We Analyzed 50,000 Social Media Posts From the Last 12 Months to Learn How to Get More Organic Traffic. Here’s What We Found.

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and every other social network you can think of eventually does the same thing.

Can you guess what it is?

They adjust their algorithms to cram down reach and sharing. That means you won’t get as much traffic from them unless you start advertising.

But even with their algorithm changes, there must be a way to maximize the traffic you can get from each social network, right?

In order to find out, we analyzed over 50,000 social media posts sharing content in 10 different industries.

The posts analyzed were some of the most shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest from the last 12 months and contained a link to industry-related content. We couldn’t get access to enough data from other social media channels.

What Industries Did We Look At?

Although there are tons of different industries out there, we focused on the following 10 that contained the majority of posts and social media engagement. This allowed us to share better insights on what can be done to get more organic social traffic.

Here are the 10 industries we looked at:

• Business
• E-commerce
• Fashion
• Food
• Health
• News
• Politics
• Sports
• Technology
• Travel

Analysis #1: Social Media Engagement For Each Industry Over the Last 12 Months

The first graph below shows the total social media engagement for content related to each industry over the last 12 months. This is the grand total and not a monthly average.

The key highlight is that News-related posts had the most engagement followed by Sports and then Politics.

It’s worth noting that social media posts related to Business and E-commerce received virtually no engagement which might highlight some trends for both industries.

To make sure the data wasn’t biased or skewed, we also looked at the average engagement data for each post versus just the total.

The results were similar for the majority of industries, but with one key difference. Even though News received the most total social media engagement, it was behind Politics when looking at the average engagement per post. 

But as everyone knows, don’t talk about politics at the dinner table. In other words, you don’t want to polarize your audience.

Regardless of which industry you belong to, incorporating news-related subjects in your content could be a great way to get more engagement and traffic.

For example, if you own a music-related website, you may try to break news or write about it on your blog such as when Apple bought a company called Beats by Dre years ago. If the acquisition took place today, Apple would want to make sure their blog covered the move and then share it across their social media channels for added engagement.

Alternatively, if you were a business-related website, you could discuss the Beats by Dre acquisition from your perspective. Even if you aren’t the first company talking about it, you can discuss why they made the move and share your top 5 predictions for what will happen over the next 5 years.

On another note, let’s say you own a travel-related website. You could talk about restrictions each country has with quarantining and how it gets adjusted on a monthly or even weekly basis.

Regardless of what industry you are in, there are always opportunities to tie in the news which can lead to more social engagement, resulting in more organic traffic to your website.

Analysis #2: What Type of Content Works Best on Social Media Networks?

For fun, we also looked at which industries performed the best on each social network in terms of shares.

Here are the average Facebook shares for content related to each industry:

And here is what the data looks like for Twitter.

And Pinterest…

No shocker, but Facebook and Twitter prefer News-related content. Pinterest, on the other hand, prefers content that is more visual so industries such as Fashion, Travel, and even Food performed better.

As I mentioned before, if you want to get more traffic from Facebook and Twitter, find ways to tie in News-related topics or events to your content. Even if you aren’t a part of the industry it can help you get traction.

But if you want more traffic from Pinterest, focus on anything that is visual.

Now, none of that is really eye-opening. So we decided to dig a bit deeper to see the types of content that were most popular on these platforms.

I would assume infographics would perform best as they are easily shareable and are easy to generate links to.

Funnily enough, infographics had the worst performance from a social standpoint.

On the flip side, I would never have guessed that “why” posts and “interview” based posts would do so well.

List-based content is pretty much a given as everyone loves lists such as “The 7 benefits of green tea”.

As for the appeal of why-based posts, think of topics like “why isn’t there an eclipse every month” or “why don’t people wear white after labor day”.

For interviews, people want to hear from people who intrigue them. For example, if you were to be able to get an interview with business leaders like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, athletes like Lebron James or Cristiano Ronaldo, or even political figures who are trending at the time, you can bet it will get a lot of social shares.

In case you were curious about which content type was leveraged most by each industry, the graph above shows that. You can see how the News industry releases a lot of why-related content but industries like Business or E-commerce don’t leverage them as much.

You can use this data to find gaps and leverage the content type that has the highest likelihood of generating traffic for your industry.

Analysis #3: The Relationship Between Total Engagement and Total Shares of Each Industry

Some content gets shared a lot while others get a ton of engagement such as comments and likes. However, just because a piece of content gets a lot of comments, it doesn’t necessarily mean people like it and want to promote it to their network.

The more shares a piece of content has, the higher the chances are of you getting more traffic.

The graph above clearly shows this for each industry. If you create polarizing content, such as political content or sports-related content with a lot of diehard fans and haters, it doesn’t mean engagement alone will result in more traffic (it can but not always).

A great example of this is if I posted a piece of content on “Why the Los Angeles Lakers will win the NBA championship”. I will get tons of comments from people who support any one of the other 29 NBA teams on why I’m wrong and how their team has a better chance of winning.

Engagement on social media is great, but it can only take you so far. That is why the goal of this study is to figure out how to use social media sites to generate more organic traffic for your website and not just get “engagement”.

News clearly is the winner on both fronts if you look at the chart above. So, again, try to tie it into your content wherever possible.

