Due to Google’s constant modification of its ranking algorithm to improve the user experience for search, SEO is one of the most dynamic aspects of digital marketing. Because of this, marketers have the chance to reassess the SEO trends influencing the search engine landscape each year.

The top 12 SEO trends for 2023 and advice on how to adapt your strategy to them are listed in the following paragraphs.

Table of contents

1. Personal knowledge of a subject (the new “E” in EEAT).
2. Content that is audience-focused rather than traffic-focused.
3. A stronger focus on author authority.
4. Satisfying and useful information.
5. A.I. content and content creation tools.
6. Automated SEO.
7. CTR variations due to SERP positioning.
8. SEO for product pages.
9. Examination of SEO competitors.
10. Fewer crawls per minute.
11. Image SEO has been revived.
12. High-performing, quick-loading websites.

The leading SEO trends to follow in 2023

This year, we’ll focus on providing users with high-performing web pages while showcasing our content’s worth and expertise. These tactics have been crucial throughout the history of SEO, but Google is becoming more adept at analyzing signals and figuring out which material truly complies with these requirements.

Let’s explore what I mean and how you can adhere to those standards in more detail.

Personal knowledge of a subject (the new “E” in EEAT)

The iconic EAT acronym, which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust, now includes the word “experience” as of December 2022. Google now takes the author’s or creator’s background into account when determining a piece of content’s quality.

What exactly does the term “experience” entail then? Google needs to know that the author of the material has actual, hands-on experience with the subject being covered.

As the founder of an SEO agency, for instance, I have first-hand knowledge and can speak authoritatively about SEO trends that will emerge in 2023. However, because I am not a medical expert and have no experience in the field of healthcare, if I were to write a piece of content for a health website about common causes of heart disease, it would be of lower quality.

This means that more websites need to examine their content writers’ backgrounds as well as the subjects they’re concentrating on.

This brings me to the following two trends.

Content that is audience-focused rather than traffic-focused

This growing emphasis on experience is due in part to the proliferation of SEO content development. Google crawlers will, however, get suspicious if a website that offers financial software also publishes blog posts that include cooking instructions. Do the intended users of financial software actually gain something from that content? Or does the fact that the website is ranked for a few popular keywords help?

The response is already known to you. The truth is that companies whose content strategy is to only go after search traffic with little to no thought of what users genuinely desire are unlikely to find ranking success in 2023. For you to produce content that will rank well, you must stay within the confines of your broad subject and industry.

Uncertain about the subjects to cover in your content? You can find relevant industry subjects that your target audience is looking for with the use of a content planning tool. When you enter a keyword, the tool will provide a large number of semantically relevant keywords that people are currently entering into search engines.

A stronger focus on author authority

The increase in the ranking of auto-generated content in the SERPs is another factor contributing to Google’s emphasis on user experience. Google aims to make sure that in 2023, the content that ranks was created by real people with genuine audiences in mind.

What can you do, then, to increase this year’s artists’ authority and experience? In the first place, be sure the authors of your material are in fact, subject-matter experts. Add to their experience after that by doing the following:

• Add author biographies. to more effectively and completely convey the knowledge and specializations of your content producer.
• Establish author pages. where you provide links to all of the author-written content on your website.
• your social media profiles with your creators. to make it easier for Google to recognize—through social signals—that they are actual people and legitimate authorities.

Here’s a fantastic author bio illustration that highlights the author’s expertise in PPC and breadth of experience.

Satisfying and useful information

Another significant algorithm change that will influence how we produce content in 2023 is Google’s August 2022 upgrade on useful content.

Google has always placed a strong priority on providing consumers with top-notch content throughout its entire existence. However, its new emphasis on “helpful” asserts that users should feel “satisfied” by the content they click on in the SERPs.

However, it can be challenging to gauge or quantify user satisfaction. What exactly does Google mean by “helpful” then? that contains:

• Made with people in mind, not search engines.
• Suitable for the intended readership.
• Pertinent to the website’s main theme or topic.
• Produced by capable, skilled creators.
• Demonstrates a thorough understanding of the subject.

(Have you picked up on a thread in this year’s SEO trends?)

It’s easier said than done to produce informative material. So how can you improve the value of your content?

Prioritise quality above quantity first. Even if you probably have a tonne of target keywords on your content calendar for 2023, producing a lot of material that is neither really helpful nor particularly knowledgeable is unlikely to result in top rankings in 2023.

Second, broaden your keyword research to incorporate data other than just search volume. Think about the following:

• What kinds of content are appearing in certain search results?
• How much text is there?
• What queries does it respond to?
• What other themes or questions is it concerned with?
• Which links appear on the page?
• The creator is who?
• What is their background?

Don’t let the possibility of organic traffic alone divert you; keyword and content research can offer a wealth of information about these quality factors.

Examine your Search Console inquiries to learn what people are searching for to find your specific blog entries. Visit this page for additional information on Google Search Console.

A.I. content and content creation tools

The use of AI content will probably continue to rise in 2023 despite all of the 2022 upgrades aimed at preventing auto-generated content.

AI and SEO integration is currently included in a growing number of marketing applications. And that makes sense considering how much time these integrations can save! Over the past year, the majority of content marketers have used these kinds of AI content generators in some capacity.

Can content-writing software be used securely in light of recent Google updates?

