Understanding SEO is important for anyone in marketing, or even for anyone who runs a business. Even if you have SEO experts take care of it for you, it’s still helpful to understand the basics and know about what SEO strategy you should be applying to achieve the best results for your brand online.
Additionally, keeping up with what Google is doing and how its algorithm works helps ensure your website doesn’t take a big hit from search engines when changes are made. Google is continually updating its algorithm to give users a better experience, but this can mean that your website is affected in various ways.
In 2023, there are multiple things you should be aware of if you want to carry out successful SEO practices. Take a look at some of these tips to check that your SEO strategy is following the right principles and trends.
Content Should Be Helpful for Your Audience
One part of Google’s algorithm is its helpful content system. This is designed to ensure that search engine results are helpful for users, thus providing them with valuable information that matches their search intent. The helpful content system received two significant updates in 2022, including one in August and one in December. The latest update added new signals for identifying helpful content, as well as expanding the system to target all languages globally (previously it was only in use for English-language content).
According to Google, the latest update aims to help people find high-quality content and targets content that has been created purely for ranking high in search results, rather than to provide valuable and helpful information to users. In other words, Google is prioritizing humans over search engines to make sure people are getting helpful content instead of content that ranks well but might not provide them with the necessary information that they want.
So, what does this mean for you if you want your content to rank well? If you have been creating content with your audience in mind, and not simply focusing on SEO, it might not mean much at all. However, if you think that your website has been impacted by this update, you can take a look at Google’s advice for “people-first content”. Start by reading the questions they list and answering them honestly to see if you are on the right track for providing helpful content.
Making Links Natural Is More Important Than Ever
Another significant update that occurred in December 2022 is how Google handles link spam. Their spam update leverages their SpamBrain tool which uses machine learning to detect spam. The update began to roll out on December 14th but was predicted to take about two weeks for the full rollout to be complete. That means it has only just taken full effect, and it might have taken a while for you to see any impact on your website, if any.
With the update, Google’s SpamBrain can now detect spam directly, as well as detect sites buying links and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.
If you’re trying to build your site’s link profile, you might be concerned about whether this update will affect you. However, there are several things that you can do to ensure your site has natural links.
Google says that: “Site owners should ensure that they follow the best practices on links, both incoming and outgoing. Focusing on producing high-quality content and improving user experience always wins out compared to manipulating links. Promote awareness of your site using appropriately tagged links and monetize it with properly tagged affiliate links.”
Any inbound links to your site should follow some best practices to make sure they are as natural as possible. You should make sure you use genuine outreach bloggers in your industry, that your links are used within relevant content, and that you avoid links from PBNs or spam sites. Using a reputable link-building service can help you to ensure you have natural links coming into your site.
Make Product Reviews In-Depth
In September 2022, Google made a product reviews update. This is relevant if your website or blog publishes product reviews as it affects how Google views and prioritizes reviews in search results. The aim is to ensure users receive product reviews that are most helpful and valuable, and which go above and beyond the standard review template. This means that the algorithm is looking for reviews that are in-depth and provide helpful information, as opposed to simple lists of products that just provide summaries of what’s available.
This update, the fifth of its kind, might be focused on product reviews, but it’s important for anyone who publishes this type of content. You could find that other content is being ranked above yours if you’re not providing the types of reviews that Google is looking for. It’s important to keep in mind that reviews with insightful views and original research will be favored. Genuine reviews that show expert knowledge, personal experience, and in-depth information about the product will be more likely to rank well.
More Voice Searches
Important SEO lessons aren’t all about what Google is doing with its algorithm. It’s also important to pay attention to user behavior if you want to carry out a successful SEO strategy. One of the things you can expect this year is to see more voice searches, something that has been growing in popularity over the past few years. People have been using voice search more than ever, using their phones, smartwatches, home assistants, and other devices.
41% of adults and 55% of teens in the US now use voice search daily. Thus, it’s important to consider voice search as part of your SEO strategy. One way it can affect searches is that people will use more natural language to complete a voice search. When typing a search query, they might shorten their search, but they are more likely to search using full sentences and questions when using voice search. To make sure you are doing SEO for voice searches, target conversational keywords. Consider creating a FAQ section for your site. This is a great way to include some content on the types of questions people may be asking. It’s also useful to build a Google My Business profile, try to appear in featured snippets, and optimize your site for mobile searches.
Optimizing Images
Optimizing images for SEO should be something that everyone does, but many fail to really pay it the attention that it deserves. Optimizing images can involve both ensuring they provide the best page performance and experience and making sure any images and graphics that you use are accessible.
Page speed is an important factor in SEO and mobile usability, and the images that you use can have a significant impact on page speed. To optimize images for better speed and performance, you can compress the images before uploading them, use lazy loading, and ensure you are using the right image format.
Another thing to consider is accessibility, which can also go together with SEO. Alt text can be used to both provide keywords to search engines and to describe images to people using screen reader technology. Try to make your alt text descriptions accurate and precise so that the right information is provided to both people and search engines. They shouldn’t be too long if it can be avoided, so as to ensure that it doesn’t take too long for the description to be read out by a screen reader.
Video Marketing
If you’re looking for a way to improve your SEO Strategy and content marketing this year, you can’t go wrong with video content. Video has been growing as a popular form of content for a long time now, and it’s definitely here to stay in terms of SEO performance.
Many search results will prioritize video results if it’s clear that’s what the user is searching for. If your web page includes video content, you are 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google results. Including video content throughout your website can help to make it much more visible, and it provides valuable content to your readers.
You can also provide a written transcript of videos and add subtitles to make them more accessible and improve SEO. Use keywords when you’re labeling videos to help them get found in searches.
Optimize for Online Shopping
If you sell products online and haven’t already optimized your site and SEO strategy for online shopping, it’s something you definitely have to do this year. During the pandemic, even people who have never shopped online before began to order things online and shop in a new way. Google offers multiple tools and ways to sell that are designed to help ecommerce stores promote their products. By optimizing your website, you can ensure your products are displayed in the Shopping tab in Google search results.
By following these SEO Strategy trends of 2023, you will be able to garner better search engine results and ensure better reach.
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