Analysis #4: How Long Should Your Content Be And When Should You Share It?

For the next analysis, we thought it would be fun to look at how long your articles should be and when you should share them to get the most social traffic.

Did you know that the average article that ranks on page 1 of Google contains 1,447 words?

It used to be around 3,000 words, then in the low 2,000s and now 1,447.

With social media, we wanted to see how long content should be to generate the most shares.

Let’s first look at the average word count per industry for the 50,000 most popular articles shared.

As you can see, they are short. Really short (700 words or less for most industries).

E-commerce had the highest word count, followed closely by Business. However, both of these industries had the lowest number of total engagements and total shares based on the previous charts I shared above.

Although Google may prefer long-form articles, people on social media prefer short articles over longer ones.

When you look at the articles people prefer sharing (not liking, but sharing), it is also clear that people prefer sharing shorter articles.

More than 90 percent of all content pieces shared on social media from this analysis were less than 2,000 words in length.

Getting someone to actively share an article is a lot rarer than simply clicking the “like” button. Keep in mind that people can share the same article over and over again.

As for when to release and promote your content, not all days are equal. It also varies per industry as well.

In general, people enjoy engaging with content most on Wednesdays followed by Thursdays and Tuesdays.

However, it isn’t that simple. Releasing content on Wednesday won’t guarantee success as it is different for each industry.

I know the graph above is hard to see as News dominates the results. So here is a version that doesn’t include News.

If you are in the “Food” industry you can promote your content on Wednesday but you will also do really well on Friday even though that day doesn’t work as well for other industries.

Analysis #5: Most Common Type of Facebook Reaction for Each Industry

This one was fun because we were able to pull the most popular reactions people give to posts on Facebook.

This graph shows the type of Facebook reaction (Angry, Haha, Love, Sad, Wow) that users had for posts related to each industry. Facebook reactions are the next generation of “likes” for the platform.

The key finding is that the two most popular types of reaction for all industries were either “Haha” or “Love”.

Outside of News and Politics, where the top reaction was “Haha”, “Love” was the most popular reaction for all industries.

If you want your content to do well, create content that conveys the feeling of “love” or makes people laugh. Those are the two types of reactions that people want to give the most.

Conclusion

There were a lot of interesting findings from the charts above.

The big takeaway for me was to create why-based content and write short articles if you want to do well on social media.

In general, you’ll want to:

• tie content to relevant news
• create why-based content or interview well known figures
• write shorter posts of 700 words or less to share on social media instead of 2,000+ word articles
• promote your content on Wednesday (for most industries) to get the most engagement
• create content that leverages the feeling of love or makes people laugh

Did you learn anything new from the above charts and data?

from Blog – Neil Patel https://ift.tt/E6ngzK8
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The User-Generated Content Ultimate Guide: How to Use It, Why It’s Important, and Timing It Perfectly

User-generated content (UGC) is a marketing goldmine and knowing how to use it properly can create a snowball effect of higher engagement and more social media followers.

That’s not all.

Taking advantage of the right opportunities will let users do most of the work for you—generating product interest, conversation, and even revenue.

How?

It’s simple. Consumers trust organic, user-generated content more than they trust traditional advertising. In other words, your audience would rather hear from your customers instead of you.

Here’s the proof: 37 percent of consumers rely on social networks for their pre-purchase research. Based on this data, user-generated content is a surefire way to win over your prospects, right?

Yet some marketers still aren’t using UGC to its full advantage because they don’t know where to start.

Below, I’m going to show you everything you need to know to craft a winning UGC strategy that will explode your growth, engagement, and bottom line.

Let’s dive in.

What Is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by individuals rather than brands.

If you’ve ever gone to a cafe, snapped a picture of your latte art, uploaded it to your Instagram Stories, and tagged the coffee shop, you’ve created UGC.

User-generated content usually comes in the form of images, videos, reviews, or testimonials—which leads to users promoting a brand through online content, rather than the brand promoting themselves.

The result? Powerful online social proof that has the potential to increase trust, authenticity, and sales.

Why You Should Use User-Generated Content

You’re leaving money on the table by ignoring UGC.

Close to 80 percent of people say user-generated content impacts their purchasing decision.

UGC outranks other forms of marketing content like promotional emails. In fact, 64 percent of Gen Z and 60 percent of Millennials indicated they did not buy from an e-commerce store because the site didn’t include customer images or reviews.

Incredible, right?

These statistics beg the question: what about UGC makes it so successful? Why does it have such a powerful pull over our purchasing decisions?

People Trust Real People, Not Brands

Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family are worth their weight in gold.

Remember when sleazy salespeople going door-to-door was a thing?

A stranger knocks at your door, trying to convince you to buy the latest vacuum cleaner, makeup products, or a revolutionary anti-aging serum.

Immediately, your defenses are up. You don’t trust this person and you don’t want their product.

However, if you are sharing a problem with a trusted friend, such as a broken vacuum cleaner, you are more likely to trust their review and recommendation of a product.

What was once word-of-mouth has now evolved into user-generated content.

Eighty-eight percent of people trust recommendations from people they know over advertisers, whether it’s a friend, family member, or influencer.

UGC Is More Authentic

Authenticity is a key ingredient in establishing trust with your audience.

