Top SEO trends in 2023

Separator

This year, as in the past, we want to demonstrate the expertise and value of our content and continue to provide users with high-performing web pages. These strategies have always been important throughout the history of SEO, but Google strictly evaluates signals and determines which content truly meets these standards.

Let's take a closer look at what we mean and how you can meet these standards.

1. Personal experience on the topic (new letter "E" in EEAT)

As of December 2022, the popular Google EAT (Expertise, Authority, Trust) abbreviation has received an additional E: Experience. Google will now take into account the experience of the author or creator when assessing the quality of content. So what does "experience" really mean? Google wants to see that the author of the content has direct, real-world experience with the topic under discussion. For example, as the founder of an SEO agency, I have real-world experience, and I can speak authoritatively about SEO trends that will emerge in 2023. But I'm not good at writing about diseases because I'm not a medical professional and have no experience in the healthcare sector, and this reduces the quality of the content This means that more websites need to pay closer attention not only to who their content creators are, but also to the topics they focus on.

Which brings me to the next two trends.

2. Content focused on audience, not traffic

One reason for this increased focus on experience is that SEO content creation is proliferating. But if a website that sells financial software publishes a blog post with food recipes, Google's search crawlers find it suspicious. Does this content really benefit the target audience of financial software users? Does the site help rank for certain high-volume keywords?

You already know the answer. The reality is that companies whose content strategy is simply to generate search traffic with little or no regard for what users actually want are unlikely to succeed in 2023. Sticking to your overall theme and industry areas is essential to creating content worthy of ranking.

Not sure what topics to explore in your content? A content planning tool can help you identify relevant industry topics that your target audience is looking for. Enter a keyword and the tool will show you a variety of semantically related keywords that users enter into the search bar.

3. Increased emphasis on author authority

Another reason why Google pays special attention to experience is to increase the ranking of automatically generated content in search results. Google wants to make sure that the content that will rank in 2023 is created by real people with real audiences in mind.

So, what can you do to boost the expertise and authority of your writers this year? First of all, make sure that the people who create your content are truly experts. Then enhance their experience in the following ways:

Include author bios to better and more fully convey your content creator's knowledge and areas of expertise.

Create author pages where you post links to all articles on your site written by the author. Link your authors' social media accounts so that Google can more easily understand from social signals that they are real people and genuine experts.

4. Useful content

Google's August 2022 Useful Content Update is another important algorithm update that will affect the way we create content in 2023.

Throughout its history, Google has always prioritized providing users with high-quality content. But its new emphasis on "usefulness" suggests that users should feel "satisfied" with the content they click on in search results.

However, user satisfaction is not easy to measure or quantify. So what does Google mean by useful?

Content that:

Created for people, not search engines.
Suitable for the target audience.
Relates to the main topic or subject area of the website.
Created by authoritative, experienced creators.
Reflects the depth of knowledge on the topic.

Creating useful content is easier said than done. So how can you make your content more useful?

First, focus on quality, not quantity. While your 2023 content calendar will likely have a lot of targeted keywords, pumping out a lot of content that is not useful and does not require expertise is unlikely to yield high results in 2023.

Second, expand your keyword research to include information beyond just search volume.

Consider the following:

What types of content are ranking for specific queries?
How long is the content?
What questions does it answer?
What other subtopics or related issues does it explore?
What are the links on the page?
Who is the author?
What is their background?

Keyword research and content research can provide all kinds of information about these quality metrics, so make sure you're not just looking at potential organic traffic.

5. AI content and content writing software

Despite all the updates in 2022 aimed at combating auto-generated content, the use of AI content is likely to increase in 2023.

The number of marketing apps that now integrate SEO and AI is only growing. And this is not surprising because these integrations can save time! Most content marketers have used some version of an AI content generator over the past year.

But with all the latest Google updates, is it still safe to use content writing software? Absolutely! Creating auto-generated drafts is off-limits, but marketers can still use these tools to speed up their content workflows and create original, high-quality content.

