SEO Trends for 2023

SEO Trends and what you need to do to stay ahead.

Current SEO Trends for 2023

SEO Trends for 2023 will undoubtedly include far more intelligent technology than in previous years. Regardless of the ups and downs and history of SEO, it has continued to be refined to cater to the readers and less for the search engine marketing industry. As a Seattle SEO company, we’ve had our share of learning and adapting in the digital marketing industry. It seems everyone is looking for the next best thing when pulling in as many eyes as they can over to their websites as possible.

Typically with the common intention of driving up conversions in leads or actual sales. Considering that elusive solution in “search engine optimization,” or SEO, as it’s more commonly known, we will be performing a bit of a deep dive into the top search engine optimization trends for 2023.

Whether it’s Google Adwords, Rich Snippets, websites built on PHP or ASP, or AMP websites, online marketers will always adopt fresh new practices to get their websites to rank higher and help double visitors and traffic.

Top 11 SEO trends to look out for :

Voice Search and Digital Assistants.
Link Building.
User Experience.
Featured Snippets and Quick Answers.
Mobile-first Index.
Visual Search.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning.
Quality unique content.
Website Speed.
No quick fixes via black Hat SEO.
Must utilize SEO tools.

1. Voice Search and Digital Assistants

According to search giant Google, 1 out of 5 searches already come from voice queries! The most transparent medium for inquiries is digital assistants on smartphones, such as Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Google, and Amazon Alexa.

Voice Search is becoming the norm.

Googling the way we did years ago is not the only way to find and locate content. It’s been reported that over half of U.S. teens and 41% of U.S. adults use voice search daily. One of the critical differences in how voice search will morph is that search results have been based primarily on keywords. The next phase will be much more specific and cater to longer queries more attuned to voice search terms. Therefore, the more intelligent these digital assistants are, the more responsive they can be to the search results provided to their customers.

As a result, this will help companies acquire even more market share, which is precisely what you want! The image above from Google shows us when a voice search is most used.

However, voice search won’t precisely cut it with keywords alone, as consumers will look for greater contextualization and personalization in their search results. This will include AI and machine learning capabilities, which we will discuss later in this blog.

2. Link Building is still an SEO & Website Trends

Link building is the practice of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites. This is essentially all about gaining referral traffic to redirect to your site, increasing search rankings. Although the method has been around for some time, there is a renewed emphasis on utilizing this practice to generate even more local traffic.

Local links are based on “real-world” relationships within the local community. Therefore, the link quality doesn’t matter as much and often can be entirely unrelated to your business’s core goals. Because they are locally based, there are several ways to garner such relationships, including acquiring local sponsorships, getting involved within your local community, sharing helpful information, or engaging in a bit of ingenuity. And the hope of random mention.

SEO can be initially intimidating, so it’s best to focus on the value of content for customers. In addition, building long-term, valuable relationships benefit businesses and the local community.

3. SEO Trends have shifted to User Experience

Today, a key page one ranking formula is good user experience and user interface web design. More importantly, acquiring new customers typically creates a stickier experience. Think about it. How many websites have you left just because it wasn’t engaging, or perhaps they felt clunky? Amazon is an excellent example of how to develop an exciting customer experience.

This SEO trend will continue to be a significant factor moving forward! More specifically, staying power is attributed to factors such as the “site’s speed, readability, and navigation structure. Therefore, the better the user experience, the longer people spend on the site. Thus resulting in a higher conversion rate and return on investment.

4. Featured Snippets and Quick Answers

Snippets and quick answers are crucial to ensuring that companies appear in the first position on the search engine results page (SERP).

Like voice search, snippets and quick answers provide context-specific responses to the user within the search results rather than just being based on simple keywords. Moving forward, the focus will be on supporting longer keywords and natural language, such as a more conversational search query.

More than half of queries will be voice search; hence will require a new look and experience into how voice search applies to snippets.

This updated approach will result in a greater context and depth, followed by related content, drilling down, and lateral to the original search query.

