What To Expect In Enterprise SEO In Upcoming Year

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2021 saw sea changes in the way people find products and services online. And Google will likely use the experience to further fine-tune its algorithms in 2022.

This article gives you nine trends this year is likely to witness in enterprise SEO. 

You will also learn how to adjust your business strategy to these emerging trends.

Enterprise SEO Trends To Watch Out for

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1. Page Speed

Google's new metrics -- Core Web Vitals - have brought renewed focus to page-loading speed. Google will use them to gauge 'Page Experience,' another term for user experience. The crucial details related to it are provided on Google Search Console, as shown below. 

Here is a list of what CWV will take into account: 

• Page loading speed
• Interactivity 
• responsiveness
• Time till the point of stability*

(* This means time until enough assets are loaded on the web page for a user to start interacting with it).

To keep your gains intact in 2022, integrate measures to improve page-loading in your SEO road map. Here are three simple ways you can do it.

1. Compress Images: This reduces the time needed to download the image. 

2. Font Formats: Each font is a JavaScript file. So, the higher the number of fonts, the higher the time for the page to load. 

3. Server: Since you have many pages to host, go for dedicated hosting.

2. Rope In The AI

Many SEO pros fear that introduction of AI will snatch away their job. This, however, is largely a misconception as AI is already hauling a lot of weight in the SEO world. 

In 2022, AI will be used to complete tedious and mundane tasks. This will allow SEO pros to focus on creativity, organization, and planning. 

Some of the tasks that AI does include:

• Analyzing backlink profile
• Keyword research
• Search ranking position
• Website logs, and 
• Site errors

If you want to try out some of these AI-powered tools, check out this list:

1. MarketMuse: It will tell you the exact keywords you must create content on in a particular niche. You can research with both keywords and URLs to find the best keywords, word count, content score, etc. to draft quality content

2. Exceed.ai: A virtual assistant that engages with qualified leads and books a meeting. 

3. Frase:Finds relevant user queries and helps marketers create content on them. 

Read: What Is The Role Of Artificial Intelligence in Local SEO

3. Search Data to Rule the Roost

Search has become as necessary as air and water for many of us. This means a population churns out tons of search queries daily. 

For businesses, these searches are mines from where they can glean market insights. The data can help them with:

• Trending products and categories (Latest glow-ink calligraphy pen)
• Problems faced by customers (Where to find glow-ink?)
• Preferences within categories (Red glow-ink for calligraphy pens)
• Urgency and delivery (One-day delivery for glow-ink), for example, audience make purchases when they are made to rush with limited time offers or high discounts or low prices, as shown below. 

These are, however, only the tip of the iceberg of benefits that data accrues for marketers.

Note: By analyzing data by location, culture, and demography, marketers can pinpoint opportunities. 

For example, someone searching for winter clothing will likely search for summer clothing later. By analyzing queries from a certain location, a marketer will know when to send ads to the person.

4. Synergy Between SEO And PPC

The past decade witnessed marketers working on SEO and PPC separately. This despite higher organic results leading to higher CTR of the businesses' PPC ads. 

The new trend, however, is achieving greater synergy between the two marketing channels. For instance, Google Keyword Planner shows the CPC and competition of keywords along with search volume as in the below image. 

Based on it, certain keywords can be used in PPC while others in SEO for long-term benefits. 

This is expected to meet certain objectives, such as:

• Reduce cost and improve returns
• Seamless transfer of insights between the two media*
• Meeting short-term and long-term goals in tandem

Let's illustrate this with an example. It's tough to measure the performance of keywords in organic search. You can, however, test and select the keywords using PPC as it generates results quicker. 

Using both, you optimize only those keywords with a higher investment return.

5. Website to Have More Visual Content

Search engines do give more attention to websites with more images. This is to do with User Experience (UX), as people find web pages with more images appealing. 

Imagine witnessing the images shown in the screenshot while reading a blog. Doesn’t it fascinate you?

In 2022, however, this might undergo a slight tweak. 

Search engines are likely to give a higher ranking to websites with unique images. That youth can instantly spot staged action (as in stock images) is the reason for this change. 

So, ride the wave's crest when Google starts rewarding websites with more unique media assets. 

Note: Direct image searches are set to boom with the introduction of such platforms as Google Lens. Moreover, Google's AI might be upgraded to detect whether an 'image' will be a better suit for a query.

Read: How to Stay Ahead of the Competition with Visual Content Marketing Trends

6. Voice Search Echoing Out In Cyber Space

Voice searches are becoming more common these days. With Google launching its LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), it will gain more traction. 

Why? Here are a few reasons:

• After the pandemic, people want hands-free searches
• Rise of virtual assistants like Alexa
• Penetration of smartphones around the world 

Note: If you have a smartphone, you might have already used voice search at least once. And have you noticed the way you framed those key phrases? 

Chances are you used a conversational phrase. This is the cornerstone of voice searches. So, ensure that: 

• Content is conversational and comprehensive. Use the free AnswerthePublic tool to analyze the various type of queries that your audience might search with voice. 

• It is long-form and in-depth with multiple subheadings
• Responds to voice optimization tests using voice assistants.

7. The Rise of Video SEO

Though it has been around for a while, video SEO or VSEO is yet to reach its full potential. Done well, benefits of video content include: 

• Higher Traffic: People these days gravitate towards video as it eases content consumption
• Better Brand Recognition: This depends on the quality of the video you put out
• More Backlinks: High-quality videos* generate backlinks from both on and off niche. 

Note: Since the key moment's update on Google in 2019, SERPs have a section with videos with ‘key moments.’ 

In 2022, videos using structured data to enable such marking by Google stands to gain.

*Want an example of ‘quality video’? 

Check out this promotion video by start-up DollarShave.com. It stands out owing to its unique presentation. 

8. Serve the Right Content to the Right Customer

Google will never relax the importance it places on quality content. The spam update in 2021 made it clear that websites with shallow content will suffer. 

In 2022, the idea of quality content served to the right customer group will take center stage. This is because each user will have a different purpose for browsing the same niche, as shown in the below image. 

Note: Customers, you might already know, have three kinds of intent:

• Informational: This intends to learn more about a particular topic, product, or person. Users with this intent are at the top of the sales funnel.
• Commercial/Navigational: People with this intent want to see the options available to buy a product or service.
• Transactional: Users with this intent are ready to buy a product. Their search will be highly focused, often branded.

9. Shopping with Photos

In May 2021, Google introduced the Shopping Graph feature. It makes shopping simpler for people. 

For example, suppose you found a pair of sneakers on an Instagram page and thought of getting a pair. 

The problem is that you know neither the brand nor the model of the sneakers. Google Graph, however, can help you in this situation. Here's how:

• Take a screenshot of the Instagram post
• Open the screenshot on Google Photos
• Use Google Lens to scan the screenshot (you can adjust the focus to the product)
• Google shows you visual matches of the product pulled from different ecommerce websites, as shown in the below screenshot.

Now that you know how a shopper finds a product, you can optimize your website for this type of search. Remember to create product listings rich in keywords, including LSI ones. 

Google lists you based on how relevant you are to the search query.

Key Takeaways

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• Compress media assets on your page to reduce page loading time
• Use the right AI-powered tools to complete routine SEO tasks such as keyword research
• Make keyword-rich product listings to leverage the Google Graph feature
• Stay updated on customer requirements through the use of search data
• Merge SEO and PPC efforts to maximize return on investment
• Use more unique images and videos
• Optimize your website for voice search by creating content on 'conversational key phrases'
• Ride the crest of video SEO; use structured data.
• Serve content required by customers at every stage of their purchase journey.