Advanced-ish SEO Tactics to Rank Higher in 2022
Has your website flatlined in search? Check out these SEO tactics to rank higher in search with your existing content.
You have a website, you have good content, so what the Hell is keeping your site from ranking in search and bringing in leads?
You can assume that you have a clear understanding of what Google is looking for, but what happens if an algorithm updates and throws a wrench in your plans? Worse, what if the updates haven’t affected your site at all and you’re stuck in the back 40 of Google Search no matter what happens?
This is a common problem. You’re not alone!
In this post we’re going to look at some advanced-ish SEO tactics to rank higher in search. More importantly we’re going to look at tactics that will help you rank the website and content you already have online.
What is SEO?
Forget about SEO for a second, what is the primary source of the traffic to your website?
For any thriving site — it’s organic search.
Google results that are ranked first on the page are 33% more likely to be clicked.
Hence, if you’re not on the first page of the search engine results, you are going to miss out on a third of your potential traffic.
You already know that most people don’t venture beyond the first page. And, if no one is able to find you in the first place, you won’t be able to generate leads for your business.
SEO (Search engine optimization) is the necessary mechanism for reaching your customers in search engines.
In simple terms, SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” The goal of search engine optimization is to increase the visibility of a company in organic search results. In addition, it is one of the most effective methods for helping websites rank better in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). As a consequence of these efforts, the company’s website receives more visitors, leading to greater chances of conversion, which will ultimately lead to more customers and an increase in revenue.
Most people understand this much about SEO, but clearly there is a break down somewhere when it comes to actually implementing SEO the right way in order to rank.
This post is going to help clarify those actionable SEO tactics to rank higher in search.
In order to make their decisions, search engines take into account elements such as titles, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links. To determine how highly ranked your site should be in the SERPs, search engines also consider the design of your site and visitor behavior, as well as off-site factors.
If all of these factors are taken into account and content is relevant to all of these factors, SEO has a significant impact on rankings and visibility. This list of advanced SEO tactics will help you rank higher, if these are steps that you can’t implement yourself then, you should hire an SEO company to help you with this.
SEO Tactics to Rank Higher in 2022
1. Existing Content Optimization
Content marketing is almost universally used by every business today. There are plenty of businesses that have content that dates back several years. Using content for SEO tactics to rank higher is the first step every business should take. However, “It’s not the quantity of the content that matters to Google, but the relevance and quality of the content.”
Based on the time sensitivity and relevancy, content strategies can be divided into two major categories: Evergreen and Topical.
Topical content covers current relevant news and events that result in a sudden spike in traffic. But as the timeliness of the content diminishes, the levels of traffic decrease with it. Evergreen content, on the other hand, is timeless, relevant content that continually brings fresh traffic to your website.
It’s still a topic of debate, which content strategy brings more traffic, Evergreen content vs Topical content? This has made it difficult for content marketers and businesses to choose the ideal content strategy out of the two. To learn more about the type of SEO content you should use, click here.
Why is it necessary to optimize the existing content, you ask?
In this respect, old content is like having a camera with no memory in it: it is available to you, but you can’t use it.
Reoptimizing content that receives less traffic, converts less, or performs poorly on any other metric may assist your company in making the most of its available resources. You may take advantage of the time and effort you put into producing and publishing it by having it appear near the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
2. Optimize Mobile Ranking
The rapid proliferation of smartphones, tablets, phablets, and other mobile devices has led Google to move from desktop to mobile indexing over the years.
The result of this is that Google will now consider the mobile version of your website as the only version you may present to your customers.
As it relates to mobile-specific content indexed by Google’s Mobile-first index, you should keep the following points in mind:
- If you haven’t yet created a mobile-friendly version of your website, you may want to consider switching to a responsive design.
- Make content that can be accessed on both the desktop and mobile platforms.
- Ensure that your website is user-friendly on a mobile device and you will need to make any necessary modifications.
- Currently, YouTube is the second most popular search engine. Creating video content is necessary to stay on the bandwagon of this search engine or else you will miss out on it.
- Adding video content to your blog is a great way to increase traffic. You will be able to have an interesting fusion of video and content which will appeal to your readers.
3. E-A-T is Future
As the name implies, EAT stands for expertise, authority, and trust.
When determining the quality of a page, the EAT score plays an important role. If you want to create content that gets a good grade, you should emulate people who are experts on the topic.
47% of the average buyer will read about three to five pieces of content before speaking with a salesperson. When you partner with subject matter experts or replicate their content, you increase the chance of your content being consumed by a buyer before they move to the next step.
In either case, you should ask subject matter experts for help, regardless of whether you are producing thought-leadership content. The best way to gain authority from such people is to consult with them, but that’s not the only way.
Additionally, you can include links to content that other creators have created, cite quotes from industry experts in your posts, as well as highlight other types of content the subject matter has done, such as podcasts, videos, and infographics.
4. Improve UX Design
Identifying quality sites worthy of being ranked high in Google is based on human behavior. It is in this context that usability and user experience design have become integral parts of search engine optimization. Sites need on-page SEO, but considerations for the user experience can also go a long way toward boosting rankings and engagement.