5. Mobile-First Index

A recent study by BrightEdge found that “57% of web traffic comes from mobile and tablet devices”. Hence, SEO experts pay close attention to the right keywords and index them on multiple platforms like mobile devices. In fact that many companies are using the desktop as a frame of reference as their default, and doing so is increasingly short-sighted given the widening gap between desktop and mobile rankings. Search results rankings are also very different between desktop and mobile.

While more new companies embrace a mobile-first strategy, results on web page design and performance, analytics, and keyword tracking emphasize a missed opportunity. We recommend combatting such inefficiencies and improving your SEO strategy by combating all devices.

SEO Trends with a High Significance

Identify and differentiate mobile versus desktop demand.
Design and optimize websites for speed and mobile friendliness.
Utilize responsive web designs.
Understand different online consumer intent signals across desktop and mobile devices.
Separate mobile and desktop content that resonates with multiple device types.
Focus on optimizing mobile content and mobile pages to improve conversions.
Compare and report mobile and desktop share of traffic.
Measure and optimize page load speed.
Analyze organic search rank for mobile and desktop separately.

6. Visual Search

SEO trends have further expanded into visual content. Visual search presents an intriguing approach based on innovation and user experience. Pinterest, with its over 200 million users, is a great example. This method is based on the capabilities of users to catalog their interests based on images when they don’t know how to describe what they are looking for textually. Using “mood boards,” users can collect ideas based on categories to drive their inspiration. Pinterest is far and away from the best tool representing visual search.

Microsoft’s Visual Search

Microsoft’s Bing also had its visual search product but retired in 2012. Microsoft has a new visual search platform relegated to desktop only but soon supported on mobile devices. As the visual search matures, load time becomes an enormous factor in user experience. This will require more significant image optimization by compressing their file sizes and optimizing the delivery method using content-delivery networks, or CDN for short, like Cloudflare or Amazon CloudFront.

7. AI and Machine learning

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are about personalizing the user experience through deep learning algorithms. AI works differently from just the specific keywords but instead relies on the culmination of user experience (content, links behavior), big data (trust, citations), and machine learning (patterns) to arrive at results that are more specific to the user’s needs. The information gleaned from a given search feeds into the algorithm’s learning capability, and it is that learning that will drive search in the future. In short, AI will make traditional SEO methods obsolete because it leverages natural language processing.

BrainRank

Google started introducing “RankBrain,” a machine-learning system that helps create Google’s search results by playing a crucial part in the company’s ranking algorithm. The typical scenario is where a query is entered. Google returns relevant organic search results based on predictable SEO ranking factors such as keywords. Machine learning has become a “layer” on top, where it becomes the final “king” to decide on a ranking.

8. Unique & Exceptional Content

Now ask yourself, whenever you visit websites, you’re looking for specific content. Content written with the intent of keeping you engaged is always going to be invaluable. The content should be structured and keep you wanting to read. The headline and words should be enticing enough for you to continue reading. Also, the information should be structured with ease and presentable. Whether a small business manages your digital content or not, you should know how to write engaging content for your website.

Research shows that visitors have around 3 seconds to continue or dump the website and move on to others. Hence, the initial fold and headlines should create that initial connection. Without saying more, content should be delivered to the right audience and be unique because it’s new knowledge for the reader. For example, a product or service being offered should be supported by customer reviews. For example, positive and stellar reviews will allow visitors to verify and authenticate that it’s something that they could further explore and possibly purchase.

Creating and maintaining unique content will always remain a key SEO trend. Content marketing has exploded as Google has continued to ramp up natural searches and AI into their algorithms. Regardless of its text, visuals, or videos, unique and engaging content will always top the list.

9. Speed & 5-G

The time it takes for a website to load and immediately provide content to its visitors is a must. This, in particular, implies mobile devices. People are just too busy to be waiting around. They want immediate results. Hence, optimizing images and content is aspect web designers and SEO experts have on their list. But in saying this, the browsing experience on mobile devices will change, especially with 5-G coming on board. 5-G will remove the burden of waiting for rich, heavy content websites to load. 5-G will provide up to a staggering 100 gigabits per second! That’s 100 times faster than the 4-G we currently have.