In a study by Stackla, 90 percent of consumers say authenticity is an important factor when deciding which brands to support.

Consumers today don’t just buy products, they buy into brands. In fact, 55 percent of consumers will purchase from a company that shares their values, while only four percent say it’s not something that influences their purchasing decisions at all.

How does UGC make your brand more authentic?

It humanizes your company, helps people connect to you on a deeper level, and shows (not tells) your audience that your product will deliver on its values.

UGC Is Time and Cost-Effective

How long does it take you to plan, shoot, edit, upload, and write a caption for a single post on social media?

If you’re publishing 5x per week, the minutes each post takes quickly adds up to a couple of hours.

Then there’s the cost.

Whether you’re outsourcing your graphic designers or relying on the talents of your in-house team, their time costs your business money.

User-generated content helps you shave off time and money by letting your community create the content for you.

Need some convincing?

Busabout reduced its content creation costs and grow its social audience by 350 percent with user-generated content.

The ROI for User-Generated Content Is Sky-High

The high ROI isn’t only for sales.

The impact UGC has on purchasing decisions isn’t the only advantage. It can also increase brand engagements.

In a digital world where reach dwindles by the day, this type of content can go a long way to improving your follower count and click-through rates (CTR).

Brands like Air France have used user-generated content to increase their CTR by 11 percent and reduce the CPC by 21 percent for Facebook ads featuring user-generated content.

Types of User-Generated Content

Now that you understand what UGC is and how it can benefit your business, let’s look at the three main types of user-generated content.

1. Photos and Videos

Visual content is some of the most powerful UGC because it shows potential customers what they can expect from a product without physically inspecting it.

For example, an experience like staying at a hotel or a new pair of shoes.

Seeing these images or video clips is immersive and makes users feel more confident buying an item online.

This is especially true for younger demographics, with 52 percent of Gen Z preferring video reviews over images.

Where can you find visual user-generated content for your business?

• Customers: Encourage and incentivize your customers to post photos and videos about your product or service.
• Influencers: Team up with influencers in your niche to create UGC content. It allows you to reach their audience while adding new content at the same time.
• Employees: Encourage your employees to give people an inside look at what your company culture is like. Not only is this type of UGC content great for attracting talent, it shows your audience your brand values are real.

2. Testimonials

Are you collecting customer testimonials? If not, you’re missing out on leveraging the best kind of social proof.

Whether you’re selling an online course or a physical product, testimonials from real customers can go a long way in boosting your sales.

If you can show people your item gets results, you’re helping people on the fence feel more confident and secure in their purchasing decision.

How do you get testimonials?

• Reach out to past happy customers and ask for a short paragraph on how your product or service has helped them.
• Send out customer feedback forms after every purchase.
• Browse your comment sections on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. Take screenshots of comments complimenting your business and ask permission to use them in your marketing materials.

3. Reviews

Reviews are similar to testimonials but are on sites like TripAdvisor, TrustPilot, product pages on Amazon, or Facebook business pages.

With 89 percent of customers reading reviews before making a purchase, using this type of user-generated content can increase:

• trust
• authenticity
• sales

If someone is taking the time to read reviews, you know the person is at the bottom of the sales funnel and is close to making a purchase.

That doesn’t mean you should save reviews for the end of the sales cycle. Using reviews in your top-of-funnel strategies can build the necessary brand awareness and trust early to boost your brand’s reputation.

How to Get User-Generated Content

Since user-generated content comes from your customers, you need to find a way to incentivize and collect the content you need.

Motivating Your Audience

Just like on your Instagram captions and landing pages, you need a strong call to action. Tell your audience what you want, and you’ll motivate your customers to create the type of UGC you need.

How do you achieve this?

Review your buyer’s journey, identify parts with a high emotional charge, and add a CTA for user-generated content.

This is when your customer is excited about their purchase, for example:

1. right after making a purchase
2. unboxing your product or getting access to your service
3. seeing the result your product or service promised.

Some of the ways you can encourage UGC at these touchpoints are by:

• Adding a tweet or share button on your after checkout page.
• Encouraging users to take a screenshot, share it on their Instagram Stories, and tag you.
• Sending a note with your product with a CTA, your brand hashtags, and social media handles.
• Emailing customers a few days after receiving your product to write a review.
• Sending out feedback forms at the end of an event.

Incentivize Customers With a Prize

User-generated content competitions are a strategy you can use a couple of times a year. They increase brand awareness and create powerful social proof you can use for months to come.

What is a UGC competition?

It’s when you ask your audience to create and share a piece of content related to your brand and the winner gets a prize.

For example, fitness app Shreddy runs competitions asking users to share their progress over a specific time period. The person with the biggest transformation wins a cash prize.

Not only does it encourage users to sign up and use the app, but it motivates users to get the results the app can use as social proof.

Chipotle did something similar with its TikTok campaign. The brand asked users to make a video explaining why they should win a free year of Chipotle using the hashtag #ChiptotleSponsorMe.

The result?

The brand hashtag received over 2.3 billion views.

Create Shareable Events

Social media is all about visuals.

Leverage this by creating beautiful and unique unboxing events, in-store spaces, and brand activation.

One of the best examples of this is Kynd Community in Bali. Thanks to its pink palm leaf wall and Insta-worthy smoothie bowls, the small cafe went viral on social media.

