Year in Review: (SEO) Experiences 2021 and an Outlook for SEO 2022
The time has come again – we are approaching with big steps toward the end of the year. At the agency, things go quiet for a short while and I finally get the chance to write our traditional year in review. What all happened in 2021 and what do we expect for 2022? That is exactly what you will find out in our year in review (and outlook).
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SEO 2021
To be honest, when it comes to SEO, a lot of people have often jumped on a hype train without even noticing that it only has a minor impact on SEO. In 2021, that was the Core Web Vitals. We witnessed the scaremongering of many agencies toward their clients. “This new ranking factor will completely turn the SERPs upside down!”, was the almost unanimous opinion. But what actually came was no tornado, but rather a very gentle breeze that barely made itself noticed.
Successful SEO in 2021 therefore hardly differs from the SEO measures of previous years. After all, why would Google, of all companies, with such a high market share, completely reinvent itself? Never change a winning team is the motto. Instead, it is the smaller details that change at Google – and that we SEOs have to keep on our radar for our own and/or for client projects. Maybe the Core Web Vitals will receive a greater weighting in the ranking in 2022 – who knows?
A real surprise in 2021, on the other hand, was the Google Title Update. From one day to the next, the specified title tags were barely displayed by Google in the SERPs anymore. It seemed almost arbitrary how, instead, some random heading from the URL was shown as the new blue link in the SERPs. And that came with some negative effects!
Successful SEO
To be successful in SEO (no matter which year), you should focus on the SEO basics: the on-page and off-page measures. But you should never underestimate them, because what sounds so simple is only the tip of the SEO iceberg.
The SEO on-page measures now include so many subtasks, such as indexing management, UX, meta tags, content, search intent and much more. SEO can mean a whole lot of work.
SEO 2022
As already mentioned, Google will only move smaller levers next year as well. What we experienced in 2021 with the Core Web Vitals is likely to be continued in 2022. The user and their user experience will become even more important for the search engines. Modern technologies in the AI field are exciting, but can hardly be optimized (e.g. MUM).
In 2022, too, it is therefore important to always keep the user in focus and to deliver exactly what the searcher is looking for via the search engines – that is, to match the search intent 100 %. That is exactly what catapults you to the front of the rankings.
My personal SEO year in review
I increasingly notice that the guiding principle “SEO is not an exact science” is being forgotten. Many SEOs act on the assumption that they have taken in wisdom with VERY large spoons. However, in SEO there are many variables that leave room for interpreting the ranking factors. And that is a good thing! Because if the “Google code” had been completely solved, the rankings along with the search results would immediately collapse and the spammers would have won.
That is why search engine optimization always comes with a certain uncertainty, and that is why every SEO may and should be able to accept other opinions as well. SEO leaves plenty of room for testing. Only that way does SEO continue to be fun!
Regarding our personal direction, I can say that we discovered YouTube for ourselves and were able to win some exciting clients through it. Especially in the B2B field, it is so important to have many touchpoints online in order to reach potential clients in the best possible way.
I would now like to use the last few sentences to say thank you. A big thank-you goes to everyone in my personal circle, our great team of fantastic employees, our wonderful clients and also to you, dear reader, for staying loyal to us. I wish you all a good start into the new year!
SEO will definitely be exciting again in 2022 as well. :-)
-Fabian