10. Black Hat SEO

There are no quick tricks to get a web page or website ranked. Small business SEO services that offer such practices (Black Hat and Gray Hat SEO) will result in a temporary hike followed by a significant slump. Following search engine guidelines, understanding SEO terminology, and focusing on the user experience and content significantly increase online exposure. Other factors, such as site structure, structured data, and social media, also play a crucial role. At Visualwebz, we never exploit or utilize such practices. Our small business SEO approach is based on Google trends!

It pays to be strategic about what content is accessible on a mobile device and is not. Like voice search, snippets and quick answers provide context-specific responses to the user rather than simple keywords. Moving forward, the focus will be on “supporting longer keywords and natural language. Such as a more conversational type of search query. As more and more queries become voice-based, it will require a new look into how voice search applies to content and websites.

AI is Evolving even faster!

Whether it’s Google, Bing, Yahoo, or any other search engine, if the content is optimized, easy to comprehend, applicable, and matches the user’s intent, then there will be a success. AI is now evolving at a rate of 10 times a year over year in terms of “capabilities to read and understand natural language written for humans. Until we get to the point where AI is far more capable, the current game plan should rely on a user’s intent when performing a search. Intent includes four types of queries :

Navigational – where one is searching for specific content
Informational – focused primarily on a particular goal
Commercial – with the intent to purchase
Transactional queries – paying a utility bill, etc.

Together, these queries anticipate the user’s next move, and subsequent results are catered to that input.

Dramatic Growth in SEO

It looks like an exciting year for SEO as many mature and newer features come on board. As Artificial Intelligence develops, it is fair to expect dramatic growth as we witness a shift from static keywords to algorithmic learning structures and pattern utilization. AI stands to become the overwhelming standard for the future of SEO due to its capabilities to learn, identify trends in user behavior, and act autonomously. SEO Consultants and SEO companies will see a shift in practices and adopt new technologies and procedures as they scramble to attract customers for the websites they manage.

At Visualwebz LLC, we know these shifting changes and continually stay abreast of SEO and digital marketing trends. Whether you’re looking for SEO Attorney services, a dentist, or an established one, we deliver. We have continually proven our services and ask you to check our SEO case studies. For example, Seattle SEO Mitsubishi and Seattle SEO case studies on local blind cleaners present positive results for higher ranking and traffic. Also, we help clients all over, from LA and Seattle to New York! Whether you have a dentist website that needs help or is about to start a business, we can help you!

Call Visualwebz today, and let us work magic in getting your website ranked higher. Call now at (425)-336-0069

More Details on Website Design & SEO

Web Design and SEO Trends to Know

Whether you’re looking for Seattle website SEO, a new website, or WP maintenance for an existing small business website, you’ve come to the right place. Here at Visualwebz, we understand business owner’s and website benefits. In addition, we know that being a website owner. You will want to see immediate results. Further, we can help your website reach an international, national, or local customer base. Besides, we know how to get your customers to you. For example, we have assisted many small businesses like a local nonprofit, Village Family Project in Seattle, a professional website. Our custom web design solutions convey a unique online brand and image.

Whether it’s a SQL custom-built website or a local dentist seeking SEO? We get the job done!

Small business websites & Small Business SEO Services have been our specialty since 2008!

Visualwebz is the ideal firm to hire for your next project. In particular, our website developers specialize in delivering the best websites and nothing more. Our qualifications and experience allow us to provide clear and concise solutions more significantly. We will keep you in the loop during the whole web development process. Afterward, we will help you with improving your online presence. For example, our SEO specialists will help drive traffic to your business with this in mind. We will also take care of your web security – remember, you will need to secure your website from hackers eventually. Similarly, our web design services include website maintenance, support, and testing.