7 Big Trends in SEO Content You Need Now

What awaits search engine optimization (SEO) in 2023? Knowing the answers can help you find the best SEO agency to work with and ensure your content is ahead of the curve.

Below are our top seven forecasts for SEO trends:

• Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning
• Keywords based on user intent
• Helpful content and E-E-A-T guidelines
• Structured data
• Platform and content diversification
• Technical SEO
• Strategic link building

We will expound on each below. Get ready to take some notes. Let’s go!

Want to learn more about the Digital Authority Partners approach to SEO? Watch this video!

7 SEO Trends You Must Consider Today

Trends come and go, but unless you adapt, your SEO efforts will be ineffective. Of the many digital marketing trends, which ones should matter to you?

Let’s talk about seven trends to keep in mind.

     1. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Automate SEO

Probably one of the defining online marketing moments in 2023 is AI SEO and machine learning. While these technologies might not displace excellent SEO specialists in the next few years, they can:

• Automate and personalize content updates
• Predict customer behavior and trends in search engine preference, helping to optimize content creation
• Optimize pages, such as their titles and meta descriptions
• Analyze internal links to ensure content is performing optimally
• Leverage powerful data analysis algorithms, so that businesses can adjust their SEO tactics cost-effectively

AI will also find its way into the search results with Bing’s integration of ChatGPT and Google’s BARD.

Some search engine results pages (SERPs) will have automated answers right on the page, which is both good and bad news. It elevates the user experience because people can get their answers quickly. On the other hand, it can also lead to lower click-through rates (CTRs).

    2. Keywords Based on User Intent for a More Precise Audience Targeting

In 2023, SEO specialists will need to focus on more than just keywords when optimizing content. You should learn how to analyze user intent. Ask, what is the searcher seeking?

This way, you can:

• Create content tailored to user needs
• Ensure the content resonates with your target audience
• Shorten the buyer's journey

One path to doing this is to use natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to analyze text for certain patterns and return intent-driven keywords.

It also pays to know your audience by heart.

• What is your buyer’s persona?
• How do your target customers research information? Do they often use mobile devices?
• What keywords do they use to find you and your competitors?
• What are the challenges and problems you want to solve?

     3. Helpful Content and E-E-A-T Guidelines to Build Trust

In 2022, Google introduced two significant updates:

• Helpful content, which stresses writing for humans first
• E for “experience” in E-A-T guidelines, which emphasizes the value of first-hand experience, especially when writing product reviews and copies that require extensive citations

Google continues to roll out these changes in 2023, and SEO marketers should anticipate a few more this year. Why?

It all boils down to building trust.

During this time of disinformation and fake news, Google wants to assure users that the content they find is accurate and trustworthy. While it is less likely to penalize content that does not violate search engine guidelines outright, it also rewards those that have the following attributes:

• Relevance
• Credibility
• Verifiability
• Authority
• Usefulness

     4. Structured Data to Boost User Experience (UX)

Structured data helps promote a positive user experience (UX) by allowing search engines to easily understand information on a website.

Further, it:

• Helps visitors quickly access the information they are looking for and navigate the site more efficiently
• Improves the effectiveness of SEO by allowing relevant metadata to be associated with particular web pages or pieces of content

Search engines will also exploit structured data more as they continue to curate, manage, and sift big data. Google, for instance, has adopted a “multi-modal” approach to search:

• Pulling up answers from both sites and other sources (such as video) in its featured snippets and answer boxes
• Populating Google Trends with the latest data on search queries
• Boosting the knowledge graph to create more accurate knowledge panels and carousels
• Delivering user-centric content through Google Discover

     5. Platform and Content Diversification to Reach More People

These days, your market is everywhere all at once, and that means one thing: the time is ripe for content and platform diversification.

The staples, such as websites and social media, will remain. But the 2022 digital marketing trends already showed that the most in-demand channels could change almost overnight. For example, TikTok once overthrew Google as the preferred search engine for the youngest generation.

For this year, consider expanding your content promotion and distribution options with the following:

• Voice search assistants, such as Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant
• Video-streaming platforms such as Twitch, Vimeo Live, and YouTube Live
• High-value content formats, such as podcasts and webinars
• Virtual- and augmented-reality experiences
• Ecommerce marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Shopify

     6. Technical SEO to Improve Site Performance and Accelerate Ranking

Technical SEO is the foundation of your website — and will continue to be so in 2023. This is because it:

• Boosts optimization performance by fixing problems or issues that prevent search engines from indexing your content correctly
• Improves site performance, such as page loading speed and mobile usability
• Gives you an edge in UX by making the navigation of your website more intuitive and enjoyable
• Makes SEO efforts more efficient through automated processes, such as XML sitemaps and structured data
• Lets you optimize pages for mobile

Technical SEO also impacts web core vitals, another metric that Google has introduced to measure a website’s performance in three areas:

• Page loading speed
• Interactivity
• Visual stability

The importance of improving web core vitals is partly due to the growth of the 5G internet. This technology will significantly increase the demand for lightning-fast loading times.

     7. More Strategic Link Building to Enhance Organic Reach

With thousands of new pieces of content published daily, the ultimate deal breaker (which also sets you apart from your competitors) is the quantity and quality of backlinks.

To achieve this goal in 2023, you should:

• Focus on creating content pieces that are high-value and worthy of link building
• Engage in creative link-building tactics such as broken-link building, resource page linking, blog commenting, strategic guest blogging, etc.
• Develop relationships with other industry players to acquire more backlinks
• Use social media platforms to promote content and build relationships organically
• Strengthen internal linking with topic clustering.

Summing Up

The digital marketing trends for 2023 are in full swing. It is time to implement the above strategies and prepare for a great year of better results, a higher ROI, and more traffic.

As always, keep current with changes and evolve with the industry. Digital Authority Partners (DAP) is also here to help you maximize your digital strategy this year. Contact us today to get started.