Why SEO is Key to Growing Sales in 2023
How many times do you use Google Search in the course of the day? It’s probably more than you think. Google is now the ‘go to’ for online searches, running around 99,000 search queries per second both on mobile and desktop. If you’re selling online therefore, having a search engine optimised website is essential in order to be in the game. In this article we explain how SEO marketing works and we take a look at 3 SEO marketing trends in 2023.
What is SEO Marketing?
Search engines are now the most popular way for online shoppers to source products and services. There is, therefore, fierce competition for top ranking in Google, which means that your brand will be seen by searchers before anyone else’s. A series of techniques have developed to help businesses improve their website visibility, and these are organised under the umbrella title SEO marketing.
Each of the search engines use highly complex formulas, or algorithms, to rank pages in their search results. These are closely guarded ‘trade secrets’ that are constantly being adjusted, so there’s no handbook you can refer to. SEO experts work backwards from the top results to determine the search engine’s priorities, ranking factors, and overarching aims.
What Were the SEO Marketing Trends in 2022?
The goal of every search engine is to perfect the art of helping you find what you’re looking for.
In order to do this, they utilise:
- Keywords. The words that you enter when searching.
- Content. The relevance and quality of the web pages they return in results.
- Authority. The expertise demonstrated by the sources cited.
- Location. The geographical relevance of searches to your query.
In each year there will be trends, demonstrating the priorities of customers as perceived by the major search engines.
In 2022, there were 3 clear trends:
1. Site Security
Sites with ‘https’ in their url indicate they are secure (all data is encrypted) and are favoured by Google.
2. Page Loading Speed
As the number of searches increase, the time it takes for a page to load needs to decrease. Pages that load in 2 seconds or less are ranked higher by search engines.
3. Clean Design
The days of pop-ups are over. With mobile being the most popular way to search, pop-up ads are annoying and intrusive for users. Clean design is favoured.
3 SEO Marketing Trends in 2023
SEO experts are now beginning to predict where the SEO priorities will land in 2023, based on the kinds of activity seen in 2022. So far, there are 3 clear areas that businesses should focus on:
1. Adaptation to Continuous Scrolling
When you search on your phone, you don’t see ‘pages’ of search results, you simply scroll. This feature was introduced in 2021 and is expected to be extended to the desktop user experience in 2023 (in the UK). This immediately changes the competition for the ‘top spot’ on page 1.
It’s likely that the focus will move from ranking position, to the content and structure of information presented in each listing. Prepare to see businesses experimenting with customer feedback, FAQs, image carousels.
2. Helpful Content Rather Than AI Generated Content
AI technology continues to make huge leaps, and its use of language is now pretty sophisticated. So much so that there are now a number of sites offering AI generated web copy with excellent results for SEO.
Google favours content that prioritises the customer, rather than the generation of high SEO scores for the sake of it. It looks as though 2023 will be about favouring ‘helpful content’ over content written for SEO purposes by AI.
3. Voice Search Will Increase in Popularity
As the voice search function continues to improve, so searchers will begin to favour it over typed queries. This will provide a new challenge for SEO marketing strategy as we speak differently to how we write.
When looking for dog toys, for example, I might type ‘best dog training toys’ into Google. But if I’m speaking , I’m more likely to say “What’s the best dog training toy?”. New keyword strategies will be needed to incorporate spoken searches, as well as typed keywords.
Working With Imagefix
The SEO marketing team at Imagefix are always alert and alive to the changing landscape of SEO marketing; it’s what makes our job so exciting! If you’re wondering whether SEO marketing could increase your sales in 2023, give us a call to find out more about what we can offer. All our web designs are SEO optimised to be Google Friendly, and we can also apply search engine optimisation to existing websites.
Would you like to speak to a member of our team about SEO marketing for 2023? Give us a call today on 01525 715608
