{"id":13092,"date":"2023-05-25T11:49:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T10:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornerstonedm.co.uk\/?post_type=cs_blogs&p=13092"},"modified":"2023-09-25T16:19:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T15:19:52","slug":"seo-trends-2023","status":"publish","type":"cs_blogs","link":"https:\/\/cornerstonedm.co.uk\/blog\/seo-trends-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO Trends In 2023: What To Expect For SEO in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
SEO<\/a> has come a long way since 1995, and while a lot has changed, the core principle remains the same \u2013 how to organically drive more traffic to your website and to get your website to the top of the search results.<\/p>\n When it comes to SEO<\/a>, search habits change and Search Engines are consistently evolving to provide the best possible result for a user. It\u2019s important to keep up to date with upcoming trends, our abiding message is don\u2019t get left behind<\/i><\/b>, and with that in mind, we\u2019re going to take you on a journey of what to expect of SEO<\/a> for the remainder of 2023.<\/p>\n\n In its simplest form, the Google algorithm<\/a> is built to provide the best result and experience for the user. Since the birth of the internet, Google has been consistently evolving, countless trends and tactics have come and gone.<\/p>\n Many things that worked well in the early days of the internet simply just don\u2019t work anymore, it\u2019s crucial to stay up to date with modern tactics so that your website doesn\u2019t get left behind in the dust and you can prioritise things that will have the biggest impact in 2023.<\/p>\n Despite the Google algorithm<\/a> consistently changing over time, there are a few basics of SEO<\/a> that have stuck around, and we think they are here to stay.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n Whilst SEO<\/a> is ever changing with constant algorithm updates from Google<\/a>, we are confident that these aspects of SEO<\/a> will remain a staple focus for years to come.<\/p>\n\n There is a range of different signals that Google\u2019s algorithm<\/a> uses to index and rank a page but content has been, and will continue to be, an extremely significant<\/strong> ranking factor.<\/p>\n Without quality content, Google<\/a> doesn\u2019t have nearly enough information about a page to be able to index it and rank it.<\/p>\n Sure, there are certain keywords\/queries that are outliers and don\u2019t necessarily rely purely on content. And sure, there are still other signals that can help a page rank such as the anchor text of a link (backlinks & internal links), title tags, image alt text etc\u2026 but the bottom line is, quality content is crux of these signals.<\/p>\n Search engines will crawl the content of a page, and then will process this information for how viable it is for search. Google\u2019s algorithm<\/a> has developed over the years to record a large range of key signals to help understand the intent of the content. It\u2019s this information that helps to rank a page for a certain keyword.<\/strong><\/p>\n This process has been the same since the beginning of Google<\/a>; the only difference is that as time has moved on, Google\u2019s algorithm<\/a> has advanced; meaning the way it ranks content is much more sophisticated.<\/p>\n As Google continues to push core updates, to improve their search engine, there\u2019s one thing that will continue to stay afloat and that\u2019s quality content. Search engines have the difficult task of understanding what a \u2018quality\u2019 result means. Luckily, they don\u2019t leave it up to us to guess…<\/p>\n Google<\/a> provides a lot of guidance as to what they are looking for with the \u2018Search Quality Rater Guidelines<\/a>\u2019 which is a document that can be used as a reference for conditions and elements that should be considered for creating valuable, high-quality content.<\/p>\n Google<\/a> also pushes a simple acronym that can be used for creating quality content \u2013 E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness),<\/a> learn more about E-E-A-T later in this article.<\/p>\n\n Backlinks are often referred to as the currency of the internet and we think that they\u2019ll continue to be for years to come. But why?<\/p>\n Backlinks are one of the biggest ranking factors for a page especially from high quality and relevant websites. Links are a signal to Google that the page is trustworthy, credible and authorative; the more links that a page gets, it further strengthens these signals. High quality links have historically been a major ranking factor.<\/p>\n But don\u2019t just take it from us. Take it from Google themselves<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cone of several factors we use to help determine this is understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content. This has often proven to be a good sign that the information is well-trusted\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n This is just one mentions of links, but Google often references links alongside it being an indication of trust and reputation. You can see these references across their site and official documentation when detailing how they measure the \u2018quality\u2019 of a page.<\/p>\n Over the years, Google has rolled out a range of different algorithm updates that tackle backlinks. One of these important updates was Penguin. The Penguin update tackled spammy links, it\u2019s now an essential part of the Google algorithm; it helps Google to better evaluate the quality of links. So, much like content, with links it\u2019s quality over quantity.<\/p>\n High quality backlinks don\u2019t just rely on DR. High quality backlinks need to be highly relevant, reputable\/authoritive, and they need to appear natural. Build backlinks with these metrics because they\u2019re are going nowhere!<\/p>\n\n We’ve mentioned what we think is likely to stay important in SEO. With the ever-changing landscape that is Google, here is our top 8 SEO trends that we think are worth keeping an eye on in 2023:<\/span><\/p>\n\n Google<\/a> made significant changes to its Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG)<\/a> for searching in late 2022. Arguably, the most important was the addition of an extra E to the start of the popular acronym E-A-T \u2013 Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.