5 SEO factors that will get you on Google's podium in 2022

Last August, Google rolled out its Page Experience Algorithm. The update will affect several user experience factors, most notably their Core Web Vitals, which is the overall assessment of the user experience on a website.

The update was initially applied to mobile versions of the website, and is expected to be applied to desktop searches by the end of March this year, when Google rolls out the final part of the update.

That said, we can expect user experience to be a key ranking factor.

User experience is not just about mobile-friendliness and responsiveness. It's also about page speed, interactivity, visual stability and HTTPS - all an important part of the Page Experience Algorithm.

But what can you do to improve your website?

• Analyse and review your current design using Google Search Console, Pagespeed Insights, and Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
• Focus on usability and usability if you are redesigning the website.
• Make sure your website is secured with HTTPS.

It is said that by the year 2025, up to 72% of all internet users will exclusively use their mobile to access the internet. Therefore, it is more important than ever to enhance the mobile version of your website. 

In March 2021, Google released its long-awaited Mobile-First Indexing (MFI) update. In short, this means that Google now prioritizes indexing and ranking websites that are mobile-friendly. 

If we combine this update with their Page Experience Algorithm, we can predict that non-mobile-friendly websites that provide a poor UX experience will suffer major losses in their rankings. 

How do you prepare your website for the update? 

• Implement a responsive design 
• Improve page speed on mobile, and enable caching and cookies

Last May, Google released its Multitask Unified Model (MUM), a language learning algorithm that Google says is 1,000 times more powerful than BERT (its previous language algorithm). 

MUM helps Google intercept information on websites that can provide more comprehensive answers to complex questions. It's a big upgrade from their Passage Ranking Update, which they released in 2020, because MUM is multimodal; meaning it can simultaneously understand information from different sources (images, landing pages, videos), thereby providing a more complete answer. It also aims to overcome language barriers.

Google used an example about MUM:

What can you do to prepare for the MUM update? 

• Write high-quality texts that contain long tail keywords and are combined with optimized images and videos
• Add structured data to help Google understand the page

In addition to the major updates that have been implemented by Google over the past year, there have also been some smaller improvements to their algorithms - for example, the Passage Ranking Update. 

With the implementation of the Passage Ranking Update, Google indexes not only entire landing pages, but also smaller passages from the page - also known as featured snippets. 

This is particularly useful for very specific searches and voice searches, as it makes it easier for the user to find exactly what they are looking for. Searches are becoming more intentional over time, and featured snippets will become more and more important in searches in the coming years. 

What can you do to improve your featured snippets? 

• Focus on strengthening your long-tail keywords. Research your audience to find out what information is important and what your audience is looking for to find that information.
• Create high-quality content. Always think about your audience and users, not Googlebot.