In the past year, I learned SEO thoroughly. Now I know link building is the most prominent SEO practice to execute. And it would still be remaining useful as similar in 2021 or beyond. I also got to know that SEO changes with time.

However, you’ve succeeded in 2019 by creating backlinks, guest posting, and promoting your content on social media.

But there are some affordable SEO trends that you could use in 2022 to rank your page on Google.

So, today I’m going to list ten low-cost SEO tips that will improve your ranking on Google.

I’m considering ‘affordable’ because it’s hard for beginners to find a cheap SEO specialist or company to work for them. And also I suggest you not put money on the table for the SEO companies because they are not reliable. They can make you fool by any means.

Instead, learn by yourself. It would make you more confident, and you would get to know something more useful that actually works.

Like I said, SEO changes with time. That means the tactics that you were practicing in 2017 now have become obsolete.

So, you need to replace these old SEO practices with some new techniques that are acceptable to the new generation of 2022.

The cool part is that you know these techniques. I’m just reminding you and trying to give the reason why you should use them.

By the end of this article, you’ll learn what the best SEO trends in 2022 are? And how you can take benefits by following these affordable SEO techniques.

Ok, now let’s get started: – 

10 Affordable SEO Trends To Rank In Google [2022]

#1. Featured snippets

It is the first SEO trend that will make your site more visible on search engines.

What is a featured snippet?

When you search for some queries, Google serves selected results at the top of the page.

Here is an example of a featured snippet

Google always tries to increase user experience by providing an instant solution to users. The featured snippet is also one of those features that Google uses for the same purpose.

A web page that best solves the user’s query. Google shows those results on the zeroth position of the first page in the search result.

It is a rectangle box that contains the URL, the title tag, and a possible solution to a search query. The answer is extracted programmatically from your web page.

So, there is no doubt featured snippet could drive massive traffic to your website.

Google is so intelligent and only shows the result if the instant solution is available. You can’t mark your web page featured snippet ready.

The best thing is that Google shows the featured results twice when you search for a query. That means featured snippets encourage users to click without scrolling down and significantly increase your CTR.

Searchenigneland.com did a study and found that how featured snippet increases session by 516% and also affects the CTR & revenue.

MOZ says that ‘if you want to get featured then increase your overall ranking.’

Unfortunately, no such thing could allow featured snippets on your web page. But, if you want to optimize your web page for featured snippets then you need to follow these natural SEO practices:  –

• Structured data: Ahrefs found that there is no correlation between structured data and featured snippets. But optimizing your site with structure data helps your content to get the featured snippet because structured data makes your site’s structure more convenient for the web crawler. However, this is not always true, but sometimes, Google catches your content without having any structured data. But it could provide you with an opportunity to increase the chances to get featured.  (Remember that structured data is not a ranking factor)
• Rank your page on Google’s first page: According to the case study by Ahrefs, Google extracts featured a snippet from their top 10 results. They found 99.58% of the featured snippet from results that are already ranked in the top 10. That means that if you want to get the featured snippet, your web page must be on the first page of the Google search.
• Ahrefs analyzed 2 million searches and found the following word and phrases that you could use to get featured on Google.

• Always start your discussion with questions. Try to figure out what keyword people are going to search.
• Use long-tail keywords to make your content relevant. It encourages Google’s crawlers to serve your page in the top position.
• Sometimes, Google shows you a box named ‘people also ask’ which contains questions similar to your query. As you click a question, more and more questions are added to that box. Using these questions could help you get featured in the zeroth position.

• Try to project the user search intent. This means preparing a set of long-tail keywords that people would be searching while looking for a particular solution.

#2. Mobile SEO

According to https://www.statista.com, Mobile employs 52.64% of the internet. In 2017 almost 73% population of the US were actively browsing the web using mobile. And I’m sure it would increase in 2018.

According to statisa.com, the number of total users worldwide is 5 billion by 2019. And mobile phone user penetration is expected to increase by 67% in 2019.

So, you can think of the buzz around Mobile devices. People feel comfortable while using mobile devices rather than desktops or laptops. Because mobiles are handy and people can easily carry them in their pockets.

I wondered when Google announced ‘mobile-first indexing’ in November 2016. That means if your website is not MOBILE ready you may lose a significant amount of audience. So, it is crucial to optimize your site for mobile devices.

Google mobile speed checker tool analyzes these data to suggest you the better corrective steps to optimize mobile loading speed.