<\/p>\n E-A-T has become E-E-A-T<\/a>, the extra E introducing Experience to the concept, which indicates that quality content can be evaluated through the lens of understanding the extent to which the content creator has first-hand experience of the topic.<\/p>\n Google<\/a> says experience puts trust at the centre of this new concept, making it the \u2018most important member of the E-E-A-T<\/a> family\u2019.<\/p>\n Google also provides other examples of important concepts, such as:<\/p>\n All of this appears to show Google<\/a> is evolving its language to be more inclusive to keep abreast of the times, recognising social media platforms, influencers and how content can take different forms such as video, UGC and social media posts.<\/p>\n While the extension of the E-A-T acronym to E-E-A-T<\/a> was the most eye-catching development, Google<\/a> revealed others that serve as notice of where it wants its algorithms to go.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n The number of\u00a0marketing applications that now integrate\u00a0SEO<\/a> and artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasing in recent years and we expect that to continue in 2023.<\/p>\n Many content marketers have utilised some types of\u00a0AI content generators\u00a0over the past year and they can certainly leverage these tools to help speed up their content workflows and still create original, quality content in the process.<\/p>\n Here are some of the more helpful applications of these tools that do not sacrifice originality:<\/p>\n Content briefs<\/strong>: Content tools that generate content briefs can help writers understand the important keywords, topics, and subtopics that should be included in their original content.<\/p>\n Content outlines<\/strong>: Outlines are a great way to give writers a roadmap for how to create helpful content without relying on AI to do the work for them.<\/p>\n Content ideas<\/strong>: Tools like\u00a0blog topic generators\u00a0can speed up the brainstorming process. Moving from a keyword to a helpful content idea can be half the battle, and an idea generator can help prevent writer\u2019s block.<\/p>\n As good as they are, they\u2019ll never better Cornerstone\u2019s expert copywriters<\/u><\/a>!<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n An entity in SEO<\/a> is usually a search, query or set of keywords that can be uniquely identified. Entities utilise context and the relationship\/link between elements to discover the intent of a search. An entity is much more than a keyword, it\u2019s typically a topic or a concept.<\/p>\n Optimising for entities in SEO<\/a> is a tactic that goes beyond simple keyword optimisation as it shifts the focus to more of context optimisation approach. Entity-based optimisation is becoming an effective SEO strategy<\/a>, a development that goes hand-in-hand with the development of the knowledge panel that now accompanies many Google searches<\/a>.<\/p>\n Google<\/a> can understand content with their natural language processing algorithm, it analyses the content of a webpage and associates certain bits of information with an entity.<\/p>\n One example is that a \u201cperson<\/strong>\u201d entity is often associated with things such as a name<\/strong>, age,<\/strong> address<\/strong>, birthday<\/strong>\u2026 and so on. With enough signals, Google can take this information and associate each of the different details with the person.<\/p>\n Optimising for entities helps to provide Google with enough information to be able to rank web pages without the explicit need for keywords within the content. We obviously wouldn\u2019t recommend not using keywords, this is just an example of the sheer power of optimising for entities!<\/p>\n You can optimise for entities by:<\/p>\n This means optimising for long tail keywords is more important as with voice search people are more inclined to search for sentences instead of just single keywords as its takes less time\/effort.<\/p>\n The old clich\u00e9 about a picture being worth a thousand words has taken on new meaning thanks to Google Lens<\/a>.<\/p>\n It means optimising a website\u2019s imagery is becoming increasingly important as Google<\/a> needs to clearly \u2018see\u2019 images – and quite possible videos soon – to understand what\u2019s on them and find similar objects across the web. So, to make Google<\/a> see the object in detail, the visuals on your site should be of highest quality possible without impacting page speed metrics<\/a> (good luck on that one!).<\/p>\n While Google Lens<\/a> is relatively new, expect it grow in popularity as Google<\/a> refines its multitask unified model MUM artificial intelligence<\/a> and natural language understanding algorithm.<\/p>\n The overall message here is make images a part of your SEO strategy<\/a>, and designing your own, properly sized imagery over stock photographs will help your cause too.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Over the years, the relationship between SERP ranking position and click through rate has remained fairly consistent, with the majority of clicks going to the first three results.<\/p>\n But that is about to change with endless scrolling becoming available on both mobile and desktop. Google<\/a> is hoping to make it easier for users to scroll through multiple pages of SERP results to find the content they seek.<\/p>\n Previously, if a user got to the bottom of the first page of results and didn\u2019t find what they needed, they’d simply click off and search for something else instead of going to page two, which led to the old joke about the best place to hide something criminally damaging was on page 2 of a Google search<\/a>!<\/p>\n This is Google\u2019s answer to criticism that its results were degrading in quality and means we could see an increase in CTR and traffic for search results that were previously on page 2.<\/p>\n Although getting to the first page is still ideal, being on pages 2 or 3 will have more benefits than it once did thanks to endless scrolling.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Artificial intelligence can now generate absolute original images, thanks to the AI that makes this possible maturing significantly in recent years.