Top 10 Important SEO Techniques to Drive Organic Traffic in 2022

Credit: Mike Khorev

With the rise of innovative technologies, SEO is slowly evolving from its conventional definition and practices. Over the years, search engine algorithms have changed several times, and the ranking factors are no longer limited to keywords and backlinks. Here are the top 10 important SEO techniques to drive organic traffic in 2022.

1. Target long-tail keywords

Here are a few reasons why you should include long-tail keywords in your content:

1. They’re more specific and have less traffic.
2. You can rank for them faster as they are less competitive.
3. The higher conversion rate.

There’s no doubt that using long-tail keywords can help you rank higher on Google, increase engagement and boost your sales, but how do you find these long-tail keywords? You can use tools like the Keyword Tool to generate a list of long-tail keywords that are relevant to your product or service. Free tools like Ubersuggest will also give you ideas on what people search online related to your products and services.

2. Use keywords in alt text for images

As you’re optimizing your content for a specific keyword, be sure to use the same keyword in the alt text of your images. For example, if you’ve written an article about “how to build a website,” and you’ve used the phrase “build a website” in your main heading (H1), make sure that the alt text of the image you include with your H1 also includes “build a website.”

Alt text is an important part of SEO because search engines can’t crawl photos like they can crawl through text. The alt text gives crawlers information about what is on the page. This information helps them determine where images (and therefore, pages) should appear in search results.

3. Use great UX

Mike Khorev

You’ve heard of UX, right? It refers to the user experience. Essentially, how users interact with your site. When you have a great UX, people find it easy to navigate and use your site. When you have a bad one, people leave quickly and never come back. It’s important because it affects how users use your website. If they can’t find products or pages easily, they’ll leave – meaning no conversions for you!

4. Use internal and external links

To help the search engine crawlers index your website, you need to link your web pages to each other or link them from other relevant websites. The more links a site attracts from other reputed sites, the higher it ranks on Google and other search engines.

You should internally link your content to any of the following:

1. Related articles that provide additional information on a particular topic.
2. Articles that are similar but not as detailed as yours.
3. Articles you want readers to stay longer on your site.

5. Use keywords in headers

Headers are an important part of page content. They help users and search engines to understand the structure and main points of your content. Headers also help Google to rank your web pages for relevant keywords. In addition, descriptive headers provide visitors with an overview of the topics that will be discussed on the page.

6. Include several media types

A well-optimized website includes multiple types of media to keep visitors engaged and provide more ways for them to consume the content. Well-written text is essential, but it’s only one form of content. Images, videos, slideshows, and infographics all help engage readers.

7. Focus on “top of the funnel” keywords

If you’re new to SEO, it’s important to recognize the value of “top of the funnel” keywords. These are the words that people use when they’re doing research on a topic but haven’t made any decisions yet. They’re often not ready to buy yet; they just want information. Some examples might be “how to write a business plan” or “small business loans.”

These are good targets because they can lead to long-term success for your website if you target them properly and understand their importance. You could also identify similar keywords related to these topics and create a ton of content around them and dominate search results in the long term.

8. Eliminate spammy keywords

If you want to rank with Google, you need to focus on quality backlinks and content. That’s the only way your SEO strategy will work in 2022.

However, that doesn’t mean there still aren’t certain things you should avoid in your SEO efforts. Spammy keywords are one of them.
Spammy keywords are essentially keyword phrases that you know people search for frequently but don’t really have anything to do with your content or business at all. Sometimes, people also refer to them as irrelevant or “questionable” keywords as well because they can get you penalized by Google if misused.

9. Diversify backlinks

The evolution of search engine algorithms has made backlinking relevance a critical factor for SEO. For example, if you are a kitchen accessories store and all the links on your site are from cooking websites, it is not in your favor. Google will consider it as spamming and may penalize you for that.

So, as part of your SEO strategy, diversify the sources of your backlinks to minimize risks and reduce any potential penalties. This can be done by linking to other sites with relevant content or including links to other pages within the same website—whatever works best with the user experience on your site!

10. Don’t stuff keywords

The problem with keyword stuffing is that it makes your content look unnatural and robotic. By forcing keywords into every sentence on your website, you are hurting your content’s quality and making it difficult for humans to read. Instead, focus on writing for real people and not for search engines.

This means you should use keywords naturally throughout your sentences, but not too often. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how many times you should use a keyword in a sentence or paragraph, so don’t get too hung up on that number. You’ll know when you have used a keyword too much because it will start to feel unnatural to both humans and search engines.

Google is constantly changing its algorithm to ensure that only high-quality websites appear at the top of search results. By using natural language throughout your website and blog posts (and avoiding any kind of manipulation), you can ensure that Google directs more users to your content in the future.

Takeaway

As you can see, there are a lot of tactics to keep track of as you build your SEO strategy. You’ll want to implement these techniques in order to improve your ranking and gain more organic traffic.

Remember, though, that what works for one company may not work for another. Before diving in headfirst, you need to do the research and learn how things are done first. Make sure that your website is properly optimized to rank well on search results pages.

Mike Khorev is a lead SEO expert at Nine Peaks Media, a B2B SaaS SEO agency that helps software, IT, technology, and startup companies rank on the first page of Google. Mike offers expert advice on optimizing your company website the right way through performance-based on and off site SEO, inbound marketing, conversion rate optimization, search engine marketing and many other online practices.