SEO in 2023 - What to Expect and How to Excel
2023 is here! Now is the time for thinking big about the coming 12 months, locking in your annual objectives, and strategizing your new year marketing campaigns. With the new year comes some questions. What big changes are coming to SEO this year? Will I have to do things differently now that the calendar has turned? Here are four things that will be staples for SEO in 2023.
SEO is still about people
At it’s core, SEO is about helping people find answers. If your business or website has the answers that people are looking for, then you’ll do well with SEO. In some circles, SEO has become about “tricks” and optimizing websites for Google where content is full of robotic keywords and poor flow. This isn’t the way to improve your site rankings. In fact, this can lead to the opposite effect as Google is cracking down on websites that use shady SEO tactics.
SEO in 2023 will continue to focus on three things: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. If you can show your consumers that you know what you’re talking about, have the power to showcase your knowledge, and can do so in an authentic way then you’ll have SEO success in 2023. The most effective way to do those things? Write your content for the people that you’re trying to reach. Share what your business knows best and do it in your voice. Your site will climb SEO rankings and consumers will find you.
Mobile-friendly is more important than ever
Google became mobile-first in 2019. That means that mobile versions are considered the “primary” version of a website and are actually more important than the desktop versions. You might not believe this, but it’s very rare for the desktop version to have more traffic than the mobile version today. At Standout, we don’t have a single client who’s desktop site is busier than the mobile site.
Ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly with a responsive layout will be more important than ever in 2023. Things to look for in your mobile website are: fast page load speed, the same meta data as your desktop version, content that doesn’t required clicks or swipes to load (it appears the same way as on desktop), and layouts that are responsive (they fit on each screen size optimally).
Seo has to include video
It’s no secret that video content does well on social media. The same is true for SEO. YouTube is as popular as ever, making it super easy to incorporate video into your website and your SEO strategy. Social platforms are more receptive to video now too, which is big reason why video content may soon become the most consumed type of content!
Beyond just creating the video content, there are some other things that you can do too. The Video Title and Description are very important! Choose keywords carefully and create a user-friendly overview of what your videos are about. Don’t cram keywords, but make sure that your video is described accurately.
Stay on top of data & analytics
Data in marketing let’s you understand so many things about your business, your consumers, and your marketing. By tracking simple metrics, you can identify the best acquisition channels for your online store, see where most of your social media engagement is coming from, and set up buyer personas for your ideal audiences. There are so many trends and ideas that you discover just by analyzing data that’s right in front of you.
The best part? Marketing analytics doesn’t need to be complex, it just needs to measure what your business needs it to measure. The most complicated part of data in marketing is sorting through the mind-boggling number of metrics to find what your business really needs to keep track of. Our best thought is that there’s 4 or 5 metrics that are most important for you, and that’s what you should focus on.
Lastly, if you use Google Analytics you’ll need to convert your UA tracking to GA4 before this summer. Google Analytics is adapting a new version of tracking and with it comes a host of changes, including the need to update to their new user interface. If you use Universal Analytics now, don’t worry. GA makes it easy to convert to GA4; just follow the steps that appear in your GA interface and you’ll be able to add the GA4 tag while keeping your UA tag until it goes away. This will allow you to learn GA4 while sticking with what you know for a bit longer.
Wrap it Up
SEO is always adapting and getting more intelligent. Businesses that take on new trends with courage and enthusiasm while still keeping consumers and people in mind will continue to have an edge in SEO, just like they always have. There are more ways that ever for businesses of all sizes to compete in the SEO space. So get out there, publish great content, and be creative in how your business optimizes for search in 2023.