SEO, The SEO Weekly

December 23, 2021

Your 2022 Boring (and Ridiculous) SEO Predictions

Garrett Sussman

People tend to either love or hate SEO predictions.

Every year, the SEO industry puts out prediction list after prediction list. This strategy is going to have your website traffic soaring! This stupid tactic is finally going to tragically go boom.

In any of these lists, you will always see the same cliches.

More video content. This is the year of Voice Search. SEO is dead.

Well, don’t believe for a moment that we wouldn’t let another year go by without our own beautifully crafted SEO predictions post.

But guess what? We did it differently. We at least tried to add a little humor.

Reaching out to 45 people across our industry, we got a wide variety of snark, outrageousness, and brilliance.

I asked my colleagues to provide a BORING and a RIDICULOUS prediction for 2022 and they did not disappoint.

Watch the summary of the SEO Weekly and dive into all of the great submissions from the SEO community.

GENERAL Predictions

There were a lot of general predictions in the boring category that covered a range of the basics.

Ola King

WEBSITE: seogrowthkit.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Google will continue to focus more on helping searchers find answers to their queries. And less on helping websites get traffic to their sites.
Most business owners and the general public won’t care about what SEOs geek out about.
SEOs will continue to pitch high DA guest blogging opportunities to uninformed businesses.
Sites without a solid SEO strategy will get traffic without business results.
Scoring well for Core Web Vitals won’t necessarily help you rank well.
Real-world situations will continue to affect search trends (Covid, Remote work, etc.).

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Searchers won’t need to type or speak to get results anymore. They just think of their query, open their browser, and their results will already be there. How do you do keyword research for this?

Kristine Schachinger

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

The best SEO is still gold old boring SEO. The Core Ranking Factors (such as well-written content, strong link profiles, and proper technical SEO) are still the Core Ranking Factors, and if you do those well — your site will do well. No tricks needed.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Given Google’s very serious legal issues around the AMP program, we will wake up one day to find out it has been discontinued. Just like Google Glass, Google, Google Toolbar, Google Apps, etc., etc. https://killedbygoogle.com/

Where do you think CWVs came from?

Begum Kaya

WEBSITE: thegray.company

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

1. 2022 will be the year of voice search! Just like every year has been, for the last 3 years. Maybe one year, it’ll come true!

2. 2022 will be the year of mobile! Hope you’ve started optimizing…

3. There will be ~30 big #SEOTwitter melodramas.

4. Many new “SEO is Dead” articles, plus several “SEO vs PPC” articles & LinkedIn quizzes.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Now that Google has started rewriting page titles, they’ll probably assign a dedicated, SEO-team accessible editor for all websites in 2022 (just like for PPC!) Then they’ll talk us through each and every ranking factor in detail for the first time. Thanks, Google! 🥰

Keira Davidson

WEBSITE: keiradavidson.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Google will roll out several new algorithms throughout the year and there will be winners and losers from this.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

In 2022, SEO will no longer be implemented by humans and instead, it’ll be taken over by robots.

Crystal Carter

WEBSITE:optixsolutions.co.uk

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Though you will want to waffle or add lead with something ‘fun’ and ‘quirky’ you will still need to explicitly state what the actual point of your website is, on your website.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Now that Facebook is Meta. And Google My Business is no more, Google Business Profiles will become more important for more businesses than Facebook pages.

CONTENT PREDICTIONS

What would a discussion about SEO be without content? These ‘BORING’ predictions focused around how people will/should approach content in 2022.

Camille Troxel

WEBSITE:northwestregisteredagent.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Quality content will matter.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

It’ll all come full circle and we can just revert back to keyword stuffing.

Tamara Sykes

WEBSITE: nextlevelpresence.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Continue to write naturally and don’t keyword stuff. After all, that’s what Google and humans value 😉

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Search engines are going to start penalizing websites that don’t have alt text in an effort to champion accessibility.

Sarah Harradine

WEBSITE: holidaycottages.co.uk

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Write, create, and structure your website for humans. We’ve all been doing it for years but still panic when Google brings out a change, worry about keyword density or even whether it matters if keywords in Camel Case or, “new” for 2021, in bold type.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

We’re all going to realise that 90% of our websites are completely useless for SEO and redirect. Canonicalise or 410 it all. 😬

Rebekah May

WEBSITE: rebekahm.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Add content everywhere, no matter how unnecessary it is. If you have a blog featuring recipes, for example, be sure to give your entire life history before the recipe.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google will level up at reading text in images, so your designers can now design your whole site using a giant image with text instead of having to add text to your HTML.

SOCIAL PREDICTIONS

Social and SEO? That can be BORING and RIDICULOUS. Don’t worry, we’ve got both possibilities covered.

