Maximise Your Online Performance with SEO in 2023

We predict that SEO will become even more essential for businesses in 2023; with shifts in search engine algorithms and, changing user behaviour, more intelligent AI, now is the time to do your due diligence. Get ahead of any challenges and maximise your online performance with SEO.

Like the rest of the SEO industry, we’ve been consuming reports, and journals, -most notably, the Search Engine Journal’s State of SEO report- and advice surrounding thought leaders to get the most accurate and consistent trends and opportunities for SEO in 2023.

Bind that together with our findings and experience from last year, and we think you’ve got a pretty sure-shot blog to help you excel with your SEO this year.

SEO in 2023: Google Updates, AI and Content

It’s been a bit of a wild ride over the past two years for the industry; navigating constant updates, changes, and ranking factors should be nothing new to those working within SEO, but with everything that happened during that year, things felt even more hectic.

Especially with all of the click-baiting ‘SEO is dead’ articles, despite the opposite being obvious.

I speak for many SEO professionals when I say I’d like 2023 to be a completely different year from the previous two and welcome some much-needed change. However, not unlike many other digital industries, difficulties and obstacles will arise, and new challenges will have to be overcome.

So, lets’ get you ahead of the game and outline the key challenges to help you maximise your SEO strategy in 2023.

Keeping up With Google

Google loves to update their search algorithm a lot more in just one year than it previously did, and this can be a huge pain point for businesses that need more time to keep up with these changes. Overnight, overall keyword positions can drop significantly, and websites will lose crucial visibility on search engine results pages.

So, we’d highly recommend keeping the Google Search Central blog page bookmarked this year, as updates like the newly revised Google E-E-A-T update will continue to make waves across SEO in 2023. Follow our blog or LinkedIn page, too, if you want to keep up to date with the significant changes to look out for in 2023.

Harnessing Artificial Intelligence

Whether you like it or not, AI and machine learning have arrived, and it’s already being utilised within SEO. Take our own SEO Bomb®, for example. Content creation, keyword research, search habits and trends, and backlinks, all of these areas are continuously improving thanks to AI.

Now, here’s the hard part. Artificial intelligence will make parts of your SEO strategy in 2023 easier, but it could also hinder your performance. While AI-generated content emerged as an SEO trend last year, so did the helpful content update from Google.

The helpful content update was rolled out to do pretty much what it sounds like, provide people using Google with helpful content. As a result, less original, spammy or non-authoritative content will be harder to see in search results.

Google now consider content wholly written by AI to be spam and could penalise a website if they consider their content to be spam.

So, while the rise of machine learning is exciting, we’re ecstatic about seeing where it can take the industry. We remain cautious in the amount of input AI tools have in our SEO; we want to use them to help us work smarter and faster. But, also be more vigilant about the results we’re seeing and rein back if we see penalties or poor performance. As the big question remains, Can AI content rank on Google?

Creating Helpful Content

Leading on from our previous point, this is the year you need to write helpful content. Making sure your content is genuinely relevant, helpful and original will be a significant asset to your 2023 SEO strategy.

Use a combination of keyword research, Google trends and target audience analysis to create a content strategy that aligns with the helpful content update.

We’ve covered the helpful content update on our blog, so take a look and get a better idea of how you should be writing to climb up search positions and keyword rankings.

Cookies and Consent Mode

This is more broadly related to digital marketing as a whole. Third-party cookies are mainly going the way of the dinosaurs and bringing a whole host of new headaches for website owners.

We estimate this is one of the most important 2023 SEO trends, but potentially one that will slip past the radar with many 2023 SEO strategies. Without going into too much detail, there will only be two forms of cookies in the future, but both still provide excellent marketing opportunities.

Check out HubSpot’s post on the death of third-party cookies, every marketer should grasp this for 2023.

Listening to the Industry

As linked above, the Search Engine Journal ‘State of SEO’ report is probably the best place to get the main challenges and areas to review for your SEO in 2023. The report has outlined five of the most important and impactful changes in 2023.

According to the data gathered within the report, the industry views the following as the biggest challenges in 2023:

1. Machine learning and AI (18.7%)
2. Google updates (18.0%)
3. Third-party cookie deprecation (13.9%)
4. Google zero-click pages (12.9%)
5. Talent competition (11.5%)

What Will Still Be Effective in 2023

It’s all good and well learning what you should do with SEO in 2023, but what if you’ve missed some critical trends that will still be useful? Here’s what we believe will still be incredibly effective and relevant tactics in 2023:

A Fast and Responsive Website

This one’s not just practical for SEO performance but for your digital marketing strategy. The better your website performs for your users, the better your chances of converting, keeping or retaining them. Keep an eye on those all-important core web vitals and make sure your site performs effectively.

Content Strategy

Though opinions on this differ, we believe content should be a core part of your SEO strategy; we’re a HubSpot and Google partner, so how could we not?! Continuing to make high-quality content that matches search intent and, most important, satisfies the user’s need! Whether looking to purchase a product or service or even get a definitive answer from an authoritative figure.

Link building 

There’s no doubting the importance of link building, mainly when Google uses backlinks to get an idea of how trustworthy a website is. Reach out to other companies for guest posting, and respond to journalist requests for insights and knowledge relevant to your industry. Go out there and gain those ever-important organic backlinks.

Extra Search Features

You will have noticed the rise of search features with search engines like Google last year. So much so that those so-called ‘zero-click pages’ have become very, very popular with users. This means you need to start aiming to get some of these features for your website if you haven’t already.

What to Expect with SEO in 2023

In this ever-evolving industry, the predictability of change can be volatile. But we’ve covered some of the most significant changes that have been outlined by ourselves and by the industry. What can expect is that those who fall behind with changes and updates will not maximise their SEO performance in 2023 as well as they could.

If we could leave you to begin the year with one solid piece of advice for your 2023 SEO strategy, it would be to think of your potential users. Do this at every step, every decision made, and every action you take this way, you can rest assured that you’re doing the right thing.

Don’t worry, though, ROAR can help. We have a team of dedicated, talented SEO specialists that live and breathe everything SEO.

Talk to our team today and explore how working with a Google partner can drastically reimagine your SEO in 2023 with our SEO management services.