Going online and having an SEO-friendly website are the two primary requirements for any business, because a good online presence provides a competitive edge and takes the business beyond boundaries.

A business cannot sustain it if there are not enough requirements for the product it deals in. The requirement is generated through search. The higher the number of searches the bigger the volume of requirements. Business owners and marketers are single-mindedly going for SEO in the first place.

Conventional or retail businesses usually depend on the local market and therefore face smaller prospects and limited requirements. Online business armed with SEO provides access to more markets and ushers in bigger growth opportunities.

So, what is SEO and what are the benefits of SEO?

SEO is the short form of the key process called “search engine optimization.” In layman’s terms, it refers to a technique of improving the visibility of your website so that it appears more prominently when people search for products or services related to your company on Google, Bing, and other search engines. The higher your pages appear in search results, the more likely you are to attract attention and attract new customers to your business.

Search engine optimization is a critical component of digital marketing, because people conduct trillions of searches each year, often with the commercial intent of finding information about products and services,

Search is frequently the primary source of digital traffic for brands, and it works in tandem with other marketing channels. Greater visibility and higher ranking in search results than your competitors can have a significant impact on your bottom line. The following are a few proven SEO impacts that translate into higher growth for a business:

• It ensures a better user experience.
• It generates valuable leads for your business.
• It results in increasing closing rates.
• It causes physical visits by the local customers / prospects to your retail store.
• It results in better cost management.

Interesting SEO statistics or SEO facts emerged in 2022.

• A search engine is the starting point for 68% of online experiences.
• Google (including Google Images) currently controls 91.94% of the total search engine market, followed by Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, and YANDEX.
• According to 61% of B2B marketers, SEO and organic traffic generate more leads than any other marketing initiative.
• Even if the purchase is made in a store, 63% of all shopping begins online.
• According to 70% of online marketers, SEO outperforms PPC in terms of generating sales.
• The top page in a Google search has a 32% average click-through rate.
• 75% of people never go beyond the first page of search results.
• Before making an online purchase, 66% of people conduct some type of online research.
• The average Google first-page result contains 1,447 words.
• Search engine leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as cold calling, direct mail, and so on) have a 1.7% close rate.
• 86% of people ignore paid banner ads in favour of organic search results.
• Bounce rates rise by 9% when your website takes 2 seconds to load and 38% when it takes 5 seconds.
• Every extra second it takes for your website to load reduces conversion rates by 4.42%.

Top SEO trends and updates in 2022.

Although the fundamental principles of SEO remain constant, the SEO algorithm updates and search trends evolve from time to time, which influences how we optimize our web pages. How has the advancement of search engine technology influenced your strategy this year? The following were the top SEO updates in 2022 that kept the traffic and keyword rankings on the rise:

• Core Web Vitals
• Keyword clustering
• AI-generated content
• People also ask
• Content optimization software
• Rich snippets
• The democratization of search

#1. Core Web Vitals

This is about improving the user experience by using the following performance metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): the time it takes for the page’s largest content asset to load.
• First Input Delay (FID): the amount of time it takes your site to respond to a user’s first interaction with the page.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): the number of unexpected layout shifts that occur during the page’s lifespan.

#2. Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering is a more advanced keyword strategy that can help you improve your overall keyword rankings. It entails locating multiple keywords with similar search intent and using more of these clusters in developing web pages.

#3. AI Generated Content

AI-assisted SEO content tools such as CopyAi, Headlime, Jarvis, and others are on the rise, enabling content teams to produce more SEO-optimized content at a faster rate. With a few inputs, these tools can generate topics, titles, meta tags, paragraphs, and even entire articles.

#4. People Also Ask

The “People also ask” feature on Google’s search page now appears for approximately 48.6% of searches. Because of its prominent placement at the top of the SERP (and frequently above position one), everyone will want to rank their content in this coveted SERP feature.

#5. Content Optimization Tools

Content optimization tools can assist you in producing high-quality, semantically-rich content that ranks higher in Google searches. These tools identify keywords, subtopics, synonyms, and even common questions search engine crawlers are looking for on the page when promoting content using similar NLP algorithms as Google.

#6. Rich Snippets

Rich snippets assist Google crawlers in showing users the exact content they’re looking for, resulting in a better user experience. Schema markup is a microdata vocabulary that helps Google better understand and extract content from your pages, allowing them to appear as rich snippets that are more appealing and clickable for users.

#7. Democratization of Search

Although backlinks and Domain Authority are still important in 2022, search has become more democratic. Incumbents cannot rely solely on their authority signals to maintain top keyword positions, and newer websites have a better chance of ranking if they provide users with a high-quality, high-performing web experience.

Source- Fluidscapes
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