This year, search engine optimization (SEO) marketers have witnessed an environment that has undergone significant shifts. These changes have influenced SEO strategies and created new opportunities for organizations. Examples of these improvements include adjustments to the page experience and Core Web Vitals, as well as an emphasis on aiding content. It is essential for companies to provide users with evidence of their knowledge and value in a manner that is compatible with the ever-evolving standards set by Google. The following is the information you require to be competitive in 2023.
Personalized Search
Personalized search is all about tailoring content to individual users based on their presumed interests. This can be applied to a variety of types of products and services, including local businesses, news sources, images, audio files, videos, etc.
This type of personalization has significant merits for consumers and opens up a world of upselling and cross-selling opportunities for companies. In the context of SEO, however, personalization can add an extra layer of complexity to establishing the relevance of content for an individual search query.
Unlike contextual search results, which are based on traditional ranking factors like authority and relevancy, search engine personalization takes additional information into account, such as the user’s location, language, search history, and device. Effectively leveraging this new twist on SEO can give marketers an invaluable edge over their competitors.
Voice Search
Voice Search is an emerging trend that’s affecting digital marketers across industries. For example, B2B companies should optimize their content for voice searches by targeting relevant long-form keywords. Moreover, it’s important to use FAQ pages to answer questions that commonly come up in voice searches (e.g., how to, what is, where, and when). Oftentimes, voice searches result in a Featured Snippet, which is the top organic search result on Google.
By leveraging schema markup and optimizing their Q&A pages, businesses can increase their chances of securing a Featured Snippet and improve their ranking on SERPs. Furthermore, this is a great way to ensure that the search engine understands what your content is about. For more information, check out CMI’s blog on Voice Search: Is Your Content Ready?
Rich Results
Rich results are a great way to enhance search engine result pages, increase organic click-through rates and boost overall organic traffic. They also add more credibility to a business and help search engines better understand what a page is about.
Rich Results are essentially tags that can be added to your web pages using structured markup and can include things like reviews, Q&A sections and videos. They are then displayed as a carousel or a box above traditional text results.
There are 32 different types of rich results, including featured snippets (which are the answer boxes that appear at the top of SERPs). Google’s SEO documentation shares a few ways to optimize for these features. For example, you can mark up your site’s logo, team images, and social media accounts.
Featured Snippets
Google’s featured snippets (sometimes called “answer boxes,” “quick answers,” or the more technical term, “position zero”) are special search results that directly answer users’ queries. They can be paragraphs, tables, lists, or videos. These special results are displayed above organic search results in a box or carousel.
You can increase your chances of earning a featured snippet by targeting query-like keywords with on-page optimization and using tools like Ahrefs to find keywords that already have a featured snippet. The most common form of a featured snippet is a definition, so target keywords that begin with “what is” or include the word “definition.” Keep in mind that snippets typically only contain 40–60 words, so be concise and direct. Google prefers content that clearly answers user questions and relates to their intent.
Diverse Content
Modern marketers must understand their audiences as individuals. This includes age, socioeconomic status, race, and gender. This diversity must be reflected in the content.
For example, if your audience has a higher risk of developing diabetes than other demographics, it would be wise to present information about the condition from multiple perspectives. This includes using different types of images and videos.
Authentic content that includes people from different backgrounds creates genuine brand engagement and establishes a lasting connection with your target market. According to a 2019 study by Google and The Female Quotient, consumers are more likely to consider or even purchase products from brands that offer diverse content. This is an SEO trend you can’t afford to ignore.