The digital marketing industry is incredibly dynamic, and constantly changing SEO trends are no exception. Although it’s important to rank on search engines like Bing and Yahoo, let’s face it: Google has earned the lion’s share of the market. Each year, the search engine giant makes thousands of updates to its algorithm for ranking web pages in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
However, unless Google suddenly makes the list of ranking factors available to the public, SEO strategies will remain a delicate combination of research, data analysis, and educated guesses. With the numerous challenges of creating a successful SEO campaign, hiring an experienced marketing agency is the preferred choice of many professional plumbers.
As a plumber, your “bread and butter” is local customers seeking your professional services. Utilizing SEO on your website is the most effective way to reach those customers, many of whom use Google for location and “near me” searches. With algorithmic ranking factors changing so quickly, keeping up with SEO trends is critical to maintaining a robust digital presence, reaching a broader target audience, and increasing customer conversions.
Partner With the SEO Experts at Relentless Digital
At Relentless Digital, we know how important it is for plumbers and other professional service providers to stay up-to-date with the most current trends regarding search engine optimization. However, most simply don’t have the time to run a business and learn how to become an SEO expert on their days off.
That’s where we come in—we’re the SEO professionals for plumbing companies, and we know what it takes to build a successful campaign. Our digital marketing and SEO services can be your company’s biggest asset in an oversaturated market filled with competitors. We have the knowledge and SEO tools to build custom marketing campaigns for our clients, which is why you can have complete confidence that your website is in expert hands when you partner with our team.
If you’re tired of sitting around and waiting for the phone to ring, our team will have you getting more clicks, more calls, and more customers by driving organic web traffic and generating qualified leads for your business. As an award-winning SEO company, we know the importance of staying informed regarding industry trends and seeking newer, more innovative ways to drive success for our clients.
To get started, call our team at Relentless Digital at (262) 393-4241 to schedule your initial consultation or learn more about our SEO services for plumbers.
What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
As a plumber, you may not be familiar with SEO or know how to use it effectively to gain more business. That’s okay. It’s not your job! At Relentless Digital, we’re experts at SEO techniques, and we create custom solutions for our clients to produce measurable results for their plumbing business.
But, what is SEO, exactly? It’s the process of updating and improving a website to increase the quantity and quality of organic traffic and leads. It targets unpaid search traffic by using keywords, videos, mobile optimization, and other tools to rank higher in the results pages on major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. SEO also aims to improve user experience, one of the many factors that Google’s algorithm uses to rank web pages.
By using SEO to gain greater visibility, your business will inevitably reach a higher number of online searchers.
The Top 9 SEO Trends for Plumbers in 2022
Read on as we explore the top SEO trends for 2022 and how they can help your plumbing business expand into new markets and grow your customer base.
1) Publishing High-Quality Content with Regularity
If you’ve ever heard the expression “Content is king,” then you know why content is the top trend on our list. However, it’s not really fair to call content a “trend” because it remains the #1 way to boost page ranking
Not only is the regular publication of informative and engaging content on your blog a critical ranking factor, but it also provides a way to connect with your target audience on a deeper level and build trust and credibility as an expert in the plumbing industry.
A plumbing company’s website should have two types of content: (1) information about the services you provide customers and (2) information relevant to plumbing. Examples of posts could be “How to Fix a Stripped Faucet Handle” or “Benefits of Installing a Low-Flow Toilet.”
Before creating and posting new content, you should use keyword research to find the top phrases to help your site attain a higher ranking on Google Search. In addition, semantic search phrases are also moving to the top of the list of important ranking factors.
A good rule of thumb regarding semantic keywords is to create natural-sounding, informational content for people, not bots. Also, keep page titles as relevant as possible and use subheadings to break up long chunks of text.
2) Focusing on Search Intent and User Behavior on Google Search
As we move further into the 2020s, search intent has become increasingly important for websites to obtain a high ranking in the SERPs. After all, the literal purpose of search engines is to accommodate people looking for a specific answer to a question.