If you visit the cafe, you’ll often see customers lining up to take a photo in front of the famous wall, creating an endless stream of user-generated content and FOMO among travelers who want the same experience.

How to Start Incorporating User-Generated Content in Your Content Marketing Efforts

Have you tried implementing UGC before but didn’t see results? Or are you just getting started and feeling a little overwhelmed?

Just like with any other marketing initiative, you need to have a clear plan on how you will achieve results with your new content efforts.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating your user-generated content strategy.

1. Decide on Your UGC Campaign Goals

Before you can start calling for and collecting content, you need to know exactly how you plan to use it.

• Want to increase brand awareness? Create a hashtag like Audi’s #WantAnR8 campaign. A Twitter user started the hashtag, and the brand hopped on board to promote the launch. Soon other users took notice, and the hashtag was used 75,000 times.
• Want to increase conversions? Focus on a campaign that generates reviews and testimonials. Takealot, an online retailer in South Africa, offers users the chance to win a voucher for leaving reviews on recent purchases.
• Want informative content that influences buying decisions? Take a page out of GoPro’s book and use UGC that shows the different ways your product or service can be used.

2. Brainstorm Which Type of UGC Will Help Meet Your Goals

Not every piece of user-generated content will work for each stages of the buyer’s journey.

In order to get consistent results, you need to analyze what works at each touchpoints and make changes accordingly.

Your UGC competition is perfect for creating top-of-funnel awareness while a user’s video review of your product works best for bottom-of-funnel conversions.

3. Use Different Types of User-Generated Content

You don’t need to post every type of user-generated content on each platform. Selectivity is key to any winning strategy.

Ask yourself what type of content is going to work best at each stage and test it out.

Let’s say you’re an online business coach ready to launch your next group coaching session. Testimonials and reviews are the types of UGC most likely to get results.

Collect testimonials regularly to add them to your content bank. This social proof can also be used in your emails, Instagram Stories, and landing pages.

Hotels are another good example of this strategy.

Reviews and testimonials are the perfect type of UGC for their booking and product pages. On the other hand, photos and videos of customers enjoying their stay would work really well on Instagram.

4. Find or Ask Users to Create UGC

If your brand has been around for a while, there’s a good chance users are already creating UGC.

Use a social listening tool to find what people are saying and implement the content into your marketing strategy.

Didn’t find anything?

Start asking your audience to create what you want. Encourage users to use your brand hashtag, incentivize reviews, and create campaigns centered around user-generated content.

Whatever you decide, make sure it’s clear to your audience what you want.

4. Request Permission to Use the Content

Just because your brand is mentioned in a post doesn’t mean you can re-publish it without permission.

Always reach out and ask if you can use the content on your social media pages or website. Without permission, you might upset even your most loyal brand advocates.

Besides, when you reach out, it shows the user you like their content. They get those positive feelings while you get permission, everyone wins.

5. Always Credit the Original Creator

The most important rule of UGC is to always give credit where it’s due.

Don’t take someone else’s content and share it without tagging their account. That’s a big social media no-no.

Not crediting the original poster can also land you in hot water with your followers.

Plus, there’s an even bigger incentive to do it.

By tagging the creator, you show your followers that the UGC is authentic and wasn’t created by your team.

6. Promote Your User-Generated Content

Once your UGC starts rolling in, it’s time to start using it!

Schedule your photos and videos for Instagram and TikTok. Use the content to create ads on Facebook.

Share reviews on your next email blast and start adding your best testimonials to your sales pages.

The more you promote your UGC, the more you’ll incentivize your followers to participate.

A big part of UGC is the community. It brings you and your audience closer together and makes everyone feel like they are a part of something.

7. Track the Success of Your UGC Campaign

How do you know if your UGC campaign is successful? By tracking the following metrics:

• number of impressions
• total reach
• organic traffic
• social follows
• engagement rate
• total number of interactions
• volume of posts created
• total number of conversions
• conversion rate
• total revenue
• total ad spend
• click-through rates for ads
• return on ad spend
• growth of visual asset library

Monitor these KPIs throughout your campaign and make adjustments as needed to hit your goals.

Examples of Brands that Use UGC

Let’s put everything together and explore some of the best user-generated content campaigns that you can take inspiration from.

Coca Cola’s Share a Coke

Remember when Coca-Cola launched their “Share a Coke” campaign?

Featuring bottles named after people in every destination took the world by storm.

The brand asked customers to share photos of themselves with their personalized coke bottle resulting in 496,000 uses on Instagram and 89,000 tweets on Twitter.

Plus, more than 1.25 million teens tried the drink, and sales rose by sales rose by 11 percent in the United States.

Burberry’s Art of the Trench

Over ten years ago, Burberry capitalized on the social media revolution with its UGC Art of the Trench campaign.

The brand asked its followers to upload pictures wearing their iconic trench coats. Burberry curated the best submissions and showcased their picks on Facebook and a dedicated microsite.

The results?

Burberry’s Facebook page grew to over a million and became the largest page in the luxury sector. Their ecommerce sales went up by 50 percent, and the microsite had 7.5 million views from 150 countries within the first year.

Lululemon #thesweatlife UGC Campaign

Lululemon is a yoga clothing brand known for its strong sense of community.

