As we wind down 2021, we thought we’d share some of the better SEO strategies that have worked for ourselves & clients this year. While this list isn’t comprehensive, it will highlight some of the better and more effective SEO strategies ASTOUNDZ has leveraged over this past year.
With 2022 just around the corner, new SEO strategies and techniques will be created – but for now, let’s look back at our 3 favorite ones from this year.
#1 – Website Loading
Website loading has always been an area of focus for Webmaster & Web Developers – no one likes a slow website, including search engines. We’ve covered Web Loading before, but with Google continuing to confirm that Web Vitals are part of ranking websites it’s become clear this is the #1 SEO strategy to implement.
We now have an official date for when Google will be bringing the page experience update factors/signals to desktop. Google said it will start the rollout in February 2022 and complete that rollout by the end of March 2022. The same factors, outside of mobile-friendliness, will be used for the desktop version.
#2 – Referral Traffic & Link Campaigns
A backlink is a link created when one website links to another. Backlinks are also called “inbound links” or “incoming links.” While generating backlinks is arguably one of the most difficult SEO strategies, from both a time & effort standpoint, the return can be great.
Healthy backlink strategies are ones that work to enhance a website’s authority on specific subjects, so building links on relevant sites to your industry is key. While backlink campaigns can be costly, they are also some of the best SEO campaigns that drive 2nd and 3rd-page rankings to the 1st page. If your website is stuck on the 2nd or 3rd page of Google search reach out to us, we’d be glad to form a customized backlink campaign based on your needs.
#3 – Optimizing Website Crawling, or Crawl Budgets
While this isn’t as new of a strategy as the others, it is extremely effective when looking at larger and more complex websites. As we began working with more and more Enterprise SEO clients, putting in place systems so new content is discovered and that ranking pages are consistently seen became a priority.
Google defines a crawl budget as:
“The web is a nearly infinite space, exceeding Google’s ability to explore and index every available URL. As a result, there are limits to how much time Googlebot can spend crawling any single site. The amount of time and resources that Google devotes to crawling a site is commonly called the site’s crawl budget.”
Managing your URL inventory/accessbility and having pages load efficiently are two key practices in optimizing a website’s crawl budget.
Additional SEO News
Mobile Search
Mobile search on Google now has an infinite scroll, meaning there are no longer pages 2, 3, etc. on mobile devices. This is big news, as web pages ranking in the 20-30 range will see more traffic since they are much easier to access now. How Google ranks and how tools track mobile rankings has not changed at all, this update was only focused on providing a better user experience.
Important note: continuous scroll is not "infinite scroll." Rather, continuous scrolling makes it easy to seamlessly view up to four pages of results, then you'll see a "See more" button if you wish to continue further.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) October 14, 2021
Click Thru Rate (CTR) is NOT a Ranking Factor
From Google themselves: Click thru rates on search rankings do not impact current and future rankings. If CTR was a ranking factor in search engine algorithms, users would see far more clickbait and spam.
If CTR were what drove search rankings, the results would be all click-bait. I don't see that happening.
— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) November 4, 2021
Google My Business is Rebranding: Google Business Profile
Google will now be referring to business listings on Maps as, Google Business Profiles. Not much else has changed other than the name, but it’s noteworthy as new & improved features usually follow these types of name changes.
Ready to Improve Your Website’s SEO? ASTOUNDZ Is Here to Help!
Is your website not ranking on Google? Give us a shout – our team will be glad to audit and go over potential SEO strategies that can get you to where you’d like to be.