To determine user intent within your target market, consider this: How will your potential customers pose their search query to find a solution or answer to their question? How can you then create content to best answer their question?
By formatting your website content to focus on user intent, you can dominate search engine results, attain more organic traffic, and position yourself as an authority on all things plumbing.
Goodbye BERT, Hello MUM
Google has announced that MUM will take the place of BERT as an advanced AI with the primary purpose of improving the quality of search results. MUM is a natural language processing model that can analyze images, text, and video in 75 languages and is 1000 times more powerful than BERT.
The new language model MUM can even answer complex search queries to answer extremely specific questions. In response, it’s time to adjust your SEO strategy and ditch outdated methods like keyword stuffing.
Instead, focus on target keywords backed by research, and post content that sounds natural and touches on the primary pain points of your audience. A streamlined campaign focusing on a cohesive approach to your brand’s entire digital presence (social media pages, website, blog, etc.) will play a huge part in your overall ranking on Google SERPs.
3) Publishing Long-Form Content
Long-form content (blog posts over 2500 words) is an SEO trend that’s incredibly important to optimize your website, keep visitors browsing your page longer, and turn leads into customers. Why? Because long-form content gets more traffic, backlinks, and shares than shorter posts.
However, that doesn’t mean you can create and publish long posts of unnaturally stuffed keyword phrasings, then cross your fingers and hope for results. Instead, your content quality should remain top-notch, with evergreen, shareable information that will keep your users engaged. Use bullet points and include easy-to-see share links at the top and bottom of each post.
4) Leveraging Local SEO Strategy
Local SEO should be the meat and potatoes of every plumber’s digital marketing strategy. Moreover, they’re essential if you want your company to feature prominently in the local search listings. In the new age of zero-click searches, strategies targeting local customers are among the more important SEO trends for 2022.
What is a zero-click search? It occurs when a user doesn’t actually click on any web page because Google answers their query on the SERP: for example, someone looking for the phone number or business hours of a local plumbing company.
If you can leverage optimization strategies to reach people looking for localized services, you can potentially become one of the top-ranking pages in the SERPs. The key to using those strategies is local optimization techniques, which help drive more organic traffic to your website.
5) Posting Informative and Engaging Video Content
Does your plumbing company have a YouTube page? Do you regularly post video content to your blog? If your answer was no to either of those questions, you’re already behind the pack regarding SEO trends.
With YouTube as the second most popular search engine behind Google, your plumbing business needs to implement video marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy. Plumbing contractors can benefit considerably from posting how-to videos on the company website, whether it’s about installing a faucet or techniques for clearing a drain clog without using harsh chemicals.
In 2022, we’re also seeing interactive websites ranking higher on Google Search. As a result, posting top-quality video content and other interactive features like quizzes, surveys, and even using relevant images with accompanying information can help improve user experience and boost your web page.
Google Discover
Google Discover is another reason why video SEO (and mobile optimization) are on this list for the top SEO trends in 2022. The Google Discover feed consists of informative videos and articles exclusively for smartphones and tablets.
Each feed has different videos and evergreen content that Google curates based on a user’s search history and personal interests. However, Google places a significant emphasis on content with images and videos, which is why your digital marketing strategy should prominently feature both.
6) Focusing on Improving User Experience
Google’s latest update contains new requirements for user experience (UX), making it one of the key SEO trends for 2022. If your website fails to reach your target customer seeking plumbing services, it becomes increasingly difficult to gain new business. Among the factors that affect user experience include:
- Overall website usability
- Button and menu placement
- Page speed
- Interactivity level
- Content quality
- Presence of pop-ups or ads
- Mobile-friendliness
By improving user experience, you can also keep your visitors browsing your website for more extended periods. The longer people browse, the more likely they will gain trust in your brand or share your content with others, strengthening your digital presence and expanding your reach even more.
7) Reaching More Users with Voice Search Optimization
Optimizing your website to leverage voice search technology is another of the latest SEO trends for 2022. As more and more people use tech assistance like Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri, and smart speakers, voice search has increasing importance, especially for professional services like plumbing contractors who rely heavily on location and “near me” searches.