One of the reasons behind its billion-dollar success is the brand’s user-generated content. Lululemon launched a hashtag campaign to encourage brand partners and users to post pictures using their gear on Instagram.

#TheSweatLife campaign was a huge success. It hit $4.6 million EMV across 1.4k posts from 678 creators.

T-Mobile Break-Up Letters

One of the greatest examples of a user-generated content campaign is T-Mobile’s break-up letters.

Mobile users didn’t want to switch carriers in the U.S. because of high cancellation fees.

T-Mobile’s solution? Encouraging people to submit break-up letters explaining their reason for leaving their current provider.

In exchange, T-Mobile would cover the termination costs.

More than 113,000 break-up letters were submitted, the app for the campaign received 2.7 million page views, and the campaign generated 67 million social media impressions.

This was topped off by T-Mobile’s CEO personally re-tweeting break-up letter posts and welcoming the new customers.

User-Generated Content Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have to pay for user-generated content?

No, you don’t need to pay for user-generated content. All you need to do is encourage your audience to create content featuring your product/service and tag your account in their posts. Don’t confuse UGC with sponsored ads from influencers.

Why is user-generated content used in marketing?

User-generated content is used in marketing because it’s powerful social proof. People trust recommendations from friends, family, and other humans online over the lip service of a brand. It humanizes your business and creates trust between you and your audience.

Do you have to get permission for user-generated content?

Yes. The best way to get permission for user-generated content is to ask. Reach out to the person in the DMs or the comment section and ask if you can repost their content on your profile.

What does user-generated content do?

User-generated content creates social proof. By posting content made by your customers, you’re increasing your credibility and showing potential customers your product/service will deliver on its promises.

Conclusion: User-Generated Content

Are you using social media to help drive your brand recognition?

Too many brands rely on their own content to drive social growth for their brand.

User-generated content not only takes a bit of pressure off of content creation demands but also builds credibility with your audience and naturally attracts more followers.

It’s time to think of user-generated content as an offensive strategy instead of being on defense against what people might say about your brand.

Be the kind of brand that people want to share with their peers and talk about on their social accounts.

How are you leveraging user-generated content to boost your social media footprint?

from Blog – Neil Patel https://ift.tt/vOBiYRJ
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12 Ways to Have SEO Success With Google in 2022

SEO is an ever-changing beast. Once you think you know exactly what Google is looking for, an algorithm update throws a wrench in your strategy.

So, what’s one to do?

While there will always be algorithm updates and improvements, some proven SEO tactics will always be in practice. By implementing these tactics on your site, you improve your odds of rankings while also future-proofing your website against Google’s inevitable changes.

There are two ways to affect change with SEO: on-page and technical. We will take a close look at both in this post. 

On-Page SEO Tips for 2022

If you’re new to SEO or you’re looking to make quick, impactful changes, focusing your efforts on on-page SEO tactics is a great place to start.

Here are some important SEO tips to keep in mind when preparing your strategy in 2022.

1. Target Longtail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific than the usual target keywords. They usually have lower search volume than shorter keywords, but they can be very useful. 

Long-tail keywords show you why users make a particular search and not just what they are looking for. They also now account for higher search volume now compared to shorter keywords.

A recent study found that 91.8 percent of all searches are for long-tail keywords. This is a big change from the early days of the internet. 

One reason to target long-tail keywords is they tend to have higher search intent. That is because they are more specific, so you can narrow the keywords down to those highly related to the actions you want users to take on your site.

An example of a long-tail keyword is “how to rank on Google.” This is opposed to a short-tail keyword such as “Google ranking.”

The intent behind both variations is very different. For “how to rank on Google”, you can see that the user is posing a question which means they are looking for a direct answer to it.

For “Google ranking”, we don’t really know what the user’s intent is. Maybe they are just trying to understand what it means.

While it’s not always the case, long-tail keywords tend to have lower search volume and, as a result, lower competition. Therefore, they can be easier to rank for.

How can you effectively leverage long-tail keywords in your content?

You don’t want to include a bunch of different long-tail terms in your current content, hoping it will work. This can have the exact opposite effect of what you’re looking for.

Tips for adding long-tail keywords to your content:

• Determine the blog topics you want to cover.
• Plug the most generic phrase/title of each topic into a keyword research tool like Ubersuggest.
• Identify long-tail keywords related to your chosen topics with high search volume and low competition/CPC.
• Narrow down your list of keywords to the ones with high search intent. For example, if you are a credit card company, and one of your topics is “opening a credit card”, a long-tail keyword you can target would be “how to open a credit card for the first time”.
• Write relevant content that answers the user’s intent behind the chosen keyword.

2. Use Keywords in Alt Text for Images

Alt text, or alternative text, is a short description of an image. It remains an important Google ranking factor with MozCast saying it still has more than a 20 percent effect on results. 

Alt text has three main uses:

1. Accessibility: Alt text is read out loud with the use of a screen reader to users who are visually impaired. Unfortunately for e-commerce sites, 55 percent of them fail to meet basic accessibility requirements.
2. Context: When an image cannot load onto the page, the alt text appears as an alternative to provide context to users.
3. Search engine optimization: Search engine crawlers use alt text to help them index an image properly. Google confirmed in 2021 that alt text is “still important for SEO.”

