Three SEO Trends To Keep An Eye On In 2023

It’s no surprise that the leaves are changing, and as winter fast approaches, so does the new year. It may be hard to believe that 2023 is just around the corner, but it will be here before you know it. With a new year on the horizon, it can get anyone thinking, “Is my business set up to succeed in the coming year?”

That’s a reasonable and understandable question that any business should ask itself. If that answer is uncertain, what can you do to ensure your company is positioned to drive leads and add new customers? It’s not a simple task, but making sure your online business is on the cutting edge of the search engine optimization (SEO) realm can help your business remain competitive or even take the next step in the fight against your peers for traffic and market share.

Regardless of the industry, 2022 was a volatile year for SEOs for traffic and rankings. 2023 is looking to be a time when websites and search engines each settle into the new normal while adjusting to whatever Google throws out there to change its algorithm. From an SEO perspective, understanding what to be watchful for in the coming year can help your business react to the shifting digital world. Read below for three SEO trends to look out for in 2023.

Impact of Helpful Content Update

While this wasn’t Google’s only core algorithm update in 2022, it was one of the most influential based on its fundamental direction for the intention of crawling bots as time goes on. For example, imagine Google’s search algorithm as a small child: previously, the algorithm just knew the alphabet. With the update, the algorithm gained the substantial ability for more complex thought and processing of the alphabet. Now, the algorithm can create complex sentences and convey thoughts better. Google graduated from kindergarten with flying colors and skipped a few grades for good measure.

Google’s Helpful Content Update changed how its algorithm reads content on websites for the better. This update may sound intimidating, but it is a good thing for companies that follow best-practice SEO techniques, like DigitalParc, when optimizing websites. In the past, someone could easily disguise unreadable content on websites as good content, thanks to keyword stuffing. Now, Google is better at realizing what a human finds helpful for website content and rewards sites that are set up with engaging, digestible, and “helpful” content.

Importance of Local SEO

Local SEO has always been important, specifically for smaller businesses in large, dense cities with plenty of competition. Ranking well organically is compounded with local data that users find especially helpful.

As search engines and browsers continue to gain a better understanding of where users have located thanks to better artificial intelligence (AI) learning based on search history and more accurate location targeting devices, local SEO is the most important it’s ever been for getting better quality leads and loyal new customers. For instance, clicks broken up by search result type on SERPs see 44% of clicks going to local SEO results, while organic results receive roughly 29% of clicks.

It’s essential to have a defined strategy regarding local SEO. It can often take thorough research into your community and surroundings to provide good, local content for the users that find your site in your geographic area, but also to indicate to Google you are where you say you are. Your site needs to reflect these two sides to have an effective strategy.

A local listing on Google through a Google Business Profile is essential to your business’s presence locally. These listings feature your address or service area, various services offered, images, phone number, and much more to give a taste of your business before a user either clicks on your website, fills out a form, or calls your phone number.

Backlink Strategy

Backlinks have always been important, but Google emphasizes sites with high domain authority thanks to robust content and backlinking. Backlinks cannot be ignored, especially as more sites practice good SEO and the marketplace grows more competitive daily. The opportunity to associate your business with other high-quality domains is enticing and should be followed through.

Referral users that find your site via backlinks are valuable traffic sources and make for a balanced diet of traffic sources for a well-optimized website.

In Conclusion

SEO can be a daunting endeavor and can hold your business back. With the right search engine optimization and site optimization, your company can find new business opportunities and customers, helping the bottom line. Focus on the latest Google updates, local SEO, and generating backlinks in 2023 to help your business thrive.