6. SEO automation

Just like artificial intelligence for content, more and more SEO tasks will be automated in 2023 as digital marketers continue to leverage the power of enterprise SEO software platforms and tools.

For example:

Keyword research tools can automate tasks that required a lot of manual spreadsheet work.

Website audit and monitoring platforms such as SearchAtlas and Content King can automatically detect changes and technical issues on websites.

Website evaluators can help those who are less knowledgeable about SEO identify the necessary optimizations and prioritize them accordingly.

The increase in these DIY SEO tools will also allow businesses and agencies to take care of tactics more effectively and focus more on strategy.

7. Changes in CTR versus search rankings

Get ready to change the way you think about CTR and rankings. With infinite scrolling now available on both mobile and desktop, Google has made it much easier for users to scroll through multiple pages of search results to find the content they're looking for.

For many years, the relationship between ranking position and CTR remained fairly stable, with the first three results accounting for the majority of clicks.

But in 2023, click-through rates are likely to suffer as users find it easier to navigate through multiple pages of search results.

As for those dreaded zero-click searches we've heard about over the years, a recent study by SEMrush found that only about 25.8% of searches resulted in zero clicks. As Google continues to add more featured snippets and search features such as "People are also asking", CTR may not suffer as much from the lack of clicks as anticipated.

Although going to the first page is still ideal, being on the second or third page will have more advantages than before due to the endless scrolling. Therefore, make sure you optimize those page titles and meta descriptions and use features like schema markup to make your content more attractive and clickable in the SERPs.

8. Product page SEO

As Google continues to reward long, informative content, pages with little content, such as product pages, can benefit in 2023 by providing more useful information on the page.

Frequently asked questions and customer reviews are all ways to add additional content to a product page. While adding keywords to the product description is helpful, think about other questions that users may want answered about the product before purchasing.

Do you offer free shipping?
What is the return policy?
Does the product come with warranties, upgrades, or add-ons?
Are there any customer testimonials or reviews you can show along with the product?

9. SEO analysis of competitors

Finding competitors has always been a smart way to formulate an SEO strategy, and in 2023, competitor analysis will become even easier and more effective with the help of SEO tools.

As Google pays more attention to industry expertise and website topic areas, studying the thought leaders in your industry will be a surefire way to understand what types of content in your industry will rank.

You can use SEO competitor software to compare competitors' content, backlinks, domain authority, and more.

See how your competitors are gaining experience, authority, and credibility through signals both on and off the page, and use this knowledge in your own SEO campaigns and content strategy.

10. Less scanning frequency

Google recently set itself big climate goals, including going carbon-free by 2023. To achieve this goal, Google is considering reducing the frequency of web page crawling.

Reducing crawling helps conserve computing resources and is one of the easiest changes Google can make in line with its sustainability initiatives.

However, reducing crawl speeds is more likely to affect refresh crawls rather than crawls that detect new content. This means that it may take longer for Google to take into account the new changes we make to our websites.

That's why optimizing your content from the start with all the on-page elements you'll need to rank is the best strategic choice in 2023.

11. SEO optimization of images

Images are often neglected on websites, but they have always played a role in boosting rankings in image searches.

They can also provide an opportunity to include additional keywords and semantically related terms in our content through placeholder text.

Google likes to see placeholder text and schema markup that helps their search crawlers better understand the content of images. Google also likes it when webmasters make their content more accessible to all users. Alternative text also helps to make the web better for people with visual impairments or people with limited internet bandwidth or connection issues.

12. High-performance, fast-loading websites.

Starting with the 2021 page update, Google is paying more attention to high-performing and fast-loading websites in its ranking algorithm.

While the page UI update may seem like old news, Google isn't done rolling out the update until March 2022 and will continue to refine the signals it uses to determine if a page is truly a high-performing user experience.

In 2023, Page Speed Insights and Core Web Vitals will continue to be important tools for monitoring and evaluating website speed and performance.

Along with content quality, prioritizing page speed improvements will definitely pay off for companies by increasing keyword rankings for all web pages on their domain.