As the internet becomes more accessible, so does Google’s algorithm. This means that accessible websites will be prioritized over their non-accessible counterparts. After all, the more accessible a site the more potential for traffic.

Tips for using keywords in alt text:

• Think about the image first and write a description to match it.
• Make sure your description gives a natural description of the image. Don’t be too complex.
• Think of ways to incorporate your target or secondary keywords in the alt image text. For example, highlighting that an image is a screenshot of the process your content explained.

3. Use Keywords in Headers

When you place keywords in headers, you signal to search engines and users that your content satisfies the target intent behind those search terms. Just as a table of contents provides context to users, keywords placed in headers can do the same for search engine bots.

While 36 percent of SEO experts think headlines are important, this doesn’t mean forcing keywords to fit if they don’t make sense. 

Consider the user experience and Google recommendations before deciding where to place your target keywords or other variations. Keyword stuffing should be avoided at all costs. 

Tips for using keywords in headers:

• Select the target keyword of your post to include in the headers.
• Plug the keyword into a keyword research tool to find other variations of it.
• Use the keyword and its variations in your headers as often as you can (aim for at least 40 percent of headers).

4. Focus on Great UX (User Experience)

Beyond keywords and content, you have to consider the experience your users have from start to finish.

Google takes many factors into account when ranking your website, one of them being the time spent on the page (or dwell time). If users are bouncing from your page within seconds of arriving, it signals to Google that it’s not the content their users are looking for.

One thing that will affect dwell time and bounce rates are how long it takes a page to load. An analysis of over 5 million desktop and mobile pages found that the average time it takes for a web page to fully load is 10.3 seconds on desktop and 27.3 seconds on mobile. 

The first 5 seconds of a page loading has the biggest impact on overall conversion rates. Each additional second it takes for a page to load drops conversion rates by an average of 4.42 percent each time. 

User experience has become a very important ranking factor for Google that they started rolling out their core Page Experience update in 2021.

Tips for creating great UX:

• Make sure the content and images used satisfy the search intent for each keyword.
• Include the most relevant information at the top of the page.
• Reduce image sizes to improve loading times for each web page.
• Make the content easy to navigate, particularly for longer content pieces. This could be including a table of content, having clear headlines, or using shorter paragraphs.
• Clean up the clutter like redundant content and don’t use any distracting images or fonts.

5. Include Multiple Media Types

There are some things you can do that indirectly benefit your SERP rankings. One of those things is to use multiple media types across your blog.

Beyond images, media can also include audio files, videos, ebooks, and GIFs. These media types are meant to be engaged with and, as such, increase dwell time on your website as well as user experience.

According to Hubspot, videos are the #1 form of media used in most content strategies, overtaking blogs. 86 percent of businesses use video marketing as a tool to grow their business and, on the consumer side, 84 percent of people say that watching a brand’s video is what convinced them to buy a product or service.

Audio is also on the rise with the average consumer spending more time listening as well. 61 percent of businesses plan to increase digital audio advertising budgets as well. 

Finding ways to incorporate videos and audio on your blog can be a great way to improve the user experience and increase dwell times on your site. You can get started by including small audio recordings in blog posts or short video clips that simplify difficult concepts.

Tips for including more media types:

• You don’t already, create a YouTube channel as another marketing avenue to build a following on.
• Embed YouTube videos that cover similar topics in relevant blog posts. 
• Include audio clips from relevant podcasts that fit your topic.
• Present data and stats in more engaging ways such as with data visualizations and other custom graphics.

6. Use Internal Links

I mentioned above that Google considers time spent on page when ranking your website. A second similar metric is the time spent on your entire website. This is another key ranking factor for Google’s algorithm.

The longer a user stays on your website, the further into the funnel they are likely to go. Beyond that, it signals to search engines that your content is high quality and relevant.

More than 80 percent of SEOs believe that each blog post should include at least 2-5 internal links with most people spending equal amounts of time on their internal and external linking strategies.

The two key steps to increasing time spent on your site are:

1. write engaging, in-depth content
2. link to relevant internal content

When you link to internal content, you drive your users deeper into the site. This increases the odds of them having meaningful interactions with your content (e.g., leaving a comment on a blog post or sharing on social media), which in itself is beneficial to SERP rankings.

Tips for incorporating and leveraging internal links:

• Choose pages with additional content that is relevant to the topic the user found you from.
• Use anchor text that sounds natural and encourages users to click on to the next page.
• Avoid using generic anchor texts such as “click here” or “read more”. More descriptive anchor text helps Google understand how to index your page.
• As a rule of thumb, make sure the most important pages on your website are always three clicks or less away from the first page seen.

7. Focus on “Top of the Funnel” Keyword Phrases

The three main phases of the funnel are awareness, consideration, and decision.

When speaking about the top of the funnel, I mean the keyword phrases that grab the attention of prospective customers. In fact, 95 percent of marketers make sure to create content for their brand that targets top of funnel keywords. 

Content that targets these terms are meant to build “awareness” around the topic. They draw the reader in without expecting them to take an action. That’s what the rest of the funnel is for.

