Current SEO Trends
In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), things move fast. Even the top experts never fully know what to anticipate because environments may change fast. On top of that, Google announces adjustments to its algorithm all the time.
While some people are OK with the “it depends” scenario, others demand in-depth study and tests to precisely predict the direction of SEO. Below, we are listing the top five SEO trends, as determined by data, the latest news, and our professional expertise.
1. Organic search wins over Google Ads.
Recent Google and Bing Ads revenue data blatantly show a downward trend. Google Ads income only climbed by 4.25% in October 2022. The most recent report revealed a 13.5% rise, and the one before that, a 22% increase. Simply put, this is an indication that businesses are lowering the price of sponsored advertising. Many marketing firms also claim that typical listing fees have decreased.
Experts in global finance predict that 2023 will most certainly usher in the Great Recession, making higher advertising expenditures unlikely.
The economic crisis is just one aspect of the issue. The human element is the second half. Since sponsored promotions are typically linked with products that aren’t excellent enough to establish popularity without advertising, people prefer to click on organic search results over adverts. This is likely the reason Google intends to alter the Ad label to Sponsored (and has done for mobile searches) since Sponsored sounds kinder.
However, businesses still need to draw in customers. Companies may allocate more funds to boosting their organic placements, which can only suggest that SEO will continue to be popular.
What to do?
You have two straightforward options to profit from this circumstance.
First, update your marketing initiatives. You can attempt them if your budget permits since some formerly expensive bids have become reasonable for your company.
Second, if your company must reduce spending on paid advertising, your only option is to improve your organic search optimization to outperform your rivals and draw in more customers. Try simple Google tools like Search Console and keep an eye on your site’s technical soundness if you’re unsure how to begin optimizing your website.
2. Zero-click snippets and featured snippets will become standard
This trend is a continuation of the prior one. Website owners will struggle to optimize their sites to get the most out of them because featured snippets and zero-click results receive the most attention (i.e., clicks and views) in organic SERPs, especially given the declining popularity of paid marketing.Â
How to handle highlighted snippets continues to divide the SEO industry. They definitely draw users’ attention and entice many clicks, but because users can access the information directly from the SERP, they also discourage users from clicking on the other SERP snippets. However, considering how frequently Google places highlighted snippets at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), their prominence cannot be understated.
What to do?
Your objective is to have your pages appear in featured snippets and zero-click results as these search results continue to receive more clicks. Google frequently pulls the details for zero-click results from structured data. Because of this, you may use schema markup that is appropriate for the type of content on the page in question.
3. E-A-T will carry on
Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, or E-A-T, is an ongoing trend that has been around for a while. 2023 won’t be any different, especially now that Google has verified that E-A-T is used for every inquiry.
What components makes up E-A-T? The above-mentioned knowledge, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are the result of a variety of factors. Backlinks from reliable websites, such as those in your specialty or more generic ones like Wikipedia, might be beneficial.
Niche experts’ linkless mentions of your website’s E-A-T are also advantageous. In addition, you and your authors should be concerned with personal branding because having a strong brand in a specific industry increases your authority and credibility.
The price of SEO services will rise as a result of the increased buzz surrounding E-A-T because:
- Experienced and well-known authors will charge more for their blog entries since, as demand increases, so do prices.
- Link-building and outreach will cost more.
- Product placement on reliable sources will be more expensive
- SEO firms will bill extra.
- Costs for all types of E-A-T-increasing services will rise as businesses compete with one another for customers.
Start putting money into building your brand right away rather than waiting until costs skyrocket. Maintain the caliber of your work, and collaborate with reliable sources to receive mentions. Be engaged in the public sphere (such as through podcasts, conferences, and specialized events) to establish your name recognition.
Promote a favorable corporate image while encouraging your partners and staff to do the same. Even today, reputation-building costs money, but it’s money well spent.
4. Increased use of AI content
Every day, AI content writers improve; their compositions get more insightful, well-constructed, and logical. Additionally, they are inexpensive (some solutions are even free), thus, increasingly, more SEOs are looking at them as a means to generate a ton of content with little effort and expense.
In actuality, AI content producers are yet not up to the task of taking the place of people. For lazy SEOs who abuse AI content and prioritize quantity over quality, this will probably end up being a trap. Additionally, keep in mind that the Google Helpful material upgrade, which was launched to punish low-quality material, is specifically looking for AI content that hasn’t been edited.
What to do?
AI content generators can assist you in content development, but they cannot take the place of professional authors. Therefore, especially if you’re on a tight budget, it’s not a good idea to entirely ignore AI technologies; instead, utilize them cautiously.
To start, you might use these tools to create rough outlines to get over writer’s block. Second, AI may assist in the creation of brief texts like headlines or outlines (which still require manual editing).
Last but not least, AI may assist you with localization; machine translation is less expensive than hiring a freelancer. But keep in mind that, like any AI-generated material, translations need to be manually edited. So it’s not a good idea to overstuff your pages with raw AI translations.
5. More people will use visual search.Â
In 2023, Google Lens and AI appear to reclaim the spotlight. In order to properly include images into its algorithm and eventually launch a multimodal search, Google appears to have improved the picture API.
If you had used Google Lens a while ago, you could see that it has improved much since then. Furthermore, there’s still an opportunity for development. 2023 will likely be the year when the MUM feature is ultimately realized as promised.
The problem here is that Google needs to be able to clearly “see” the details on the photographs (and maybe films soon) in order to correctly recognize the items in an image and search for related images online. The aesthetics of a website must thus be of a good caliber. But larger sizes also imply good quality.
Thus, the issue now arises. Heavy graphics slow down sites and might harm your rating. This may occur because Core Web Vitals (CWVs) and PageSpeed measurements are significantly impacted by extensive visual assistance, which ultimately degrades the user experience.
Can we anticipate Google lowering its standards for CWV and changing benchmarks? This is the query that hasn’t yet received a response.
What to do?
Take care of your image SEO approach while it’s still unclear whether Google will relax its PageSpeed requirements. Instead of sacrificing picture quality, implement lazy loading and a CDN to lessen server load and speed up page loading.
Create a distinct brand look to stand out from the competition, avoid using stock photos, and adjust page layouts to fit any device.
Writing appropriate alt texts for your photos and enhancing your sites with pertinent schema markup is another approach to help Google better understand and categorize them. For instance, if your website describes how to prepare pasta bolognese, include the Recipe schema markup so that Google can easily understand that the pasta in the page’s image is that particular pasta.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to SEO trends and Google, nothing can be said to be definite. However, based on current SEO trends, it is evident that quality will prevail over quantity, and AI algorithms are here to stay.
As you create your SEO plan for the upcoming year, keep the above-mentioned trends in mind, and may your ranks be high!
