started speaking their search queries instead of entering them. Because people’s communication has become much more conversational and fluid, Google’s algorithm has to be adjusted accordingly using NLP and AI technology.
BERT, on the other hand, was only the start. During the Google I/O 2021 conference, the firm unveiled the Multitask United Model, or MUM, a new model for interpreting and serving its consumers.
MUM is an artificial intelligence model that can recognise a user’s emotions, context, abstractions, and purpose, and then deliver meaningful responses that are specific to the user’s question. Users won’t have to do several inquiries until they locate the correct term that returns the desired result thanks to MUM.
Google Shopping Graphs – Not to miss
Consumers have no choice but to purchase online during the COVID-19 outbreak. Shopify’s net income, predictably, exceeded everyone’s original expectations, and Amazon performed similarly.
Google’s online purchasing capabilities were lacking until recently. Their shopping search engine has been there for a while, but it never gained the same traction as Shopify or Amazon. Google now appears to be taking online shopping seriously.
First, Google recently unveiled the Shopping Graph, a dynamic, AI-enhanced model that comprehends a constantly changing set of products, sellers, brands, reviews, and, most importantly, the product information and inventory data we receive directly from brands and retailers, as well as how those attributes relate to one another.
Google also expanded its cooperation with Shopify, allowing its 1.7 million merchants to showcase their items throughout Google’s ecosystem, resulting in a “70% increase in the size of our product catalogue and an 80% rise in merchants on our platform,” according to the company.
Passage Ranking
Since the inception of search engines, the most coveted aim of any SEO professional has been to rank their page number one for every search query. Due to the newer “zero-rank” position and the increased amount of snippets contending for the top spot, completing this accomplishment has grown more difficult in recent times.
Fortunately, Google has come up with a solution for SEOs who are still trying to rank at the top of a search engine result.
Google announced the invention of “passage indexing” late last year, which allows a website to rank for a single paragraph rather than the entire page. The “passage rating,” as it’s currently known, went active in February 2021. According to Google, its algorithm will look at “stronger signals about a page — for example, page titles or headers – to identify what results are most relevant to a query.”
Make Use of Key Moments in Your Videos
We’ve talked extensively about the value of video marketing for visitor acquisition and lead creation, which is another recent SEO trend. Recent improvements, on the other hand, have given video marketing a whole new meaning that benefits your SEO approach.
With the introduction of key moments in 2019, Google began displaying video extracts with timestamps and titles within its search engine — but important moments were generated automatically from YouTube films. You can now set the timestamps and labels for your movies thanks to the new structured data types rollout.
Historically, videos were viewed as a “nice-to-have” component of a larger SEO strategy, primarily utilised to increase engagement and content consumption. Whether you put your films on YouTube or your site, videos will play an important part in ranking for competitive searches.
Google is interested in speaking with you, LaMDA
I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about voice search and the necessity of optimizing for user inquiries when it comes to SEO trends. Google has just recently begun to alter its algorithm to accommodate the latest voice-based technology, and it wants to be able to converse with you.
Google also debuted LaMDA during the Google I/O conference (Language Model for Dialogue Applications). LaMDA, as its name indicates, is a machine-learning model for conversation that is based on Google’s neural network architecture, Transformer.
If MUM is all about figuring out people’s emotions and purpose behind their search queries, LaMDA aims to conduct a dialogue with them and provide them results depending on what they tell it. LaMDA is just one aspect of Google’s overall plan. Larger and more complex AI models that employ conversational queries to discover and rank sites are on the way. It’s time to start optimizing your website for voice search if you haven’t already.
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For SEO professionals, 2021 has been an exciting year. Although the majority of the improvements were announced in 2020, they demonstrate a growing emphasis on AI-based results that include pages, video, and other material.
UX is more important than ever, and only those marketers who can see beyond the technical aspects of their SEO job will be able to succeed.
If you’ve read thus far, you know that these five SEO trends may help you stand out from the crowd and make the most of the competitive SEO environment we live in.