What do these keywords look like? Top of the funnel keywords tend to answer more general questions about the topic. There are many different examples on what they look like but here is one you can refer to that I have written about before:

By focusing on these keywords, you’re doing two things:

1. reaching a larger audience as these terms tend to have higher search volumes
2. drawing in users earlier in their research process

Tips for choosing top of funnel keywords:

• Choose terms with higher search volume and low SEO competition.
• Create a list of additional keywords related to your chosen terms that would reflect other stages of the buyer’s journey. This will help you ensure traffic generated converts into leads or sales.
• Create up to three “top of the funnel” customer personas. Based on these personas, you can make sure each search query matches the type of customer you want to sell to.

Technical/Offpage SEO Tips for 2022

Even though technical SEO is often forgotten when creating your strategy, it still remains a crucial part. It doesn’t look like Google will be changing this anytime soon.

Here are some key technical SEO tips to implement in 2022.

1. Eliminate Spammy Backlinks

It used to be that backlinks were the hidden treasure of SEO. It’s true that backlinks are still a major ranking factor for Google, but the quality of those backlinks is now more important than ever before.

In 2021, Google rolled out another algorithm update that targeted and devalued bad backlinks. While no sites were individually penalized in the process, it stopped counting a lot of backlinks that many sites had grown accustomed to which affected rankings.

There are still many sites out there that never get any organic traffic from Google, 91 percent of all pages in fact. This is because more than 50 percent of those pages don’t have a single backlink.

If you’re a website owner, you’ve probably received some requests for backlinks in the past. Sometimes they will offer to pay you to do so. In almost all cases, the requests come from website owners whose site has a lower domain authority score than yours or might be using shady SEO practices.

It is very important to vet all backlink requests, like you would with content sources, to make sure they won’t negatively impact your site. How can you know what sites are linking to you and how you compare to your competition? With my backlink checker tool. Simply enter the domain URL and receive a complete overview of your backlink profile:

You can also get more granular and see each linking site, their domain authority, and anchor text they used to link to you:

Tips to eliminate spammy backlinks:

• Run an audit to see what backlinks your website is currently receiving.
• Before you Disavow an undesirable backlink, try reaching out to the website and ask them to remove it.
• Per Google, any websites that offer affiliate links to your site need to qualify the links – so be sure to ask any affiliates to add the correct HTML tag.

2. Build Your Brand

Since the late 2000s, Google has increasingly put an emphasis on brands. In particular, they look for brand signals as a way to weed out misinformation to provide more trustworthy results for each search. This makes it a critical ranking factor.

I, myself, saw a huge jump in traffic in 2016 thanks to one thing: the growth of my brand.

When a brand is consistently represented across all of their platforms, revenue can increase by up to 23 percent. Branding also makes it easier to present your values and increase customer loyalty. 89 percent of customers are willing to stay loyal to brands who share their values.

With the establishment and growth of your brand, you will start receiving more traffic from non-branded terms as well as branded terms. That’s why I see millions of organic views each month!

Tips for building your brand:

• Figure out what social platforms your target audience uses and tailor your strategy accordingly! 82 percent of Americans use social media, so you need to be comfortable using it to promote your brand.
• Think about forming a partnership with a complementary brand. For example, Lego and IKEA formed a partnership that benefitted them both. Approach companies whose products or services complement your brand  and see if you can work together.
• As you plan your brand awareness campaign, make sure to highlight your brand’s personality, story, and values. Talk about more than just what you sell. This will resonate with your target audience more!

3. Create Thought-Leadership and Strategic Content

Once you have solid, pillar content (i.e., content that targets relevant keywords) on your website, it’s time to think more strategically. You want to be more than just an information site, but an authoritative one. You can do so with thought-leadership and strategic content.

In fact, 54 percent of decision-makers say they spend more than one hour per week reading thought leadership content relevant to their business. At the same time, 71 percent say that less than half of what they read gives them valuable insights 

This means there is still a massive opportunity with this content. It requires you to look ahead and answer questions that aren’t even being asked yet. You want to speak directly with industry leaders and subject matter experts by getting ahead of the current state of things.

While this type of content takes more time and effort to create, it’s well worth it. When you create content that other brands look to, it builds your brand and increases your backlink portfolio.

Tips to create thought-leadership and more strategic content:

• Look for trends on where your industry will be going in the next 5-10 years and make content that speaks to them.
• Think about frequently asked questions in your industry that can be addressed with data. Identify topics where you have the capability and resources to provide relevant data points.
• Do some internal or external research and create content that highlights your findings. This will help establish you as an industry leader which can lead to more backlink opportunities from other sites citing your content.
• Set Google alerts to stay up-to-date on news and events that affect your industry. Be one of the first to write and present your views on the topic, backed by valuable insights.

4. Diversify Your Backlink Profile

What does it mean to diversify your backlink profile? In short, you want as many links as possible from as many websites as possible.

An Ahfrefs study that looked at more than 1 billion web pages found that 66.31 percent of them had zero referring domains and 26.29 percent of them only had one to three referring domains. Less than 0.1 percent of sites had more than 100 referring domains which is pretty eye-opening when you stop to think about it.

When getting backlinks, you want to make sure the type of anchor text copy used varies. Some examples on different variations to look out for include:

• branded anchor text: “According to Neil Patel…”
• long-tail anchor text: “…we should consider the future of SEO”
• naked link anchor: “https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-future-of-seo/”

My backlink checker is an excellent way to get this information as I outlined in a previous section.