Our list of five best practices will help clarify where you should prioritize your efforts in optimizing your site for search engine performance.
- You should simplify the navigation of your website.
- Make SEO-friendly layouts with UX design.
- Site architecture can be informed by search data.
- Optimize the loading speed of your site.
- Make sure it’s responsive on mobile.
5. Improve Page Loading Speed
For a few reasons, you should pay attention to the loading time of your web page. The first thing to keep in mind is that Google will notice slow page load speed and penalize you. The speed of your site also affects how users engage with your content. That harms your ranking too.
What is a reasonable speed for a website?
Your SEO ranking will be ruined because it will result in the loss of traffic to your website. Several studies have shown that around 40% of visitors will abandon a website if it takes over three seconds for the page to load. The shocking thing is that most of those visitors won’t return to the website again.
On the other hand, if you have a fast-loading page, people will be inclined to keep coming back. Google’s algorithm will adjust your search ranking based on your site’s popularity. Thus, it’s vital to optimize your page speed and server response time.
6. Voice Search Optimization
Taking action on voice search has also become essential SEO tactics to rank higher that you cannot ignore in the year 2022. There are reports that an estimated 50% of all searches conducted on the internet will be made through voice searches by the year 2021.
Despite the fact that the technology seems to be a brand new one, it’s actually been around for quite some time. Instead of typing in keywords to generate search results, users can speak to their devices. A few excellent examples of voice search include Google Home, Siri, Google Assistant, as well as Amazon Alexa.
Google gives consideration to optimizing voice search more seriously, considering that voice search significantly improves the user experience. For this reason, it’s crucial to adapt your website to enhance voice search.
7. Video Content Marketing
Over the past few years, video has become increasingly important in the creation of web content. With YouTube accounting for more than 33% of all mobile search, video as SEO tactics to rank higher should be a primary focus. More and more videos are showing up on Google as we head into 2022.
Additionally, there is now a specific markup for video. The schema markup allows you to make your videos even more visible in search results. You’ll find them under the Seek and Clips video markups. You can use both of these features to highlight critical moments specific URLs and have greater control over your videos.
Additionally, YouTube has been updated with Google’s machine learning. Now, Google is going to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to crawl Youtube videos in order to analyze them.
There are now several ways in which Google can recognize facial expressions, specific points in videos, and other important content. In the past six or seven years, Google was able to identify an object only, but now they can do much more. With the help of this technology, they can now distinguish the smallest of expressions on a person’s face and understand everything that is being shown. This data is brought in by Google for indexing.
If you aren’t using video content or video markup in your SEO strategy, it is time to get started.
8. Local SEO Optimization
There really are two types of search; general and local. Local search is SEO tactics to rank higher in your specific areas, and one that you can’t ignore. A larger amount of indexable content leads to a larger number of search results appearing.
Your portfolio should showcase the areas you have worked in even if you operate in more than one state or country. Develop localized pages applicable to a specific target market if you operate in more than one state or country. Interestingly, although we operate on a national scale, we have created separate pages specifically to offer a specific focus for some of the major cities we work in.
By creating more indexable content, your company will also show customers that it’s dedicated to its local area. Boost your local presence in both real life and online by incorporating keywords that reflect your local area, or by participating in local events or festivals.
It is necessary for you to keep up with your Google Maps listing and social media content to make certain that the people’s perception of your business is positive.
9. Schema Markup Optimization
Schema markup is also an alternative term for structured data, which is a language that is used by search engines to represent semantic terminology. The purpose of this code is to make your content clearer to search engines, so that they may better understand your content. Therefore, rich snippets beneath the page title will display better, more accurate information.
There are dozens of Schema markup and I am going to mention a few of them.
- Organization Schema markup
- Person Schema markup
- Local business Schema markup
- Product & Offer Schema Markup
- Article Schema Markup
- Video Schema Markup
- Event Schema Markup
- Recipe Schema Markup
- Rating/Review Schema Markup
10. Optimize Feature Snippets
In order for you to rank in the featured snippet section of Google, your article must rank on the first page for your selected keyword. It’s a no-brainer to optimize your article for featured snippets if it ranks at the top of the first page of Google.
If you have already ranked your article on page one, you need to do two things.
- Ensure you answer as many questions as possible on the FAQs page that are relevant to your primary keyword,
- Make use of the “people also ask” feature on Google by including a response to the question in your article
Utilizing the SEO strategies listed above, you can increase the likelihood that your keywords will appear in the featured snippet.
Mastering Google SEO Tactics to Rank Higer
Even though there is a lot of change when it comes to Google’s algorithms and search engine optimization, the rule of thumb is always the same: relevant, high-quality content should always be the beginning point.
You can, however, ensure the dominance of SEO with Google in 2022 by implementing the 10 advanced SEO tactics to rank higher listed above.
How? These techniques enable you to create clean, engaging content that both users and crawlers will enjoy. If you’re itching for even more SEO insight, visit some of these other posts.
