Top 6 SEO Trends to Know to Improve Your Rankings In 2023

Do you know why most people find SEO difficult?

It’s because of Google. Google makes nearly 4000 to 5000 changes to its algorithms every single year. 

Whenever there’s a change in the algorithms, it impacts some percentage of searches. It ultimately leads to a loss of traffic for most sites and a positive traffic spike for a few sites.

The blog you’re reading generates millions of views annually – most of the traffic comes from Google.

We launched this blog in 2010. That means we’ve survived thousands of Google updates in the last 13 years, and our search traffic keeps growing yearly.

Have a look at our blog’s traffic reports for the last year;

As you can see, our website attracted over 2.6 million page views and over 1.4 million visitors in 2022 (compared to 1.7 million page views and 950K visitors in 2021)

The best part? We know specific SEO trends to watch out for in 2023. Knowing those trends will help you align your website’s SEO strategy accordingly. 

In this free guide, you’ll discover the following;

• Top SEO trends to watch out for
• What they mean
• How to use those trends in SEO for your website and much more

Are you ready? Let’s jump into the details. 

The Top SEO Trends to Consider In Your SEO Strategy [2023 List]

1. AI-generated content

With the introduction of ChatGPT, many website owners are using AI-written content.

The most important question: Is AI content good for SEO?

Here’s what Google says about it: “Google rewards high-quality content; however, it is produced.”

What does it mean?

Yes, you can use AI tools for content creation. 

You can build a blog or website and publish 100% AI-generated content. Google won’t mind it as long as your website has high-quality content.

If you’re using AI tools, just make sure to spend extra time to make the content better by;

• Adding unique points
• Satisfying the user intent
• Answering the searcher’s questions 

Here are a few more things to keep in mind when using AI tools to generate content:

• Use AI tools that create engaging content
• Use AI tools that allow you to edit and publish content to your website directly
• Above all, make sure to verify the facts and check if the content has any signs of low quality or spam.

What if you’re looking for the best AI tools for content creation? 

Although you can use free tools like ChatGPT or Google Bard but we recommend Jasper AI. It offers over 50 copywriting templates to create automatically generate high-quality content. 

Have a look at some of the templates;

You can learn more about using Jasper from our in-depth Jasper AI review.

If you’re curious, here are the pricing plans offered by Jasper;

• The creator plan offers unlimited words and costs $39 per month
• Teams plan offers unlimited words with SEO access mode and costs $99 per month
• Business plan offers custom pricing depending on your content needs

2. Experience of the author (the new E in Google EEAT)

Google takes the E-A-T concept into consideration while evaluating the quality of content.

In December 2022, it added an extra E (which made it E-E-A-T), which stands for “Experience.”

Here’s the thing: Although E-E-A-T is not a direct Google ranking factor, Google wants to prioritize the websites with strong E-E-A-T.

So what exactly does “experience” mean? 

Google rewards content based on the author’s experiences and insights.

For example, we’ve 15+ years of experience in the SEO industry, so we can create an in-depth guide on SEO trends that you can look out for in 2023.

Here are a few examples of the content creator or an author who has real-world experience with the topic they are writing about:

• A travel blogger who has visited dozens of countries can write more helpful travel guides than someone who has never visited another country.
• A fitness blogger with a degree in nutrition or fitness can write more accurate fitness articles than someone who has never worked out a day.
• A medical professional can give better health advice than someone without healthcare experience.

Are you getting it?

Google simply wants to reward the sites that publish articles written by established writers (or content creators).

Here are a few practical ways to show your experience as a content creator:

• Personal experiences: If you have experience with any topic you cover on your website, share it with your audience. For example, if you are writing about starting a website, you could share your experience of starting and building a profitable website.
• Examples: You can also use examples to demonstrate your experience. For example, if you are writing about fixing a hacked website, you could provide examples of specific things or tools you have used to fix the issue.
• Citations: In case you don’t have prior experience in the topic you write, you can simply cite your sources to show that you have done your research. This is especially useful when you’re writing about a controversial or trending topic.
• Show social proof: If your work is already published on an authority website, show it in your author bio.

Here’s an example;

3. Focus on people-first content

Did you know that Google recently launched a new algorithm called “helpful content update”?

This update was introduced to reward websites that create high-quality, helpful, and relevant content.

Google itself suggests creating “People-first content,” which is created with the user in mind rather than with the goal of getting first-page rankings in Google. 

People-first content is usually;

• Answers the users’ queries
• Well-written, informative, and engaging
• Ultimately satisfies the “intent” of the searcher

If you are a content creator or website owner, here are some tips to help create people-first content. 

Write for your audience: Identify your target audience and find their needs. ALWAYS keep your audience in mind while writing. Ask yourself questions like;

• What are they looking for? 
• What do they need to know? 
• How can you satisfy their search intent?

Be informative and engaging: Forget about satisfying Google. Instead, focus on pleasing people with your content. Your content should be informative and HIGHLY engaging. If it’s generic and mediocre, Google will NOT rank it. It’s as simple as that.

