Anyone looking to make their website more visible on Google knows that SEO, or search engine optimization, is paramount to getting it there. With an algorithm this complex, however, SEO strategies are always changing. That’s why we’ve compiled some of the best Google SEO tips out there in this article—to give you some pointers on how to improve your rankings in 2022! Here are our top 10 Google SEO tips for 2022.
1) Revise your site structure
In general, your site’s structure should be easy for a human to read and for Google’s crawlers to decipher. The idea is that users are looking for something specific, but on a larger scale, Google wants websites that follow their guidelines closely.
You can check if your website is user-friendly with Website Grader and you can check if it follows Google’s guidelines with Search Console. For more on improving your site structure, read our beginner’s guide to SEO as well as step-by-step guides on technical site optimization, mobile usability, and local listings.
2) Improve your link building efforts
Backlinks are a vital component of Google’s search algorithm, but they’re only one part of your overall strategy. When creating your link-building strategy, it’s important to have well-researched and specific pages that offer quality information.
This doesn’t just mean high-quality writing (it helps!), but also a clear voice and vision for your brand or business. Backlinks are much more valuable when they appear on websites that are relevant and helpful; likewise, links from websites with content that doesn’t align with yours can be damaging. Make sure you research publishers thoroughly before beginning any link-building initiatives—you might even want to start by reaching out via email.
Good Read: 10 Tips to Prevent a Website Against Negative SEO
3) Start a blog
It’s important to start a successful blog, even if it’s short-lived. It will serve as a foundation that you can build upon when you rebrand in five years, attracting new readers and growing your reach over time.
If you’re ready to create a space where your content is valued by relevant audiences—and where readers become regular contributors and sharers—Google will reward you with high rankings, lots of new traffic, and more authority online than ever before.
4) Add FAQ and how-to schema
One of Google’s most common ranking factors is a web page’s usefulness, and what’s more useful than answering user questions with content?
It only makes sense that Google would reward sites that address specific search queries in a way that answers users’ questions directly. FAQ pages are typically favored by searchers, too. Using schema can take your FAQ page from good to great.
5) Optimize your images
Making sure your images are optimized for Google search is a must, whether you’re trying to rank for organic keywords or want to show up on Google Image Search.
The content of an image is ignored by Google (meaning, it doesn’t impact your rankings), but file size does matter: Images that are too large will load slowly and negatively impact your page speed ranking—which can result in lower search rankings.
Aim for a file size of less than 1MB when possible and make sure you have an alt tag on every image; these tags help provide context around what each image is.
6) Bring back top-performing content
Google recently announced that it’s going to start taking into account users’ online behavior when ranking search results. Google will look at engagement and signals of popularity like +1s, Facebook likes, tweets, and retweets.
That means if you want your content to show up near the top of your audience’s Google searches in 2022, it’s a good idea to bring back your best-performing content now. You can do that by giving it some fresh attention on social media or simply by re-promoting it on your website.
Whatever you do, don’t expect Google’s new algorithm changes to make any big shifts until early 2022—that’s when we’ll see how much difference all these tweaks make for searchers.
7) Increase internal linking
The most important thing you can do right now is to make sure your site has as many internal links as possible. Linking pages together helps Google index them and make them more valuable.
The easiest way to find weak spots is by using Google Search Console. It’s a free service that shows you how your website appears in search results, how many clicks it’s getting, and whether it’s ranking for keywords related to your business.
Before you begin linking pages together, first look at what kind of organic traffic each page on your site is getting from Google Search; then determine which pages have more traffic potential.
8) Add new links to old content
One of Google’s core ranking factors is how frequently a page is linked to external sources. To make sure your old content is discovered, try adding new links to it. For example, you could add links from your social media accounts or put links at the end of an email newsletter.
As long as you’re linking out regularly, it’s not necessary for all your external links to be brand new—as long as you consistently use them over time, they should count towards your page-ranking efforts. Remember: just because a link hasn’t been clicked yet doesn’t mean there’s no value in having it on your site!
9) Remove unnecessary links
Using descriptive anchor text is important, but it’s equally important not to use a phrase multiple times within your content. When using keywords or phrases that are extremely important for rankings, be careful not to overuse them or you could be penalized by Google.
Whether you have a lot of traffic going through your site or only just starting out, looking at and removing any unnecessary links is an easy way to simplify your website and give users what they’re after your content. And when it comes time for Google’s next big algorithm update, it could be what helps you stay afloat.
10) Core Web Vitals
Google is always updating its algorithm and as search engine technology continues to advance, it’s no surprise that Google’s tactics for ranking sites will continue to improve. Keep an eye on core web vitals like mobile friendliness, LCP, etc.
These things aren’t likely to change anytime soon so they are good areas of focus when you’re trying to optimize your site for both search engines and human readers. Most importantly, don’t overcomplicate things — make sure your target keywords are used naturally in a variety of content areas on your site (like meta descriptions and title tags).
Conclusion
Google is constantly changing its search algorithm. We’ve written about these tips on our blog and these have been proven by many other marketers to work incredibly well. The first thing you should do is write great content.
This doesn’t mean thousands of words or fancy titles; it means providing helpful information and including keywords naturally within your content where appropriate (this is called on-page optimization). Next, make sure that your business information on Google Maps and Google My Business is correct. This will help users find your SEO company in India easily when they search for local businesses. After that, it’s time to get backlinks!
