Why should you prioritise technical SEO? Now more than ever, it’s a must to ensure your website appears high in Google’s SERPs.
Technical SEO allows search engines like Google to know your website is of high value. This is important because it prompts search engines to rank you higher. After all, they want to present users with the best possible results for their chosen keywords. Focus areas include site speed, URL structure and duplicate content for example. There have been a host of new developments in the past year having a direct impact on SEO, which should be your focus in 2022.
Optimising for MUM
As highlighted by Search Engine Watch, MUM (Multitask Unified Model) is a more complex algorithm released by Google that utilises AI to have a better understanding of users’ intent and thought processes. MUM was launched midway through 2021 and is not only 1000 times more powerful than the previous BERT update, but is also able to pull relevant information to search queries from text, images and even video or audio files. This updated algorithm is running across 75 different languages (and counting) and will mean that businesses will need to have a greater focus on their content to ensure visibility is maintained.
So what can you do to help optimise your website for MUM and maximise your SEO performance?
- Optimise website layout – Making sure that Google can easily navigate your website through a clear structure and easy navigation to important pages user outcomes.
- Leverage multimedia formats in your content – MUM will pull information from a range of formats, meaning that multimedia formats such as infographics or other imagery (with relative alt text attached) will also help to get your pages indexed and ranked.
- Ensure that meta descriptions and titles are correct and unique to every page – With greater focus on user intent, this means that pages with relevant and useful content will be included in the SERPs. Making sure that the right meta descriptions and meta titles are attached to each page will make it easier for Google to pick the relevant pages to match a user’s search query.
- Continue building internal and external linking – MUM is looking to eliminate the language barriers between information sharing, so there will be a lot more content available for users. This is why it is important you ensure your content is up to date and valued by users. Focus on effective link building for highly quality content.
Prepare For More Visual Searches
Towards the end of last year Google also announced an update to their Google Lens tool. This update can utilise both an image and text to help narrow down a user’s search. For example, if you wanted to know how to fix a bike’s derailleur but didn’t know the name you could scan an image of the system and add a question such as ‘how to fix it?’ The search would then adjust to purely images of derailleurs and pull in SERPs related to how an individual can fix that part of a bike.
This update to Google Lens provides a huge opportunity for retailers and is already impacting how customers interact with e-commerce businesses. To help ensure your company’s products appear for these searches it’s important all product details are up to date, they are linked to Google Merchant Centre, opted in to product listings and follow Google Image best practices such as utilising high quality imagery and descriptive titles, captions, filenames and alt text.
Continued Focus On Security
With the phasing out of the cookie, there has been renewed focus on privacy. Google has developed the privacy sandbox as a method for information to be shared with businesses, without users compromising their security. With such a big focus on this area, it’s important to ensure your websites are secure through the use of the latest HTTP protocol and regular website maintenance checks. In fact, HTTPS is a signal for organic search ranking, and there are new security privacy tools being rolled out on Chrome this year.
There have been a host of new developments in SEO over the past year. Take note and carry out plans to maximise SEO performance to ensure to don’t lose out on important exposure in the market. For assistance in rolling our technical SEO updates, talk to the team at Redline Digital today.