What’s happened to SEO in 2023? The story so far

Every marketer and business owner knows the importance of SEO. The first requirement of every website is to “be findable”. In other words, a website needs to appear prominently in search results to users who are searching online for a product, service or other information which the website offers.

To achieve this, many website owners use search engine optimisation (SEO) specialists to ensure that their website appears for a range of search terms (words and phrases) that their target users or buyers may use.

Google, Bing and other search engines have ‘traditionally’ updated their search algorithms regularly, in order to improve search results accuracy and effectiveness but also to undermine techniques used by some ‘black hat’ SEO specialists to game the system and achieve an unfair advantage.

Content really is now king: major update in 2023

In March 2023, Google released their first major update of 2023, focused on improving the quality of search results. This update was designed so that websites with great content are more likely to rank higher, while those with poor content might struggle.

As a result, in 2023 website owners must now focus on creating and improving their content to stay competitive – i.e. to ‘rank’ in Google.

Before we look at what this means in more depth, it’s worth taking a look at some of the basic requirements for SEO up to 2023.

Basic SEO requirements to 2023

As mentioned above, the basic requirements for SEO involve optimising your website and content to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages.

While SEO strategies can be complex, the fundamental requirements to consider until now include the following:

High-Quality and Relevant Content: Create content that is original, well-written and informative, and addresses the needs and interests of your target audience. Focus on providing value and answering their questions.

Keyword Research: Identify and target relevant keywords that users are likely to search for. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your content, including titles, headings, meta descriptions and body text.

On-Page Optimisation: Optimise your web pages by ensuring proper title tags, meta descriptions, heading tags (H1, H2, etc.) and URL structures. Use descriptive and concise tags that accurately represent the content on each page.

Site Structure and Navigation: Design your website with a clear and logical structure that allows search engines and users to navigate easily. Organise your content into categories and use internal linking to establish a hierarchy and facilitate exploration.

Mobile-Friendliness: With the majority of internet users accessing content through mobile devices, ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly. Optimise page loading speed, utilise a responsive design and offer a seamless user experience across different devices.

Technical SEO: Ensure your website is accessible and crawlable by search engine bots. Address technical issues like broken links, duplicate content, XML sitemaps and canonical tags. Implement structured data markup to enhance search engine understanding of your content.

Backlinks and Off-Page SEO: Build a healthy backlink profile by acquiring quality links from reputable websites. Focus on creating valuable and shareable content that naturally attracts backlinks. Engage in ethical and legitimate link-building practices.

User Experience (UX): Provide an excellent user experience by optimising your website’s design, layout and functionality. Make it easy for users to find what they need, navigate your site and engage with your content.

Social Media Marketing: Engage with your audience on social media platforms and encourage social sharing of your content. Social signals, such as likes, shares and comments, can indirectly influence your search engine rankings.

Regular Monitoring and Analytics: Continuously monitor your website’s performance using analytics tools. Track important metrics like organic traffic, keyword rankings and conversion rates. Analyse the data and make necessary adjustments to your SEO strategy.

Remember, SEO is an ongoing process and it’s essential to stay updated with the latest industry trends, search engine algorithm changes and user behaviour to adapt your strategy effectively.

Google’s 2023 Update

In the first week of March 2023, Google updated its product review system, making it more relevant to different types of reviews.

Later in the month, they introduced their first major update of 2023, focusing on improving the quality of search results.

This means that websites with great content are more likely to rank higher, while those with poor-quality content are likely to struggle. This raises the bar for website owners, who now need to focus on producing high-quality content for their sites more than ever in the past.

The greater emphasis on ads

Google is now also showing more sponsored content (ads) at the top of search results, pushing organic results further down the page.

This can make it more challenging for websites to get clicks from organic search results.

In addition to these changes, local search results have also been affected. Businesses in larger towns or cities might rank higher than those in smaller towns or rural areas, even if they’re closer to the person searching.

Early in April, Google made an unannounced change that caused some strange ranking effects. Experts believe the firm may have been testing something, and that there may have been a small reversal of the March update.

Reviews and original research

Google’s April update also extended the emphasis on product reviews (launched in March) to other services and topics such as destinations, attractions, movies, books and games.

This appears to have benefited larger companies like Amazon which have thousands of reviews, while smaller companies who have no mechanism for producing or displaying reviews may potentially lose out.

To compete, business websites need to focus on creating insightful analysis and original research in their content.

Other changes

Among SEO professionals, there is some confusion about whether Google has de-prioritised or removed certain ranking factors, or just changed the way they rank websites based on factors like mobile-friendliness, page speed and security.

This makes the coming months of 2023 very uncertain for all website owners. While no marketer wants to see page rankings falling, they should be ready for some turbulence in their SEO metrics.

The key – as agreed across the SEO industry – will be for website owners to continue focusing on high-quality content and improving the user experience, whilst adapting to the changing landscape of search results.

Conclusion

In conclusion, C4B Media’s SEO recommendation is that website owners should continue to focus on:

1. Developing new, original, high-quality content
2. Providing an intuitive and seamless user experience for website visitors
3. Constantly monitoring Google’s algorithm changes and adapting to them

Focus on these SEO aspects of your website and reduce attention to smaller details that Google previously highlighted.

And don’t forget: if you need top-class expertise to keep your website optimised for the ever-shifting SEO landscape, you can always contact the experts at C4B Media.

Ready to turn your marketing around?

C4B Media are a team of experienced marketers. Please contact us if you are looking for fresh ideas to help grow your business on 01763 877110 or hello@c4bmedia.com