 

When it comes to mobile SEO, you should always take care of the following things:  –

Responsive: To ensure your site is responsive or not make sure your document header must have the following code:  <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0″>This is the first way to make your site accessible for all devices. In responsive web designing, the server sends the same HTML code to all devices. A developer uses this tag to tell the browser how to adjust the content with all appliances.

Why you should use Responsive design

• It reduces the crawl efforts because when Google bot scans your site, they have to only examine your site once rather than compiling multiple times to retrieve different-2 versions of content ( When your site uses a dynamic serving site and separate URLs configuration then google crawlers crawl the different results various times)
• Improve the Crawlability
• Increase the indexing rate
• There is no need to make any further redirections to match the content for all the devices
• Minimum possibilities to have some standard errors like 404 error while serving content for different-2 devices.
• You don’t need to remember multiple URLs.
• It increases page loading speed due to a lack of redirections.  

Dynamic serving site: In this type of configuration there is a single URL that retrieves the content for all devices but the HTML structure changes with different-2 devices.  It provides a unique design for all devices. If you use this configuration, you need to invest more money than a responsive design because a developer has to build code separately. Sometimes it requires a ‘Vary HTTP header’ to let the browser know that different content designs will be serving all devices. You can use this configuration to enhance your mobile SEO by providing users the best design for all devices.

Page speed: Google aims to provide a fast and immediate response to users. So your site must comply with the loading speed threshold. If your site loading speed is around 3 seconds then you’re great. Otherwise, you might lose a significant amount of audience.

So make sure your site loads fast for all devices, not just caring about the content.

For the best information check out this source:  How loading time affects the bottom line

Best SEO practices that you could use to skyrocket your loading speed.

1. Use a few plugins. Delete unnecessary plugins
2. Install CDN to increase your loading speed (MAXCDN increases my site loading speed by 168%)
3. Use a straightforward and SEO-optimized WordPress theme. (Best SEO optimized WordPress themes)
4. Compress your images
5. Never put too many ad codes. Keep them limited

#3. Voice search optimization

Voice search is the fastest-growing search because it allows the user to search without typing. If you want to get your page in google results while searching with the google voice command, you need to optimize your content for voice search.

But the question arises that how to optimize your content for voice search?

Ok, before I give you any suggestions, I want to tell you that voice search is growing at a similar rate to technology. In fact, three years back voice search was not so reliable because there were 20% search errors and now it is reduced to 8%.

It has also been found that there are 30% of voice and visual search drive e-commerce revenue. That means marketer must optimize their content for voice search.  Check out for more stats about voice search

   (source: https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/09/voice-search-changing-seo/)

“In many countries, including the U.S., more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers.”

Some new movement strategies that every marketer should use

   (Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/4-new-moments-every-marketer-should-know/)

It shows you how a search engine is optimizing its search with voice. And now it’s your responsibility to make it easy for search engines by publishing well-optimized voice search content.

Now, let’s come to our earlier discussion: –

For optimizing your content with voice search, you can follow these affordable SEO practices…

• Try to keep your content user readable or use the natural flow pattern. I mean, your content should be matching the user voice query. It could be done by just including the long tail keyword that the user might speak of while searching. For example, suppose you write about SEO, then you can write like this ‘what is SEO’. Because when someone searches for SEO via voice search, he would speak ‘what is SEO’ or ‘How to do SEO’ rather than only asking for SEO.
• Similar to the featured snippet, Ask the questions. If you don’t know where to find the question, you can pick some questions from the ‘People also ask box.
• Most of the time people carry their smartphones in their pockets. Whenever they find something interesting locally, they open their mobile devices and start knowing about that thing. I’m not saying that all users prefer voice search but a majority of users would like to use the voice search to find the local solution. So, focusing on local search could help you get ranked in voice search.
• Use a long-tail keyword for the best results.

#4. Content is king

There is No doubt ‘Content is king’, and you should never underestimate the power of content. It is the only thing that always paces with the trend.

It is the very first thing that impacts your SEO the most. If you’re writing quality content, you could increase your ranking in Google.

Good content can engage more and more audiences without putting effort. A user who reads your article could share your article on social media.

As you know that content is everywhere, either you look at social media sites or any blog/website without content, you can’t even imagine the existence of these sites.

So, you can’t ignore the existence of content. That means the more quality you provide your content, the higher rank you will get in Google.

