SEO in 2023: Stay Ahead With Cutting-Edge Trends & Proven Best Practices

In this technologically advanced world, we instinctively turn to and rely on search engines to find answers to our pressing questions. Whether it is navigating the complexities of digital marketing, searching for a new reporting software, or even just trying to find a local locksmith in the moment of panic after locking your keys in the car, you turn to a place that has never let you down – Google. This search giant has firmly secured its position as a dependable source of information and solutions, making it an indispensable tool in our daily lives.

Named as one of the top marketing priorities in today’s digital landscape, SEO is the process of optimising a website in order to achieve high ranks in search results. With more than 8.5 billion Google searches a day, making an appearance on the first page of SERPs can mean the difference between a business prospering or battling to survive.

In today’s digital age, obtaining a strong online presence has never been more crucial for any business that wishes to succeed. Plus, mastering successful rankings in search engine results pages can bring a sense of accomplishment and pride. 

So, with that being said, let’s dive into the world of SEO in 2023, acknowledging the latest SEO trends, effective search engine strategies and what businesses can expect to see from SEO in the near future.

Source: Oblero.com

Latest SEO Trends & Developments

With changes in SEO occurring constantly each year, it is key to stay ahead of search engines and revisit and amend your strategy frequently. 2023 is the year of incorporating value and expertise into our content and proceeding to supply our audience’s with high-performing web pages. Throughout the history of SEO, such strategies have always been essential; however, Google has improved its ways of evaluating and determining which content meets its standards. 

Let’s take a look at the latest SEO developments and how you can meet Google’s standards.

First-Hand Experience (the new “E” in EEAT)

As of December 2022, Google incorporated an additional ‘E’ into their ever-so-popular EAT acronym, now EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust). When assessing the quality of content that is posted online, Google now takes into consideration the experience of the author (as an individual or an organisation).

So what does “experience” actually mean? Google wants to recognise that the author has had authentic, real-life experiences with the topic discussed.

For example, if you were searching for information on how to accurately fill out your tax returns, you would hope to find content that has been produced by a specialist in the field of accounting. However, on the other hand, if you were looking for testimonials of a tax preparation software, you might be better off looking for a different source of information – something such as a community forum page where people are discussing their own experiences with various platforms.

AI Content

What has been increasingly popular and new in SEO is AI content. Artificial intelligence has become one of the hottest topics in marketing today. 

Marketers can definitely leverage such AI tools in order to streamline their work whilst still producing authentic and quality content.

Here, we have come up with some very helpful applications of these AI tools that will not relinquish the originality and human touch of your content:

• Briefs: AI tools will be able to help you develop content briefs in order to aid you in acknowledging the essential keywords and even topics that you can write original content on.

• Outlines: Content outlines are an excellent way to map out how you can create helpful and useful content.

• Ideas: AI tools can help you speed up your brainstorming process. Whether that be to give you ideas on blog posts that can be tailored to your site’s audience or even through ideas on what sort of social posts will be relevant to your clients.

Analytics Are Vital

You may feel as though this is a no-brainer, therefore, is this an SEO trend worth placing a spotlight on? The answer is simple. Yes! As many new SEO trends emerge in 2023, brands need to place an emphasis on revolutionising their data, from collecting the data right through to its examination and insights.

Marketing specialists are able to utilise Google Analytics for SEO insights, including:

• Observing mobile traffic in order to collect data on bounce rates, engagement, and more
• Site search bar tracking to acknowledge what your site visitors are searching for when they visit your site
• Pinpoint any pages that are either performing well or underperforming and utilise such information to reproduce or update content

The utter volume of data that can be collected can be quite overwhelming at times. Favourably enough, there are SEO tools that can help you by automatically retrieving the data and analysing it itself so that you don’t have to constantly monitor your numbers manually. This will allow your business and agencies alike to always be on top of any future changes in search behaviour as well as the ability to focus more on tactics that require more of a creative and human touch. 

SEO Techniques For Top Search Engine Rankings In 2023

SEO is vital for organic growth, and if you do it right, Google and other search engines will increase your ranking in the search engine results pages, leading to an increase in website visitors. Not only can this boost your brand awareness, but it can also increase your chances of these visitors converting into customers. 

Here are RGC’s top SEO techniques that every business should incorporate into their strategy to achieve successful SEO rankings in 2023.

Quality Content

Quality content remains as the groundwork for any SEO strategy in 2023. It is important to ensure that you are leveraging your content marketing efforts by producing high-quality, unique content that not only places an emphasis on keywords that are applicable to your industry, but predominantly focuses on your audience’s needs and wants in a very alluring way.

Ask yourself these questions.

• Is the content you are producing made to specifically attract visits from search engines?
• Are you creating content on numerous topics with the expectation that some of it may rank well in search engine results?
• Does your content leave your readers feeling that they need more value?
• Are you only writing content that is of a certain word count because you heard or read somewhere that Google has a preferred word count?

If you are saying yes to these questions above, this is a warning sign that you should reevaluate how you are creating your content. It is important to focus on people-first content rather than search engine-first content in order to be successful with Google’s search engine rankings. 

Now ask yourself the following questions.

• Does your audience come directly to your website for useful content?
• Is your content comprised of personal expertise and in-depth knowledge?
• After a user reads your content, will it leave them feeling as though they have learned a lot about that certain topic?
• Will someone who has read your content leave your page feeling satisfied?

If you are answering yes to these questions above, you are indeed on the right track to creating quality, people-first content.

Google’s ranking systems are developed in order to introduce to users helpful and authentic content that is created with the sole purpose of benefiting users, not to obtain search engine rankings. It is designed to browse through hundreds of billions of web pages and exhibit the pages that are most relevant and useful to the user within a fraction of a second.

Voice Search Optimisation

If you are on the lookout for things to improve in 2023 in regard to your SEO, voice search optimisation is one that you should take into consideration. Voice search is becoming more and more popular, and it is forecasted to advance even more this year. 

Voice search optimisation refers to the process of enhancing and streamlining the content that is present on your site to appear in voice searches. Ensuring that your content is filled with long-tail keywords and natural language will guarantee that voice search engines will be able to conveniently find your content.

Responsive Design

Although having a responsive website has been necessary for quite some time now, this will only be reinforced and strengthened in 2023. A responsive website design refers to any elements of a site that can be adjusted to fit any device and screen size for both desktop and mobile devices. For example, the layout of the content may be adjusted to the screen size, or even the menus will switch in format for enhanced visuals. Responsive designs are very important to maintain as Google favours sites that utilise a mobile-friendly design.

The Future Of SEO

As a digital marketing agency that has a passion for technology and the approaches to which it can positively impact our world today as it stands, we can tell you that the future of SEO is incredibly thrilling. With the world of search engines continuously evolving, and along with it, the courses of action we take to optimise our websites for search engines. Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing and deceiving search engines. 

Today, and in the future ahead of us, there is a focus on producing more meaningful and high-quality content that not only provides value to users but is also captivating and engaging to read. This drift towards a more human-centred approach to SEO is a welcome change, as it authorises us to associate and connect with our audience on a much deeper level and impart to them content and information that they are truly passionate about and searching for. 

The future of SEO is all about creating authentic relationships with your audience, and that is something that we, as a collective, find truly moving.

Looking to enhance your website’s search engine visibility and increase your organic traffic? Our SEO strategies can help you optimise your site for search engines, improve your online visibility and drive consistent traffic to your website.

Learn more about our effective SEO strategies.