Tips to diversify your backlink profile

• Try to get links from directories and other resource roundups as a way to diversify links.
• Reach out to websites that would be a natural fit to your brand. Ask them to link to you and vice versa.
• Run a backlink report on your competition and check where they get links from. Target those websites or similar ones to link back to you.

5. Use Subject Matter Experts to Increase Your EAT Score

EAT stands for expertise, authority, and trust.

An EAT score is one of the most important factors when determining page quality. While you don’t have to be an expert or authority on each topic you write about, you should be emulating those individuals to create content that gets a higher score.

47 percent of buyers will generally read three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales representative. Connecting with subject matter experts or emulating their content increases the chances of a buyer engaging with your content before moving to the next stage.

Whether you’re creating thought-leadership content yet or not, you can still look to subject matter experts for help. While interviews with such people are best, they’re not the only way to “borrow” their authority.

You can also link to interviews done by other content creators, insert quotes from subject matter experts in your posts, or highlight other content forms the subject matter has done such as videos, podcasts, or infographics.

Tips on using subject matter experts to improve your EAT score:

• Find subject matter experts through professional directories such as trade publications, searching on LinkedIn, and joining related Facebook groups.
• Make sure your subject matter expert you focus on is the right fit for your targeting audience.
• If your chosen subject matter expert doesn’t have a lot of time, be flexible with how you work with them. This could be by simply asking them to review your content for accuracy and then crediting them on the page.

Bad SEO Practices to Avoid in 2022

Now that we’ve gone through the most important ways you can dominate Google with better SEO strategies in 2022, let’s focus on some things you should avoid.

Not much has changed here, but all of these are still practices that can have a negative impact on your SERP rankings.

1. Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is the act of stuffing as many keywords, both direct and related, into a piece of content as possible. The idea is that the more keywords an article has, the more relevant the content will appear and the higher it’ll rank on SERPs. The exact opposite is true, though.

When a keyword appears too often on a page, the page will be flagged as spammy by Google’s crawl bots. This will negatively affect rankings.

The easiest way to avoid this is to keep keyword density to 2 percent. This goes for the main keyword but also related keywords on the topic.

2. Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization occurs when two or more pages on your site are targeting the same main keyword. This is common on newer websites where the owner may think it’s better to split up larger pieces of content in order to create more pages.

For example, if the target keyword is “meringue” and they create one post on “How to Make the Perfect Meringue” and another post on “X Common Mistakes When Making Meringue.” To avoid cannibalization, a larger post should be created that includes both of those post titles as H2s. This is known as pillar content.

3. Duplicate Content

Somewhat related to keyword cannibalization is duplicate content.

Duplicate content is substantive blocks of content that match or are similar to other content elsewhere on the site or across the internet. The latter is also termed plagiarism.

To prevent Google from flagging content on your website as duplicate, use the following tips:

• Create 301 redirects.
• Keep a consistent URL structure.
• Use top-level domains.
• Use the noindex tag on syndicated content.

4. Exact Match Anchor Text

Similar to keyword stuffing, you don’t want exact match anchor text phrases to show up too often in your content. Why? It’s a clear signal to search engines that you’re trying to manipulate rankings.

To avoid this practice, you’ll first need to determine the current status (i.e. partial versus exact) of any and all links back to your site. You can do so with the Ahrefs’ Site Explorer:

The goal is for only 10-20 percent of all referring domains to link exactly or partially.

If you’re not actively link-building, then it’s unlikely you’re in danger of this particular misstep. However, it’s good to keep a pulse on your backlink portfolio at all times.

5. Spammy Link Building

While we already covered this to some degree, it is still worth repeating. There is a right way to go about getting backlinks and a wrong way.

There are some obvious offenders, like link directories, blog comments, paid links, and link schemes. You should also reevaluate the relationship you have with any referring domains. Do they have good linking practices? Do they use only white hat SEO tactics? The answers to these two questions will go a long way in informing you of whether the continued relationship will be beneficial or detrimental to your backlink profile.

Frequently Asked Questions About SEO With Google

Is SEO free on Google?

Search listings are free on Google. Search rankings are based on Google’s algorithm and no one can pay for a better ranking.

How long does it take to optimize my website for Google?

Assuming you are using the most common practices as outlined above in the article, it can take some time to implement all optimizations on your website. How long will depend on the size of your site and manpower. As for how long it takes to start seeing organic results, the consensus is four to six months.

How can I dominate the SERPs in 2022 through SEO?

The key to any successful SEO strategy is to focus on white hat techniques that have been proven to work. These are all outlined above.

Are there major Google algorithm updates expected in 2022?

Google releases thousands of algorithm updates every year. As for major updates, one to look out for at the beginning of 2022 is the intention to add page ranking signals to desktop search. This is expected to be completed by March 2022.

Conclusion: Dominating SEO With Google

As much as things change when it comes to Google’s algorithm and SEO, one thing remains constant: relevant, high-quality content is always a solid place to start.

By implementing the 12 on-page and technical SEO practices above, though, you can be sure to dominate SEO with Google in 2022. Why? Because these techniques help you to improve your content for both users and crawl bots to ensure a clean, engaging experience.

Which of the techniques above will you implement on your website first?

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