Marketers are investing a considerable amount of money to make their content outstanding. But as a blogger, you don’t need to spend this much amount. If you wish to create insightful content, then you can adopt these affordable SEO tips…

1. First of all, design a layout that fits your content. You can start with a little introduction to the article.
2. Separate your schedule accordingly. I mean when you start writing, you look for many variable things like finding content, optimizing content, uploading media, and promoting that content. So, the best practice is to follow a routine so that you can complete your task consistently.
3. Once you plan your content strategy, you’ll be ready to test your drive.
4.  Now you can do some experiments to extract the best practices that fit your content type
5.  Include real facts because theoretical information is widespread. Almost every blogger uses the information. So try to add something advanced statistics or case studies.
6.  To make your content visually appealing, add some extra images and videos.
7. Never start writing without knowing what is available out there. First, find the available information and then add more and more value to create super-powerful content.
8. Last but not least, don’t forget to add a bottom line that sums up your whole content.

Like I said, design a layout. Here is a layout that I usually follow to make my content useful and compelling…·

• First of all, give a little bit of information about your topic. Don’t explore everything, try to hook the audience by telling them the benefits of reading your article. ·
• How do you catch your audience? The best strategy to hook the audience is to keep some secret and don’t tell them until they read your 1/4^th part of the article. ·
•  Your secrets might be anything related to your topic. ·
• Once you make your audience curious, give them what you have promised earlier. Never use misleading headlines to grasp the user’s attention. ·
• Link your article with some authoritative blog URLs. This could help users to collect extra information regarding the article.·
• Link your existing pieces to give a more insightful meaning to your audience. ·
• Discrete your body content into small paragraphs because it makes your content readable and the user is likely to read your full article. ·
• Include useful statistics and case studies. Because this is the only thing that distinguishes your content from others. ·
• Finally, include a short paragraph of your conclusion and ask for sharing your content.

#5. AI (Artificial intelligence) and machine learning (Google algorithms)

Google always surprises webmasters with its new search algorithm updates. The change in algorithms significantly changes the SEO trends.

Back in the day, people used to manipulate the search results using some famous black hat SEO techniques. They used hiding text, keyword stuffing, cloaking, etc. to tweak search results. At that time Google was unable to track these events.

Finally, they launched the Panda update which now takes care of all these hazardous activities. Google now knows every dangerous event that can ruin the SERPs pattern.

Since 2013, Google has rolled out so many changes in its algorithms to avoid hazardous factors like content thinness, poor quality, and content irrelevancy. These algorithms have changed the SEO old practices and encouraged webmasters to create useful content.

The algorithms like Hummingbird (introduced in 2013) and Rank Brain have changed the SERPs pattern drastically. As a result, new SEO trends of 2018 are evolved.

So, it’s better to obey their rules. Otherwise, you would never see your page on top in google.

Hummingbird filters the search results by their search intent instead of counting the keywords density. It helps Google to find more relevant content even if there is no presence of the exact word or phrase in the user’s queries.

According to searchengineland.com, ‘Hummingbird uses the natural language processing that relies on LSI (latent semantic indexing) and relative words and phrases. So there is no question about not using the LSI and relative phrases because they not only increase your content relevance but also boost your rankings on Google.

On the other hand, the rank brain is an artificial machine learning system. The purpose of this algorithm is to provide a better user experience and the most relevant results to the users.

However, this is very similar to hummingbirds, but the process is different from hummingbirds. It uses its artificial intelligence to understand human behavior. What people are searching for and which content they are likely to click.

And if no one is clicking your results that mean users aren’t finding your article relevant. This behavior implies that ‘XYZ’ content is not useful for this search query. So the system captures those results and kicks those results back to the bottom.

So, the bottom line is that if you want to pace with today’s SEO trends, you need to consider both keyword optimization and content relevancy. Because if you don’t do this, you might lose your ranking on Google.

#6. YouTube SEO

According to a Cisco study, video content would occupy 80% of the whole internet by 2019. This means that even if you’re running a blog/website, your video presence is more prominent than other SEO trends.

In fact, in 2020, 75% of mobile traffic comes from video content.

These are overwhelming case studies that show that video optimization would be the prime concern to pace with future SEO trends.

It also means that the consumption of video content is significantly increasing day by day.

Now the question is what you should do to make your content optimized for video.

The solution to this question is to create a YouTube channel and make video content using video SEO strategies.

Next question you might ask what are the best video SEO strategies? Here are some tips that will help you to get your videos featured on Google and YouTube search as well.