Our team will help you focus on conversation marketing to optimize your website for voice technology. This involves taking common keyword phrases and adapting them for voice searches. For example, someone might type the search query “tankless vs. traditional water heater.” However, someone using a voice search might say, “Should I buy a tankless or traditional water heater?”
Evolving long-tail keywords into search queries and publishing informative and relevant content can help your website feature more prominently in Google’s rankings. Of course, a higher position leads to more organic website visitors and a boost in conversions.
Try for Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are also a significant contributor to zero-click searches since they usually contain enough information to answer the user’s search query without them needing to click into a website. When you pose a search query, Google may provide you with the answer using featured snippets: a small block of text in bold featuring at the top of the page, which has a concise paragraph of information that answers your search query within a few sentences.
To get ideas or inspiration that will hopefully propel your posts into a featured snippet, conduct keyword research by typing your top phrases into Google and then reading the “People Also Ask” section. While you may not always receive a click-through, having a featured snippet is a great way to establish credibility and trust within your customer base as an expert plumber that can provide them with quality services.
8) Taking a Mobile-First Approach
Google first implemented mobile-friendliness as an algorithmic factor around 2018, which means optimizing for smartphones and tablets isn’t necessarily one of the newer SEO trends. However, mobile optimization remains a critical ranking factor and increases in importance every year.
You can expect to rank much higher in the Google search results with a mobile-friendly site. In fact, when the Google bot crawls your web pages to determine relevance, content quality, and your ultimate page ranking, it crawls your mobile site first.
With over half of all online search queries taking place on a mobile device, it’s plain to see that if you’re not using mobile SEO, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of web searchers. Optimization methods for mobile include improving page speed, streamlining menus, using technical SEO, and implementing mobile-friendly formatting.
Optimize for Lightning-Fast Page Loading Speed on Mobile Devices
Page speed is essential to attaining a top spot in the Google rankings, as it’s a major algorithmic factor for mobile sites. As you know, smartphone manufacturers continue to release advanced mobile devices with increasingly faster processing speeds. So if your website can’t keep up, there’s a good chance that a customer will exit your page and head to a competitor’s.
After all, we already know that almost two-thirds of online searchers will abandon a web page if it doesn’t load within three seconds. By optimizing your page for mobile usability, you can reach more people searching for localized goods or services. You can also rank higher for voice searches, as this is a more common search method for users on a mobile device than on a desktop computer.
9) Incorporating Quality Link Building
One of the biggest SEO trends for 2022 is using aboveboard methods for website linking. As you may know, unethical link building is taboo in the world of Google. So if you’re using paid links, link exchanges, or any other non-organic method for linking, you can expect a decrease in your ranking.
The latest Google update stipulates punishment for websites that use black-hat SEO techniques like large-scale guest posting, excessive link swapping, and paid link exchanges. Instead, use methods that will attract links organically, like creating quality content and publishing it using omnichannel sales techniques.
If you’re going to share links with others, it’s important not to spam. Remember, nobody enjoys spamming—not even you. Keep your link sharing relevant to the information you’re posting, and create engaging content that will encourage organic linking.
Partner with Us at Relentless Digital for the Latest SEO Trends in 2022
At Relentless Digital, we know the importance of staying up-to-date with all the newest SEO trends in today’s day and age. However, with the page-ranking factors for websites changing almost every week, maintaining a successful SEO strategy is trickier than it seems.
We’ve found that using an omnichannel sales approach, focusing on a local customer base, and publishing high-caliber content are three effective techniques for plumbing companies to leverage in 2022. Every digital marketer on our team is an expert with SEO, working tirelessly each day to build custom strategies that will drive success for our plumbing clients.
We also offer specialized SEO services for plumbers who need help with digital marketing during the pandemic, providing the tools they need to keep new customers flowing steadily even as more people are conserving their finances than ever before.
Call us at Relentless Digital today at (262) 393-4241 and schedule a consultation with our team to learn how our knowledge of the newest SEO trends can drive success for your plumbing business.