Absolutely! Pumping out auto-generated draughts is a big no-no, but marketers can use these tools to hasten their content workflows while still producing unique, high-quality content.

Here are some of the more beneficial uses for these tools that don’t compromise the uniqueness or humanity of the content:

• Content summaries: Your authors can benefit from content tools that produce content briefs by understanding the crucial keywords, subjects, and subtopics that ought to be covered in their original work.
• Content synopses: Using an outline will help your writers produce valuable content without having to rely on artificial intelligence (AI).
• Content concepts: The brainstorming process can be accelerated by using tools like blog topic generators. Getting from a keyword to a useful content idea can be half the battle, and an idea generator can assist avoid writer’s block. Here is an example of an automatically generated blog idea that has been altered to better reflect the website’s brand and appeal to its younger target audience.
• Auto-generated: This is only one of many illustrations of how to use content creation technologies to better meet, rather than evade, Google’s quality standards.

Automated SEO

As digital marketers continue to make use of enterprise SEO software platforms and solutions, more SEO tasks will be automated in 2023, similar to how AI is being applied to content creation.

For example:

• Tools for keyword research can automate processes that previously required a lot of spreadsheet work by hand.
• Platforms for website audits and supervision such as Content King and Search Atlas can automatically identify updates and technical problems on websites.
• Website evaluators can aid those with less SEO knowledge in determining the necessary optimizations and setting priorities accordingly.

The prevalence of these DIY SEO tools will also enable companies and agencies to handle techniques more effectively and concentrate more on strategy.

CTR variations due to SERP positioning

Prepare to have your perceptions of CTR and ranking positions challenged.

Google has made it much simpler for consumers to browse through numerous pages of SERP results in order to get the material they’re looking for by adding infinite scrolling to both mobile and desktop.

With the majority of clicks coming to the top three results, the link between ranking position and CTR has stayed largely constant throughout time.

But as searchers can more easily navigate through multiple pages of search results in 2023, click-through rates are likely to be affected.

Regarding the terrible zero-click searches that we’ve been hearing about for years, a recent SEMrush analysis revealed that just roughly 25.8% of queries produced no clicks. CTRs may not suffer from no clicks as much as previously assumed as Google continues to introduce more highlighted snippets and search features like People Also Ask.

Getting to the top page is still preferred, but with limitless scrolling, being on pages two or three will now have more advantages than it did in the past. To increase the clickability and engagement of your content in the SERPs, make sure you are optimizing those page titles, and meta descriptions, and utilizing tools like schema markup.

SEO for product pages

Pages with a tendency towards shallow content, such as product pages, can gain in 2023 from adding more interesting elements to the page, as Google continues to encourage long-form, informative material.

A product page can have more content by way of drop-down menus, FAQs, and client testimonials. Even though including keywords in the product description is useful, consider other inquiries that customers might have before making a buy.

• Offer free shipping, do you?
• What are the return guidelines?
• Does the product come with any warranties, upgrades, or add-ons?
• Can you display any customer feedback or testimonials alongside the product?

These are merely a few techniques for incorporating extra content onto a page that is beneficial and educational for visitors who are debating making a purchase.

Examination of SEO competitors

Analyzing competitors has always been a wise way to develop an SEO strategy, and in 2023, SEO tools will make competitor analysis much simpler and more productive.

Looking at the thought leaders in your field will be a guaranteed approach to discovering what types of content in your sector will rank since Google places more weight on industry expertise and the “topic areas” of websites.

You may compare the content, backlinks, domain authority, and other factors of competitors using SEO competitor software.

Consider how your rivals are demonstrating their experience, knowledge, authority, and dependability through both on-page and off-page signals, and use that information to inform your own SEO operations and content strategy. In our guide to keyword competitor analysis, you can learn more.

Fewer crawls per minute

Google recently established ambitious climate objectives, including using carbon-free electricity by 2023. Google has been thinking about lowering the number of times it crawls websites in order to accomplish that goal.

One of the simplest improvements Google can make in order to support its sustainability objectives is to reduce crawling, which helps conserve processing resources.

Reduced crawl rates, however, are more likely to affect refresh crawls than crawls that look for new content. This implies that it can take more time for Google to detect the fresh updates we make to our websites.

The smartest tactical move in 2023 is to optimize your content from the beginning with all of the on-page components it will need to rank.

Image SEO has been revived

Website images are sometimes overlooked, although they have always contributed to improved ranks for picture searches.

Additionally, they can offer chances for us to use alt text to incorporate more keywords and semantically related terms into our content.

Google prefers to see alt text and schema markup that improves how its crawlers comprehend the content of photos. Google also favors webmasters that make their content more open to all users. For people with visual impairments or those with connectivity or bandwidth issues, alt text also makes the internet a nicer place to use.

To ensure that you are adhering to all of the must-dos with photos in 2023, use this checklist for image SEO.

High-performing, quick-loading websites

Since the page experience update in 2021, Google’s ranking algorithm has given more weight to websites with high performance and quick loading times.

Although Google did not complete rolling out the page experience update until March 2022, it may seem like old news, and the company will keep improving the signals it uses to determine whether a page is actually performing well for users.

Page Speed Insights and Core Web Vitals will continue to be crucial resources for tracking and assessing the speed and functionality of websites in 2023.

In addition to improving content quality, businesses will benefit from better keyword ranks across all of their domain’s web pages.