Let’s get started: –

1. Optimize your text content for voice search and text search as well. And then create a video that presents your whole content.
2. First, publish your video on YouTube and then place that video link to your post. This will help your audience to find your content more compelling.
3. Do “video keyword research” to get your video featured on Youtube and Google. 
4. Optimize both your video transcript and text content so that you can get better rankings. [scroll up to learn about voice optimization]
5. Use annotation to keep your audience engaged.
6. Create quality videos
7. Don’t forget to include a short paragraph of text in the description section.
8. Optimize your video content for tags
9. Make custom Thumbnails to keep your video appearance looking different from others. (Using a well-optimized thumbnail can increase your engagement by 154%)
10. Start your heading with the focus keyword. [How to optimize title tag to increase click-through rate]

For more about YouTube SEO check out this guide:  25 tips to drive more traffic to YouTube videos

Attention:

• Increase your YouTube videos for free
• Best YouTube Video ideas 
• YouTube monetization network to increase your channel reach 

#7. Link building

As I said, Link building is still an affordable SEO technique to increase domain authority and traffic. Although, people buy the backlinks. But this is not the right way to create links. If Google identifies a sudden increment in backlinks, then Google blacklists all those links.

There are tons of studies done by an SEO specialist that shows how efficient link building is. I’ve also done a little test to know what the potential of the link-building technique is? And how much it could impact your rankings.

The results that I found during my study…

A few link-building practices that you could use for better rankings…

1. Guestographics – create infographics for other bloggers and ask them to link your domain URL. This is a handy way to get high-quality backlinks.
2. Broken link building
3. Guest posting
4. Join Forums

However, Bing measures the link-less mentions (For example Brand name, company name) as a ranking factor. Link-less building is more efficient than link building.

Attention: – 15 excellent ways to get high-quality backlinks

#8. Don’t forget other search engines

As you all know that Google is a giant search engine and has occupied 78% of the market share by 2017 however, there is nothing to surprise but what about the remaining 22%.

Although, Google is a market leader. But Bing, Yahoo, and Baidu still hold a significant amount of market share. So if you’re ignoring these search engines, you might be losing a great opportunity.

It is mostly beneficial for marketers because every search engine has a different audience that might love your product & service.

#9. Move to HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

Google has officially announced to encourage webmasters to migrate their sites from HTTP to HTTPS.

They also encourage you to upgrade your weaker HTTPS key (1024-bit) to a highly secured key (2048- bit).

Backlinko.com found that HTTPS is dominating the HTTP results. It means that in the future Google would prefer the HTTPS results the most. And I’m sure that this would become the essential SEO trend in the future.

Google officially mentioned that if you migrate your site from HTTP to HTTPS, then you’ll notice a drop in your web traffic because Google treats HTTPS URL as a change in URL.

If you’re planning to migrate from HTTP to HTTPS, then make sure you implement these affordable SEO tips…

1. Keep your HTTP certification up to date.
2. Submit all versions of URLs to the Google webmaster tool.
3. All versions are: ‘http://www.example.com’, ‘https://example.com’, ‘http://example.com’, ‘https://example.com.’
4. Once you verify all those URLs, make sure you submit a sitemap of your preferred domain. In this case, your preferred domain is https://exmaple.com.
5. Don’t forget to 301 redirect your http://expample.com URL to https://example.com
6. Check your HTTPS version to ensure that Google bots can fetch all versions of URLs
7. Allow indexing of your all pages
8. Optimize your Robot.txt file to reduce the crawl errors (make sure you allow HTTPS sites from crawling using robot.txt)
9. For more HTTPS FAQs, please visit the google forum

#10. Optimize for image and video search

Images are those ingredients that make your content visually appealing because an image says thousands of words. Your reader might easily catch your message, and this could encourage them to keep on reading your article.

That means it increases user experience which improves SEO and rankings.

Google provides you three methods for searching a query

1. Image search
2. Text query search
3. Voice search

If your web page is optimized for all these search methods listed above Google will serve your pages on top for all searches.

But the question is how to prepare your site for all search methods. A few tips to optimize your search for image search

1. Use at least one compelling image
2. Compress your image to make it load fast
3. Use the proper alt-tag to get your image on the top of the image search results

You can scroll up to find the solution for text query search (in the ‘content is king’ section) and voice search optimization.

 

Conclusion: –

By doing thorough research, I came across these 10 SEO trends that you might watch in 2018.

These are affordable SEO tips that you could practice to make your site accessible without paying anything.

One thing you should know is that Google regularly updates its algorithm. So make sure you pace with regular SEO trends to keep your ranking constant.

I hope you would like this guide, if yes don’t forget to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

An infographic view: SEO trends in 2018