If you’re still neglecting search engine optimisation in 2023, you’re really not doing all that you can to help your business thrive.
UK shoppers have spent an annual average of £250 billion online over the past decade, but figures have risen sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic forced many physical stores to close.
Optimising your website for search will mean potential customers find you, rather than you having to go out and find them. These are the key areas to monitor in the months to come.
- ‘Human’ content is the new king
Google’s recent ‘Useful Content’ update has prioritised content that is aimed at helping users and not ticking off lists of things to meet algorithms and guidelines. Speaking your users’ language – rather than over-relying on keywords – is one key approach to this.
- ‘Shopping’ revamp offers opportunities
Google’s ‘Shopping’ platform has offered free-of-charge listings to brands for a few years now, but further tweaks allow you to home in on users in specific areas. As ‘local SEO’ continues to grow, offering unique content to customers in Cornwall and the Cairngorms alike will be crucial.
- Videos more searchable than ever
Offering information and pushing products through video is now more important than ever. Video results on Google that offer results on YouTube can show users a highlight reel. Optimising videos with this in mind gives more people a chance to get what they’re looking for from a single upload.
- A/B testing to become a buzzword
There’s an infamous amount of guesswork that goes into a lot of organic SEO, but many are cottoning on to the ability to get answers quicker and in a more definitive way through A/B testing. By trialling differing approaches in single pages, you can uncover more answers about what results in more traffic and what has negligible, or even a negative, effect.
- The ever-changing face of page 1
Google is set to trial ‘infinite scroll’ on desktop results in 2023 – an approach already seen on mobile. A growing number of desktop widgets has had a sizable impact on desktop search results for some time and this introduction may even be a sign that more additional extras are set to come.
- A new contender in search?
Chances are that you’ve heard this all before. But will 2023 be the year that social media starts to become a significant factor in search? When it comes to lifestyle questions like where to get lunch in a new city or the latest fashion trends, Google itself has acknowledged that TikTok is eating rapidly into its territory among Gen Zers…
- Any new trend won’t impact your fundamentals!
No matter what new methods and theories crop up in 2023, they ought not to change the number-one way to achieve strong search results. Above all else, you must provide content that helps users find what they are looking for – whether that is a product, service or simply information.