Rejoice Ojiaku

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Social media SEO will be a bigger thing, especially when brands start repurposing website content into social media posts.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Website design will be a ranking factor hehe (ugly websites make me sad).

Tasha Antwi

WEBSITE: riseatseven.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Less focus on voice search now that hype has died down and we’re all optimised for it!

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Social media becoming the most important digital touchpoint for consumers. As social media enhance their platforms for shopping and video, they are also enhancing their search features and capabilities. Meaning that we as SEOs should be ensuring we understand the various nuances of how people search on social media, understanding their search intent, and optimising for it. This will be a major means of driving traffic to the website rather than traditional search engines 👀.

LINKS PREDICTIONS

Many would argue that links are one of the most important ranking factors in SEO. So of course we want some ‘BORING’ predictions that reassert the dominance of LINKS.

Natalie Arney

WEBSITE: nataliearney.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Links (internal and external) will continue to be relevant.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

John Mueller will make cheese a ranking factor.

Natalie Mott

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Links are still going to be important for your website’s authority, no matter how people may spin recent comments from Google on this. In order to rank well for competitive search terms, you’re going to need some links.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

SEO Twitter will suddenly become a safe and inclusive space for all (we can only hope).

E-A-T PREDICTIONS

Sure. Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) are relatively new-ish in the world of SEO, but surprisingly there was only one E-A-T ‘BORING’ prediction.

Svetlana Stankovic

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

There will be many more user-centric Google algorithm updates and improvements: things like E-A-T, product reviews, local search improvements, CWV will continue growing in importance. The way how content is perceived will go way above keyword rankings into a topical ranking or answer-to-question ranking. Google will develop new ways to interpret content, but also new ways to measure overall functionality and user satisfaction. E-A-T will grow even bigger.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

SERPs will not consist of 10 results but rather of peronalised landing pages for specific terms and topics.

Local SEO PREDICTIONS

Local SEO has had some major shake-ups at the end of the year between the name change from Google My Business to Google Business Profiles as well as the major unannounced Local Search Algorithm Update that happened over the first week of December. Naturally, there were a few quality ‘BORING’ local SEO predictions.

Amanda Jordan

WEBSITE: ricketyroo.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Google will continue to focus on updates to GBP (Google Business Profiles) and local SERPs.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Add FAQs to every single page on your website to rank for People Also Ask 😩😩😩

Jessica Girardi

WEBSITE: uproer.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Local is going to explode – we’re already seeing a significant investment in the way that Map Packs look and work. And with people exiting their homes for the first time in 2 years, and the supply chain the way it is, people are going to want to shop brick and mortar more.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

I think Google is going to FINALLY stop trying to push voice search and start trying to push image search – I mean, they have the technology in their pixel cameras *insert six million dollar man meme*, and they already trialed it with Google Glass (RIP) – What’s stopping them from reviving that project and moving into image-based search? So fix your alt tags!

Krystal Taing

WEBSITE: uberall.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

As the pandemic and ongoing lockdowns move farther from temporary and closer to the new normal, I believe we’ll continue to see consumers driving the need for digitization (or partial digitization) of services they used to complete in person. Seamless, speedy, and attractive online experiences will continue to be impactful for SEO.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Possibly not too farfetched, but with supply chain and delivery issues, it will be interesting to see how SEO adapts to support here. Possibly new inventory attributes, search and filtering criteria for products and delivery, etc.

Kristal Audain

WEBSITE: Groundworks

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Local SEO + AI will be the golden couple of 2022. AI is getting more sophisticated and Local SEO is getting more refined.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Marketing, Development, and Product teams will all embrace SEO as a part of their everyday job functions with the resident SEO lead as their guide.

WEBSITE MIGRATION PREDICTIONS

For most, a website migration is BORING. Guess it makes sense that we’d encounter a BORING prediction related to the epic responsibility of an SEO.

Katherine Ong

WEBSITE: wostrategies.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

I think for my clients who are migrating web platforms, that mapping and correctly executing 301 redirects will really move the needle on how much traffic they can maintain during the transition.

VOICE SEARCH PREDICTIONS

Honestly, what would a BORING SEO predictions article be without a reference to voice search? It’s inevitable.

Praveen Sharma

WEBSITE: praveensharma.co

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

2022 is The Year of Voice Search 🙂

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

SERPs will change forever. Clicking on a search result will NOT take you to the ranking website’s landing page, but it will open a pop-up window that will show you the latest cached copy of that page. You can take all the actions that you want to take on that page within that pop-up window. And close it when done. That way, as a user, you never leave Google. 🙂

JOHN MUELLER PREDICTIONS

It’s practically BORING to predict that John Mueller, an advocate on the search relations team would have something SEO-related pop up. Don’t worry. John appeared in both BORING and RIDICULOUS fashion.

