SEO Trends of 2023

SEO / March 16, 2023

As the digital age continuously evolves, search engine optimization (SEO) remains a vital tool for businesses and website owners looking to improve their online presence and attract more traffic. 

With the ever-evolving landscape of SEO, it’s important to stay on top of the latest trends and strategies to ensure that your website stays ahead of the competition.

 In this post, we’ll explore some of the most important SEO trends to watch out for in 2023, including advancements in AI, voice search optimization, and more.

So, whether you’re a seasoned SEO expert or just starting out, this post will provide you with valuable insights and tips to help you stay ahead of the game in the world of SEO. 

Let’s dive in!

Core Web Vitals

Core web vitals, although not a new subject, are more important than ever with the increase in consumers using mobile devices to search the web. Factors such as website speed should be top of mind considerations for web developers.

The reason for this is because a slow-loading website can hinder user experience. Users are more likely to stay on a site that loads quickly and that they can navigate through easily, which is why the top hit on google is often a very optimized, fast website.

Slow website speed can also lead to a low google ranking as it negatively affects search engine crawling. Search engines use bots to crawl websites, analyze their content, and then rank them accordingly. A slow website can hinder this crawling process, making it harder for search engines to index the site’s pages and understand its content.

There are several tools available to analyze your website and tell you where you rank in terms of website speed, but one of the easiest to use is called PageSpeed and is made by none other than Google themselves. Simply type in the URL you’d like to analyze and receive feedback on how your website performs in order to make any needed improvements. 

EEAT

When it comes to SEO, you may have heard the acronym EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). These three factors assess the degree of trust that consumers can have in a website. The higher it is, the better the chances of the website ranking well on search engines.

Google recently added an extra “E” to the acronym, updating their search quality rater guidelines to include “Experience”. 

You may be wondering what the difference is between the two E’s, expertise and experience. 

Well, consider the following: while someone writing a blog post may be an “expert” on the subject, if they don’t have firsthand experience with it, it may not be as useful as the information provided by someone who has personally gone through it. 

For example, if an individual were to write a blog reviewing a new restaurant that opened but had not actually eaten at the restaurant themselves, their opinion might not be as helpful as someone’s who has actually tried the food firsthand, even if they weren’t food experts. 

What this means for people and businesses posting content on the web is to ensure they are writing not only about topics they know very well, but also in which they have firsthand experience. This will ensure that the content is ranked higher by Google.

Author Authority

As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, Google is placing a growing emphasis on author authority to align with the EEAT mentioned earlier. 

Google seeks to ensure that content is produced by real individuals with real audiences in mind. By including something as simple as an author biography, significant differences can be made. The author biography allows readers to view the content writer’s expertise, previously written works, and social media handles, giving them a better understanding of the author’s qualifications.

Although you can find many resources online to help in writing an author bio, a straightforward checklist like this one written by Scribe Media can quickly produce a great author biography.

AI Integration

The SEO industry is undergoing significant changes due to the increased integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. 

AI-powered tools such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning are enabling SEO experts to more accurately target their intended audience and identify emerging keyword trends. With the advancement of AI technology, SEO strategists can leverage these machines to monitor consumer behavior and algorithm updates, enabling them to create tailored and effective strategies for specific users.

 The adoption of AI in SEO is already widespread and it is expected to play an increasingly vital role in the future.

Generally speaking, Google prioritizes high-quality content that satisfies the requirements of its users. Hence, caution should be exercised while producing content using an AI tool such as ChatGPT. While Google doesn’t necessarily discriminate against content generated by AI, it discourages the publication of auto-generated articles. Rather, AI should be utilized to create content more effectively, while still complying with EEAT guidelines.

In short, SEO best practices are constantly evolving and marketers need to take advantage of the latest technologies to stay relevant and gain efficiency.

Zero-Click Study

Although not a new phenomenon, a recent study shows that zero-click searches have been increasing steadily over the years and have just recently reached an all-time high. The study examines the reasons behind this trend and its impact on SEO, providing insights for marketers on how to optimize their content to appear in featured snippets and other search results that may lead to clicks.

The category of “zero clicks” accounts for 25.6% of searches on desktop. Although it can have different implications in terms of user behavior, in the most unfavorable scenario, it indicates that the user obtained the necessary information directly from the Google SERP without visiting any website. Bad news for content marketers trying to drive traffic to their website.

A way around the zero click problem is to focus on long-tail keywords. This is because individuals who use long-tail keywords to search for information are typically seeking thorough, detailed information beyond what’s displayed in the search results, or what would come up in zero-click searches.

Take a look at the following example. If writing a blog on SEO, simply trying to rank for the term “SEO” would be much more difficult as zero-click searches are much more prominent in a general search like this. 

On the other hand, optimizing your content to rank for longer tail keywords such as “SEO tips for small businesses” will greatly increase your chances of driving traffic to your website, since no zero-click results are available for such a specific query. 

We expect zero-click searches to gain popularity in the coming months, especially with the integration of artificial intelligence in search engines. For example, Bing introduced ChaptGPT directly on their results page and Google plans to do the same with BARD. These new technologies can answer search queries in great detail and in very little time. This is definitely a new consideration to keep in mind when deciding on your SEO strategy.

Optimize for Voice Search

By integrating long-tail keywords into your website’s content, you can not only capture the attention of individuals looking for more in-depth information, but simultaneously capture the attention of those using voice search, a research method steadily gaining popularity as more people adopt voice assistants like Alexa and Siri. 

Voice search users tend to speak in full sentences, similar to how they would communicate in a conversation, making it imperative that your website is optimized with conversational language, longer-tail keywords, and specific queries to effectively target these users and capture their clicks.

For example, someone using Siri to recommend restaurants nearby might say something like “Hey Siri, what are some family-friendly restaurants in Montreal?”. By optimizing your restaurant’s website to include a phrase such as “family-friendly restaurant in Montreal” as opposed to simply “Montreal restaurant” would ensure your content ranks higher in this scenario. 

Staying up-to-date on the latest SEO trends and strategies is essential for any business or website owner looking to improve their online visibility and attract more traffic. 

As we move into 2023, advancements in AI,  a focus on core web vitals and EEAT will continue to shape the world of SEO. If you feel you could use a hand with your SEO, our experts at Bloom are happy to help! Contact us today to get your website ranking on Google higher than ever before.