As a business, SEO is of key importance to focus on in 2022. With so many websites now in existence online, you’ve got a lot of competition that you’re up against in order to get to those top spots.
With 68% of online experiences beginning with a search engine, it’s essential that you’re putting in the right strategies to improve your SEO across all areas of your website. From the landing pages to the product pages and blog posts, every part of the site is influential to its success at ranking.
In this ultimate SEO guide, you’ll learn the following:
- What are the benefits of using SEO for your business in 2022
- 6 SEO-friendly practices to use when growing your online business
This year it’s important to boost your online business through a number of methods and that includes search engine optimization. So with that said, let’s dive into this insightful SEO guide that will help your business thrive in 2022.
What are the benefits of using SEO for your business in 2022
Search engine optimization has many uses for your business online in 2022. Without paying attention to the importance of ranking on search engine results, you’ll likely miss the mark and lose out on potential traffic.
Marketers understand the importance of SEO, with 70% of marketers seeing SEO as more effective than PPC. The energy that you invest into your marketing is important to get right, particularly if resources and money are limited as a business.
Here are some benefits that come with using SEO and how it can benefit your business if done right.
Helps improve visibility
When you invest in your search engine optimization strategies, you help improve the visibility of your website and of your brand and business too. By focusing on SEO, it helps communicate with search engines like Google to show that your site is relevant for your target users and for the search queries that they input when searching online.
With better visibility of your brand, you’re more likely to gain more success as a result. More exposure is always useful for your business as it lets more people know that you exist on the internet.
It’s difficult to be seen, let alone stay in the spotlight of Google’s top page results.
Increases website traffic
With better visibility of your site, there’s the added benefit that good SEO practices increase website traffic.
There are many sites out there that are benefiting from the use of search engines. With more than 1.3 million businesses, website publishers, and nonprofits nationwide benefiting from Google’s advertising solutions – it’s worth implementing a strategy for your website!
Improving your website’s traffic is only going to help improve the site’s performance overall. Some pages may perform better than others so SEO can help determine what works and what you can then use for future content marketing.
Creates a trustworthy experience for the user
User experience is essential in this day and age. It also goes hand in hand with your SEO. SEO can help get traffic to your site but the UX of your site and the SEO practices you use will help encourage your users to remain on the site for longer.
A lot of SEO specialists will look at how UX design influences the credibility and trustworthiness of the site. With the right methods in place, it can be more encouraging for your users to click on your content.
Helps track your progress
SEO has some great benefits, mainly the data and analytics that can come from it. There’s a lot that you can discover and learn about your site and how well your SEO practices are performing when it comes to helping boost your company’s presence online.
For those responsible for improving the SEO of a client’s site or the business they work for, tracking progress can help demonstrate the value that this method of marketing brings to the company.
6 SEO-friendly practices to use when growing your online business
There are plenty of ways you can implement SEO-friendly practices when it comes to growing your business. These practices may change over time as the algorithm of search engines like Google adapts to the needs of its users.
For those unfamiliar with SEO, it can be difficult to know where to start. Here are six SEO-friendly practices that you can start using right away for your site.
Look at improving UX (user experience)
User experience is an important part of content success nowadays both online and offline.
According to Forrester, better UI could raise your website’s conversion rate by 200% and better UX design can lead to conversion rates of up to 400%. Keeping your users engaged with the right content is going to help them click on the links you want them to click on and to engage with your website for longer.
Look at the bounce rate of your website and pages in general. This metric shows you how long the user is staying on the site before clicking off. The lower it is, the better. Are there certain pages that do better at this than others? This might be the key to unlocking a better bounce rate across the entirety of your site.
Consider improving the site’s speed so that users don’t get bored of slow-loading pages and make the navigation of your site easier. A complex site navigation design is only going to frustrated the user.
Internal and external linking
The use of internal and external linking is paramount for SEO purposes. It’s a practice that can help boost page popularity and your website’s domain amongst other sites. The higher your domain, the more likely you’ll climb up the search engine search results.
Internal links can help users and search engines to find the better pages within your site. They can also help directly increase the rankings of other pages that perhaps aren’t doing so well as the one you’ve created.
External links are used to help add credibility to the search engines. It’s useful to link to external linking where relevant and to achieve more backlinks back to your site from other reputable sites.
Use link building for SaaS
Most businesses can benefit from internal and external linking, so using link building for SaaS is also worthwhile. It’s worthwhile to use the services of link-building agencies and marketing companies that can help you link to the right sites and to therefore boost your content’s value.
Used mixed media
The use of mixed media is important because users like to have variety. There’s also some content that ends up performing better than others due to them being more popular or engaging.
When it comes to SEO-friendly practices, a good one is to use mixed media in the form of videos, written content, etc.
This means guest posts where you link back to your site, short video content via social media platforms, and written content on your own website. The more variety you can provide, the better engagement opportunities you have.
Create content with trends in mind
Trends come and go but it’s proven with a lot of businesses that joining trends on the internet is effective in boosting brand awareness and business presence online. The use of user-generated content has helped many brands thrive like ASOS as an example. With the rise of influencers trending online, businesses can create content with this trend in mind.
By keeping your ear to the ground with trends, you’re more likely to see content that’s engaged with and shared further.
Use keywords in alt text for images
Accessibility is important but it’s also a good way of helping improve the user experience of your site. By focusing on keywords in the alt text of images, it benefits the user experience which ultimately shows Google that your site or pages, in particular, are worth ranking.
When including keywords in the alt text, make sure they’re relevant to the content it’s being used for. Be detailed and try not to exceed over 125 characters. Be concise and detailed in your alt text.
Keyword in headers
Talking of keywords, in general, they are also a great way to help improve SEO and the ranking of your pages. The headers of content are essential because if they’re not attractive to the user, they won’t click on them.
Conducting keyword research can be helpful in understanding what your target audience is looking for when creating content.
Headers help break up long sections of text and can act as signposts for those who skim-read the content. This helps make it easier to engage with content. Nielsen Norman Group found that 79% of test users scanned any new pages and only 16% read word-by-word. Headers can help avoid the user simply clicking off the page.
Utilize SEO practices for your online business in 2022
SEO can be majorly helpful for businesses both small and big that exist online. With the right strategy in place, the ROI that you spend in time and money will pay off tenfold. Increase that exposure, gain more traffic and provide a unique user experience that will get people talking.
By constantly improving your SEO practices, you’ll ultimately drive more success for the brand and business you own or you’re working for. Don’t sleep on SEO in 2022!
Need help from the pros? Take a look at our affordable SEO services and get in touch today, we’d be honored to help!