Nadia Mojahed

WEBSITE: seotransformer.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Google’s John Mueller speaks to the SEO community.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

More secretive SEO myths will get busted. Keeps the SEO community on toes 😉

Luke Davis

WEBSITE: lukealexdavis.co.uk

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Google will introduce a new advancement in NLP that affects search in a way that some like and others won’t

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

John Mueller will finally pass the Turing test

Jen Penaluna

WEBSITE: Evoluted.net

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

You’ll still hate visiting recipe sites. They’ll still load slowly, ads will be in your face and you’ll learn all about their life before you can read that it’s 1 tablespoon and not 1 teaspoon you need for the recipe.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

John Mueller will use a cow emoji in his Twitter name. 🐄

AI SEO AND CONTENT PREDICTIONS

AI has really been the rage over the past 12-24 months in the world of content and SEO. I’m not surprised that we had a few RIDICULOUS predictions on what to expect going forward.

Olesia Korobka

WEBSITE:fajela.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

SEOs will rediscover schema markup and share lots of trivia about it over Twitter as if they’ve never heard of it before. Those tweets will get lots of praising retweets 🙂

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google will be able to identify unskillful AI-generated content and will not index that. Lots of affiliates will run crying about why their awesome content is not indexed and the website’s rankings are tanking. Not so new though…

Shubhangi Gore

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Mobile-First Website, Quality Content, Core Web Vitals & Page Experience Optimization.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

With the rise of AI and Machine Learning algorithm updates, SEOs will have to shift to intent-first strategies. They will have to be robust enough to cope with changes and the increasing content demand. They should have an AI strategy in place and work on adopting advanced content strategies like:

Topic clusters/ Pillar content which would include FAQ’s, internal links to better satisfy user needs
Refurbishing the Old Content
Optimizing for featured snippets (zero-click searches)

FUTURISTIC TECH PREDICTIONS

We didn’t see anything about taking a rocket to Mars, but when you’re making a prediction about the future, there are some amazingly RIDICULOUS tech-related SEO predictions. Thank you internet for stirring our imaginations. There’s also VOICE SEARCH.

Azeem Ahmad

WEBSITE: iamazeemdigital.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Write at least 4,000 words for all of your content. Source: trust me bro.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

The future is optimising for EcSERPS – Electric car SERPs. Nobody will have time to search on desktop, mobile, or tablet. Everyone will be driving electric cars in 2022 and in-car displays are getting bigger. Target people where they are searching – right inside of their Tesla, or any other electric car. You have the power.

Abby Reimer

WEBSITE: uproer.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Content is gonna be HUGE.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

The rapid rise of augmented reality search. Google’s doin’ some cool stuff: https://arvr.google.com/ar/

Rachel Stires

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

There will, in fact, be another algorithm update at some time during 2022. There might even be two.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Voice search will finally take over as the main form of search like everyone’s been predicting it would for the past 5 years.

THE SEO INDUSTRY PREDICTIONS

Is it RIDICULOUS to be optimistic about our industry? I hope not! That said, it’s hard not to poke fun at how far we have to go. Fingers crossed our industry improves for the better and exceeds expectations.

Jo Juliana Turnbull

WEBSITE: seojoblogs.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Clients will ask for weekly ranking reports for 1000s of keywords but they will not read the reports.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

There will be no cap on SEO budget, leading to lots of SEO jobs where they get paid well, their work will always be appreciated and they will even be employed before the company website(s) have been built.

Crystal Ortiz

WEBSITE: coxautoinc.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

The SERP will continue to evolve with new features. Thus, SEOs must be prepared to adapt and evolve as well.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

I’m hopeful that with the Women In Tech SEO (WTS) efforts by Areej AbuAli, we will have a record year of women growing the SEO industry.

GOOGLE-CENTRIC PREDICTIONS

The behemoth search engine always has something up its sleeve. Does it have too much power? Yes. Is anything going to change for the better? We’ve got some RIDICULOUS Google predictions.

Darwin

WEBSITE: amsivedigital.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Country targeting setting won’t be needed for CCTLDs. That .eu domain is still, however, a TLD and will definitely need that country targeting set if there’s a country preference for your site.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google will finally give us the real Search Volume data superimposed on Google Trends graphs, and, of course, all accessible via an API.

Roxana Stingu

WEBSITE: alamy.com

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google will continue to increase the distance between the viewport and the first organic result in SERPs and then remove pagination on desktop and replace it with continuous scrolling because we would realise that all #1 ranks are actually starting on page 2 otherwise.

