The underlying idea of optimizing websites to increase visibility in organic search rankings doesn’t change, but the tactics used by businesses to implement it do.

Be assured that SEO will continue to exist despite the development of new trends in 2023.

A priority for 2023 SEO will be the continued development of AI and NLP, as well as the importance of producing material in accordance with E-A-T signals (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).

Additionally, keyword research and producing high-quality content that moves clients along the sales funnel continue to be significantly influenced by Search Intent.

Businesses need to maintain their finger on the pulse of digital marketing because Google and how people search are continuously changing. This will allow them to benefit from a strong, current SEO strategy.

Does SEO Still Work for E-commerce?

Although SEO trends change, a strategy does not necessarily become outdated as a result. In actuality, SEO serves as the cornerstone of all eCommerce digital marketing initiatives. As search engine algorithms have altered to better match user intent and eliminate spam, it is only natural that some SEO tactics that were successful in the past have lost their effectiveness. useless strategies.

Because your SEO strategy isn’t carved in stone, it’s critical to assess current methods and make any necessary updates to them in order to maximize your chance of ranking highly in search engines. In 2023, the top 10 SEO trends that will increase website exposure and conversion rates will be examined.

1. Technical SEO and Page Speed Are Still Vital

For your eCommerce website to be user-friendly and devoid of any technical issues that would impede search engines from understanding and ranking it, technical SEO must be perfected.

Page Speed

Your website’s ranking will increase if it loads quickly. Why? Web pages that load quickly offer a streamlined user experience that boosts customer engagement and entices visitors to spend more time reading the content of your web page.

On the other hand, if a website’s pages take too long to load, users get impatient and abandon the page, which lowers the average page time and raises the bounce rate. Having sites load quickly on all devices is the ultimate goal—ideally in under two seconds!

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals (CWV), a set of three measures that rate a user’s experience loading a website, were launched by Google in 2020. These are recognized ranking factors that affect SEO.

The three interaction measurements that makeup Core Web Vitals are the greatest content full paint, the first input delay, and the cumulative layout shift. Simply put, Google evaluates how rapidly page content loads, how quickly a browser can process user input while loading a web page, and how stable the material is as it loads in a browser.

In a nutshell, it’s comparable to a “page experience” score, which is Google’s method of assessing the overall UX quality of your web pages. Increase the Core Web Vitals of your website by speeding up third-party script loading times, stabilizing loading times, and other SEO practices in 2023.

, and optimizing server loading times.

2. Be Mobile-First

In a market that is dominated by mobile devices and consumer demand, how does your eCommerce website fare? More consumers are using their smartphones and tablets for shopping. In actuality, 79% of smartphone users made internet transactions over the previous six months using their mobile devices.

Customers benefit from a positive user experience whether they shop on a desktop or a mobile device when a website is optimized to work across devices. Online retailers are at risk of falling far behind their rivals if they don’t make a real, purposeful effort to provide a good mobile shopping experience.

3. How to Create Content that Improves SEO

Whether it’s photographed, videos, articles, or blogs, giving quality content first priority can increase customer traffic to your store and set your company apart from the competition. The king of content is still in charge in 2023!

Create High-Quality Content

Your writing must be unique, valuable, and well-presented. Publishing valuable content that your target audience finds engaging as well as error-free language and appealing graphics are all examples of quality content.

You should also think about E-A-T (expertise, authority, and trustworthiness) when developing content. The Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines and the search engine’s algorithm both address this.

Google makes use of E-A-T to guarantee the veracity, accuracy, and utility of the results it returns to consumers.

As a result, while ranking a web page in search results, it considers the expertise, standing, and dependability of the particular content producer, the content of the page, and the overall website.

Capitalize on Video Content

More than 82% of all consumer internet traffic is made up of video content. By including pertinent films, you may enhance user interaction on digital and social platforms while educating your audience in an accessible format.

The following kinds of video material are popular with both current and potential clients:

• Explanations that aid in their comprehension of the operation of a product or service or the advantages of either.
• Interviews that promote discussions centered around a brand, its goods, or its services.
• Product reviews and demonstration videos are frequently more useful than user guides.

Don’t Use Stock Images

The savvy public can immediately recognize stock photos. Even if the photographs are of great quality, the likelihood is that another firm already uses the same image on the website of their eCommerce store, which will only make you appear unoriginal and cheap.

Always utilize your own photos and graphics, and make sure the illustrations are pertinent to and help illustrate the points made in the surrounding text. Stock photo purchases could appear to be more affordable, but if you need to make new purchases for each social media post and each website page, the prices can quickly mount.

Making your own is really more cost-effective and better for your business when you take into account the time and effort required to obtain the right image for each job.

Conduct Ecommerce Keyword Research

The first step in any SEO plan for an online store is keyword research. Using this procedure, you can be confident that your on-page SEO strategy focuses on the proper keywords and that your

Companies frequently commit the all-too-common error of concentrating on short phrases, yet long-tail keywords are stronger predictors of customers’ search intent since those who are specifically looking for something are more likely to make a purchase.

The three primary approaches to keyword research are as follows. You have a variety of options for performing in-depth keyword research, like using a variety of search engines to view the most popular search results, researching your competitors to become familiar with the kinds of material you should concentrate on, or using a variety of keyword tools. Do all three if you are able.

