Amidst Dramatic SEO Swings, What Marketers Should Expect In 2022

BrightEdge, known for its focus on search engine optimization, on Monday released insights into Black Friday and Cyber Monday trends, and how Google searches changed during these traditional holiday shopping days.

During the past month, BrightEdge tracked 500 ecommerce-related keywords including informational, navigational, and transactional intents to get a sense of how results fluctuated to accommodate shoppers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

While the data does not show dramatic swings, it does illustrate several interesting fluctuations during the 2021 holiday season.

The following are among these fluctuations:

  1. Amazon’s dominance was less apparent during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
  2. Regular web results became increasingly diverse as the holiday season kicked into gear.
  3. Informational content still matters.
  4. Category pages continue to dominate ecommerce.
  5. The home page continues to lose ground.
  6. FAQ schema is more present with higher-ranking pages.
  7. For ecommerce, it appears to be critical for marketers to focus on the shopping experience their category page offers by providing valuable answers to customer questions while making it easy to get into products for which they may shop.

BrightEdge also published the results from a 2021 State of SEO Webinar. Survey results included 750 SEO and digital marketers who were asked how search engine updates will impact business in 2022. More than 97% of respondents said it would impact workload in three main areas in content strategy, technical SEO, and outreach and link building.

Some 59% of respondents also described growth in the search channel this year. In addition, only 13% of the audience saw a decline in the channel for 2021.

BrightEdge then examined the types of results presented in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for the top domains. The data shows changes compared with prior years, including increased local intent reflected across all market segments, fewer quick answers, and more people also asking for results.  

The audience’s experiences were mixed. Some 48% saw differences in the SERPs, with 11% seeing fewer universal results and features and 37% seeing more universal results and features. About 52% did not note any differences in their search results.

  • When asked how they see SEO prioritized for their company in 2022, 89% said it would take on more emphasis.
  • When asked about the importance of Core Web Vitals (CWV) in 2022, 90% have completed or are prioritizing their work to support Core Web Vitals. About 77% still have work to do, while just 10% are not prioritizing it.  

When asked how great a role organic search data plays in their company’s business intelligence, 79% of those polled said search data is or will be part of strategic planning. Some 33% of respondents described search data as a key input into how their company formulates its broader business strategies.

Next story loading loading..