Lidia Infante

WEBSITE: lidia-infante.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

I think A/B testing is going to be bigger than ever. As an industry we’ve evolved and more SEO folks are ready to level up beyond strategy and fundamentals, so we should see more tests happening. This will also lead to tons of knowledge building.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google is going to take on another vertical in the SERPs. My wild guess is that it will aggregate financial products next and a cute little module, allowing consumers to compare directly on search results.

Alice Roussel

WEBSITE: merci-larry.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Evaluating content quality (through expertise) becomes more challenging for Search Engines as AI-generating content is out of control. It becomes difficult for Users as well to find expertise on specialized websites as SERPs get harder to read.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google Sheets / Excel demonstrate its ability to automate tasks and run complex analysis without needing coding skills.

Mufaddal Sadriwala

WEBSITE: mufaddal.digital

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

2022 is also not going to be the year for Voice Search!

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google will launch its own eCommerce platform to compete with Amazon! Search Console will have the option to add annotations!

Cristie Reed

WEBSITE: Ayima.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Video Marketing: YouTube is still the largest search engine and with many searchers seeking visual tutorials, entertainment, etc… this will remain a key strategy for a number of verticals. Implement/refresh markup (mainly clip and seek markup) to make the content more digestible and jump to specific time stamps to answer key searches.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google images will get a reboot with an increase in crowd-sourced images via Google lens. Product reviews update in December was a primer to what is to come. The shopping graph will improve with price, website, reviews, skew and inventory data along with videos and images.

Sophie Brannon

WEBSITE:absolute.digital

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

User Intent will be more important than ever before – you know, like every year.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Google will switch off GA3 without much notice, transition to GA4 while still making major changes to the platform, sites will lose a bunch of data, panic move to GA4 and spend days looking for the non-existent bounce rate metric wondering where their ‘most valuable’ SEO metric has gone!

Olivia-Mae Foong

WEBSITE: impression.co.uk

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Infinite scroll will be rolled out globally, Page Experience 2.0 update, Google will continue to alter title tags maybe even more chaotically OR they’ll get rid of their edits altogether.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

Okay hear me out, Google is going to rename and rebrand one of their bread and butter tools (Search Console perhaps) to something absolutely different a la Metaverse and Facebook. It will be a distraction from a core update that is released around the same time.

Myriam Jessier

WEBSITE: pragm.co

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

SEO is dead. It’s been dying every year, right around December/January since I started working in the industry. It’s not a prediction at this point but more of a tradition to predict the death of search engine optimization.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

An EU or U.S. lawsuit against Google will bring about an update that will affect us all!!!

NON-GOOGLE PREDICTIONS

Believe it or not, Google isn’t the only search engine. (Gasp!) We’ve got one RIDICULOUS prediction that suggests that the ‘other players’ could see some wins in 2022. Maybe if the anti-trust lawsuit plays out?

Susan Marino

WEBSITE:localiq.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

To no one’s surprise, Google Algorithm updates will continue to hit SEO professionals hard, so as always, we’ll have to continue to be nimble with our strategies.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

I think traffic coming from sources outside of Google is going to soar. Think Microsoft’s Bing network, DuckDuckGo, and more. As Google’s platform changes and loses user confidence, Bing and other platforms will gladly take those searchers on–increasing their market share.

SEO Is DEAD PREDICTION

RIDICULOUS? Is this the year that SEO finally dies? Can the death of SEO and Voice Search get a room? Sheesh…It wouldn’t be an SEO Predictions post if a couple weren’t included.

Gabriella Sannino

WEBSITE: level343.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

MUM, the new AI language model, will make Google Search a lot smarter.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

SEO is Dead?

Zhe Scott

WEBSITE: seoqueen.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Here is my prediction: Brands who optimize all of their digital assets for optimal connectivity with Google will win. Brands that maximize the utility of Google Analytics, Search Console, Schema, Google My Business and more will win big.

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

SEO will die.

SEO PREDICTION LISTS PREDICTION

Thanks, Claire. Thanks.

We can say with 100% certainty that 2021 Prediction Lists are alive and well, even if they BORING or RIDICULOUS.

Claire Carlile

WEBSITE:brightlocal.com

😴 2022 BORING SEO PREDICTION

Marketers will become more au fait with the concept of ‘visual search’ and organisations will start actually paying attention to the images that are associated with their entities and what these images are likely to communicate to customers, potential customers, and Google. 📷

🤪 Ridiculous, out-of-the-box, super random 2022 SEO predictions

SEO predictions pieces ACTUALLY DIE in 2022 🪦

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Garrett Sussman

Garrett is the Marketing Director at iPullRank, a MozCon 2024 Speaker, and host of The SEO Weekly. When he's not crafting content, he's scouting the perfect ice coffee, playing with his daughter, devouring a non-fiction psychology book, or concocting a new recipe in the kitchen.

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