Use high-quality images: Images can help to make your content visually appealing. They also help your audience easily consume and digest your content. You can use tools like Canva to create appealing graphics and illustrations for your blog posts.

Above all, while creating content, be clear and concise. It’s not important to create detailed articles every single time. You can get to the point quickly by adding REALLY good points within your content. 

Read: Google Core Algorithm Shift: August 2023 Update Insights

4. Mobile-first indexing 

In simple words, mobile-first indexing means that Google primarily considers the mobile version of a website when indexing and ranking pages. 

Why is it important? It is important because more and more people are using mobile devices to search the web.

According to Google Search Central, mobile-first indexing is enabled by default for all new websites.

So… If you haven’t already, create a mobile-friendly website, as it’s the ONLY way forward.

One of the easiest ways to do that is to use a responsive theme for your WordPress site.

We recommend you GeneratePress Premium, as it comes with a mobile-friendly framework out of the box. It also offers many customization options to make your site responsive quickly.

You can find more about it from our in-depth GeneratePress review. If you’re curious, it offers the following two pricing options.

• The yearly plan costs you $59 per year, and you can use it on up to 500 websites.
• The lifetime plan costs $249, which is a one-time payment, and you can use it on up to 500 websites.

So what are you waiting for?

Grab GeneratePress Premium

It also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can get a full refund if you’re unhappy with the product.

5. Voice search optimization

Voice search is becoming REALLY popular as more people use voice searches to find information online.

If you want to make your website futuristic, you need to optimize your website for voice searches.

Here are some best practices to prepare your website for voice SEO.

Create conversational content

One of the simplest ways to rank for voice searches is to use a conversational tone in your content. You should write in a way that you’re talking to someone.

Why? People use voice search to ask questions in a natural, conversational way.

Here are some tips for using a conversational tone in your content:

• Use contractions, like “I’m” instead of “I am.”
• Use simple, everyday language. Avoid jargon or complex words at all costs.
• Ask questions and answer them. You can use an FAQ section for every page or blog post you publish.
• Use personal pronouns like “I” and “you.”

Target question keywords

If you want to improve your website’s ranking in voice search, find and rank for question keywords.

Question keywords contain questions like what, how, when, where, etc. You can use tools like Answer The Public, Semrush, etc., to quickly find question keywords for almost any topic.

The benefit of question keywords is that most of these keywords are long-tail keywords, as they’re more specific than short-tail keywords. They’re more likely to be used by people who are using voice search.

Use structured data markup

Want to show your content in Google featured snippets and rank for voice searches? Then, you should implement structured data markup. In simple words, it is a way of adding extra information to your website’s HTML code, so Google can understand your content better.

Some of the common types of structured data markup include;

• Article markup (it tells Google that your page is an article)
• FAQ markup (it shows that you have a specific FAQ page)
• Product markup (it tells search engines that your page is a product page)

The best way to add data markup is using a plugin like WP Review Pro (from My Theme Shop), which supports 19 Schema types.

6. Zero-click searches are on the rise

 A zero-click search is when someone enters a query on a search engine, but it does not lead to a website, as Google shows the information immediately. 

For example, if you want to know about a person, there’s no need to visit many web pages. For instance, when you search for “Who is Ramit Sethi?” there’s no need to scroll and check out any of the other search results. 

As you can see, Google displays an immediate answer to such queries. If you want to know more, you can browse through additional links provided in the “People also ask” section or through the knowledge panel (as shown above).

Semrush states that nearly 25.6% of desktop and 17% of mobile searches are zero-click searches. This percentage is only going up.

What happens when zero-click searches are on the rise?

As a website owner, you’ll NOT get any traffic, as people don’t have to leave the search results page to get information.

So how can you deal with this issue?

The best way to fight back is to identify those keywords where the potential for clicks is higher than others. 

That means you’ll need to find keywords that can lead to clicks. Here are a few quick tips for finding such keywords.

• Look at your competitors’ websites. Find out what keywords your competitors use on their websites to drive more search traffic. You can use a tool like Semrush to find your competitors’ keywords quickly.
• Use negative keywords. Negative keywords are words or phrases you don’t want your website to appear in Google search. These can be extremely helpful when you’re using paid ads. For example, if you sell SEO tools, you might want to add the negative keyword “free” to your list. This will prevent your website from appearing for searches like “free SEO tools.”
• Use Semrush, as it offers an excellent tool called “Keyword Magic,” which gives you access to over 23 billion keywords. It can help you find keywords that people are searching for. You can use it to see the search volume for different keywords and other metrics like CPC, keyword difficulty, and more.

FAQs on latest SEO trends and benchmarks

Here are some frequently asked questions about SEO initiatives and future SEO trends.

Related Posts:

Final thoughts on SEO predictions

If you want to build a high-traffic website, you should NOT ignore SEO. You should be prepared for change. Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving, so you must stay updated with the latest trends.

Identifying the latest SEO trends and optimizing your website for those trends can help you build a website that attracts huge search traffic. 

What do you think about the latest trends in SEO? Are you going to optimize your website for those trends? Have any questions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.