The 2022 SEO criteria to know

The practices of natural search engine optimisation are constantly evolving. In order to be well positioned in the Google SERPs, it is essential to closely monitor Google algorithm updates as well as the latest trends. Here are the news to follow in SEO in order to stay well informed.

Optimize and enrich its content

Relevant and quality content has always been well appreciated and even required by Google and this will still be relevant in 2021. Your content must highlight your expertise and respond perfectly to the requests of Internet users. For search engines, there are rules to follow:

• Each page must have a unique "title" tag
• You must structure your content with subtitles (h2, h3, h4, etc.)
• You must insert internal and external links
• Blog posts should contain at least 800 words if possible

The content must not only meet the specifics requested by search engines, but also be rich in order to appeal to visitors to generate traffic on the website and achieve a better conversion rate.

Featured snippet: a feature to watch out for

The enriched contents correspond to the box which appears at the very top of Google's SERPs, it is the position 0. Often composed of a text and an image coming from a result of a site answering the requested query.

This result is represented either by a paragraph, a bulleted list, or by a table. We must therefore favor these forms of content and bet on the long tail to be able to be put in the head in an enriched content. In addition, these highlighted research results mainly answer questions asked by Internet users. Therefore, we must try to formulate the title tags in the form of a question to have a better chance of appearing there.

Opt for a responsive design site with a fast loading time

Google gives more and more importance to mobile-friendly sites. Ultimately, there is a risk of no longer appearing in search results if the site is not responsive. This is as important to guarantee the visibility of a site as for the UX.

Google works in terms of URLs, all pages on the site must be up to standard. You can check this with Google's mobile optimization test tool, the page must meet the conditions of the mobile-first crawl.

A mobile-compatible site essentially responds to these three concepts:

• A responsive design: a site designed primarily for the mobile version, and gradually improve it by adapting it to the size of the screen. The smartphones will thus load the files they need.
• Loading time: opt for a good physical server, avoid overloading the pages with extensions and widgets, reduce HTTP requests, use a reduced number of CSS code and delete unused files.
• TTFB (Time To First Byte): this is the time required to load the first data, i.e. the HTML content. This corresponds to the time between a request and the response. The more this delay is optimized, the more Google robots will be able to crawl and index your pages. You can test this index with the free GtMetrix tool in the Timing tab.

SXO at the heart of an SEO strategy

To properly prepare your SEO strategy for 2022, it is essential to offer your visitors a rewarding experience on your website. Relevant, quality content is no longer enough to rank well on search results pages. Professionals in the field refer to this method by SXO for “Search eXperience Optimization”, a combination of SEO and UX.

Setting up a website designed for users and not search engine algorithms requires different thinking. Interactive content responding to visitors' issues, providing added value and ensuring visual stability. On the other hand, it is recommended to maintain the fluidity of navigation between the pages and a fast loading so as not to lose the attention of Internet users and to retain them as much as possible on the website.

WebP: the new format from Google

The .gif animations are eye-catching, but unfortunately this format will be a thing of the past! WebP, Google's new format that will overwrite JPG, PNG, TIFF and GIF. Often lighter than a compressed JPG image, this format will revolutionize the world of design while maintaining high image definition. Do you think Google will give your site a higher rating if it contains WebP images?

The performance of a website in terms of SEO and load time will be significantly better by converting your images to WebP. A case study published by Anthedesign demonstrated that the loading speed is between 1s and 2.5s with a Time to interactive of 1.9s.

Keep up to date with new versions of OSE to ensure a good positioning for your website. Call on our web agency.