<\/p>\n SEOs are always on the lookout for innovative technology that can help them amplify content creation effectively and that could be DALLE-2<\/a> \u2013 but what is it?<\/p>\n It was originally called GPT-2<\/a>, AI technology that\u00a0could answer questions, complete text, analyse content, and make conclusions. It was improved to GPT-3<\/a> and its capabilities expanded beyond textual information that enabled it to work with images.\u00a0Scaled up DALLE-2<\/a> in 2022, the improved version creates an image just from a text prompt.<\/p>\n Nowadays, website and content promotion are not possible without attractive visuals. Images add more value to your SEO<\/a> efforts \u2013 your site wins more user engagement and\u00a0accessibility.<\/p>\n But sourcing enough appropriate images has always been a headache. AI can solve this with ease. You just need to print a descriptive prompt of your future image, and AI will come up with a result.<\/p>\n You will need to do some training, such as studying\u00a0Prompt Book<\/a>, to master the basics to avoid weird results. But you\u2019ll learn the most valuable tips on how to get the most out of this image generator. It will add to your creativity and speed up the content creation process.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Google<\/a> passage indexing is an automated feature that pulls sections from pages into search engine results, even if the page covers a slightly different topic from the main one.<\/p>\n Passage indexing is a small tweak to help the search engine understand content better and deliver the best results to searchers, not to be confused with featured snippets.<\/p>\n For example, if you search \u201cwhat time is it in Paris,\u201d Google<\/a> provides the answer at the top of the search engine results without requiring you to click on a result.<\/p>\n Passage indexing is an entirely different system that looks at the content of a page, determines if parts of the page answer a search query, and delivers those results in the SERPs. The passage can be viewed in the SERPs in a range of different ways.<\/p>\n Passage indexing naturally favours long-form content, as it will have a better shot at ranking for more keywords. That could mean sites with shorter content take a small hit in ranking as longer-form content gets a boost.<\/p>\n It is also more important than ever for sites to ensure SEO strategies<\/u><\/a>\u00a0are in place, like using the right heading and optimising anchor text. Pages with less optimisation but better content could outrank you.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve been avoiding long-form content, now might be the time to give it a go.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n TikTok<\/a>, Vimeo<\/a> and YouTube<\/a> are all popular video marketing platforms, and if you\u2019re not sure about whether or not video marketing should form part of your overall strategy, here are some statistics* that prove it can be an invaluable tool for many businesses:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Getting your videos ranked in Google<\/a> searches is simple. There are two steps you need to take.\u00a0Step 1 is uploading your videos to YouTube<\/a> and step 2 is setting the visibility to public. And\u2026 that’s it!<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n You name it, our digital team can do it. And as a\u00a0full-service agency<\/a>, we have all the tools \u2013 expertise and creativity within marketing strategy<\/a>, design<\/a>, digital, PR<\/a> and even print production<\/a> \u2013 to meet all your SEO<\/a> needs.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you’d like to discuss SEO, or wider marketing activities, get in touch<\/u><\/a> and one of our dedicated account managers will get back to you.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n Harrison began his marketing journey five years ago at the tender age of 17 and since then has built up years of combined agency and freelance experience in all sectors of digital marketing. Harrison has worked for companies across Leeds and Greater Manchester and during this time, he has toiled tirelessly to become proficient in […]\n <\/p>\n <\/small>\n Find out more about us<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\n\n Why is it important to keep your SEO knowledge up to date?<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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\n What Remains Important For SEO in 2023?<\/h2>\n
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\n\n Quality content<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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\n\n Quality Backlinks<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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\n SEO Trends For 2023<\/span><\/h2>\n
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\n 1. E-E-A-T<\/h2>\n
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\n 2. AI content generation<\/h2>\n
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\n 3. Optimising for entities instead of keywords<\/h2>\n
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\n 4. More dynamic ways to search<\/h2>\n
People are not just typing into Google<\/a> to search anymore. They are using features like Google Lens<\/a> (to take a picture of a product to find it online) and are using the power of speech recognition to search instead of typing.<\/p>\n
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\n 5. Endless scrolling to change the dynamic of CTR<\/h2>\n
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\n 6. AI generated imagery<\/h2>\n
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\n 7. Passage indexing<\/h2>\n
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\n 8. Video marketing<\/a><\/h2>\n
Videos are the fastest way to relay important information and get your message across. Google<\/a> is also developing a means of using videos to help searchers find the information they require.<\/p>\n
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(*ContentBot.ai<\/u><\/a>)<\/h6>\n
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\n\n What can Cornerstone do for you?<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n Get in touch for more information\n <\/h2>