4. Highlight Your Strengths

It’s wonderful for SEO and increases consumer trust in your business when you display endorsements and reviews and set up structured data.

Request Customer Testimonials

Customers adore social proof, also known as external validation, or testimonials, and they use them to decide whether or not to conduct business with you. As long as it’s simple, most customers don’t mind sharing testimonials. As a result, many eCommerce businesses request them once a customer makes a purchase via mail or directly through their app (if they have one).

Set Up Structured Data

Structured data improves search results by helping search engines comprehend the content of your web page more quickly and accurately.

Rich snippets offer a better click-through rate than organic results since they rank higher, which increases traffic to your website.

Showcase Product Reviews

Like recommendations, specific product reviews show customers they can trust you while also sending a strong signal to search engines that increase the authority of your online store. Perhaps the most effective technique to allay a customer’s doubts about your goods and services is product reviews. Given that 90% of customers read reviews prior to making purchases, asking for and displaying reviews is definitely worth the effort.

Diversify Your Marketing Channels

Search engines love to see organic traffic coming from various sources, such as social media sites, email addresses, etc., to your online business. Additionally, if you don’t use a variety of marketing methods, you won’t be able to make the kind of money you want.

The demand for your product or service is increased through marketing across a variety of platforms (those that your target market utilizes) which also helps to increase brand recognition and conversions from the top of the funnel all the way to the bottom.

Diversifying your channels also expands the reach of your brand, making it simpler for people to find your goods or services. Getting exposure through various platforms enables you to reach current and potential clients where they are. After all, people won’t just find you through your website.

5. Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search has become increasingly popular over the past year, with 58% of consumers finding local companies using it and 71% of consumers saying they prefer to use voice search instead of typing it out. This has had a big impact on SEO trends.

Customers that utilize voice search typically employ 29 words, usually long-tail terms. You should focus on optimizing highlighted snippets and knowledge graphs since Google mainly relies on them to respond to voice queries. You may draw voice search users to your eCommerce site by having a good domain rating and optimizing it for local searches.

6. Improve User Experience

It’s simple to become preoccupied with appearing highly on Google’s search results that you neglect to give customers the ideal buying experience. We advise our clients to conduct a user experience audit (UX audit) on a regular basis to identify under-optimized parts of their eCommerce stores that hinder conversions.

You may improve alignment between your eCommerce business and website users by conducting regular audits. For websites that have been online for some time, a UX audit is similar to a health check. You can use it to evaluate current user flows and find issues or bottlenecks that stop potential consumers from taking the desired action.

7. Refresh Existing Content

The quick-paced nature of content marketing makes it difficult to keep up, especially since search engines are built to identify and prioritize current, relevant information, which means that older articles will gradually lose traffic and rankings. What’s the formula?

Thankfully, you don’t need to create the wheel from scratch. A lot of the stuff you already have can be updated and renewed. In addition to saving time over starting from scratch, this improves your chances of ranking well in search results.

8. Secure Your Ecommerce Website

Regardless of the SEO for eCommerce trends currently in place, website security is a requirement. For the eCommerce sector, cybercrime is a constant problem that costs businesses millions of dollars. Fraudulent transactions and identity theft damage client confidence and, in certain situations, force a company’s permanent liquidation.

Cybercriminals can be thwarted by getting an SSL certificate, selecting secure payment methods, and utilizing anti-malware software. Credibility and trust are greatly increased when you can demonstrate that you’ve taken all reasonable precautions to protect your company’s and your customer’s data.

9. Build a Strong Brand

Building a great online presence is distinct from developing a memorable brand, albeit the latter does the former some good. Strong brands deliver quality, offer exceptional customer service, and tell compelling stories. Branding includes the complete tailored experience people have with your businesses, going beyond visual design and advertising.

developing an interesting website, knowing your target demographic, and using a digital marketing plan all contribute to developing a powerful brand. Given the complexity of creating a strong online brand, a lot of eCommerce companies work with digital marketing firms to help them target the correct audience and communicate the right message.

10. Focus on User Intent Optimization

The motives behind the keywords and phrases used by your target audience are revealed by user intent. Understanding is essential since it enables you to produce compelling and useful material.

User intent can be divided into three general categories:

• Informational— Users are seeking information.
• Navigational— Users seek out a particular website.
• Transactional— Users are prepared to purchase or carry out a particular online task.

Your keyword choice, targeting, and content marketing strategy are all influenced by a clear grasp of user intent. You may increase the potential traffic of your content by satisfying user intent.

Recent SEO developments show that Search Intent has surpassed backlinks in strength (although they are still important!). In other words, you won’t drive organic traffic no matter how excellent your content or backlink profile is if you don’t appeal to user intent.

Get Help from SEO Experts

Your business and eCommerce site needs to be kept relevant and competitive by phasing out outdated SEO techniques and replacing them with strategic, content-focused techniques each year. All of our recommendations center on enhancing user experience and search engine placement.

Speak to our SEO professionals at Comrade if your store isn’t generating as much organic traffic as it did last year or if you need to improve your SEO in general. They may increase site performance, vary your marketing channels, give you relevant sales-boosting analytics, and make sure you keep abreast of eCommerce trends.