The technical aspects of search engine optimization, or SEO for short, are constantly changing. What was current in SEO trends in recent years can no longer be important in this year 2023. It is all the more important to stay up to date and follow the latest trends. For this reason, in this article we present the 8 most important SEO trends that are important for you in 2023.

By and large, the search engine giant Google has one goal: It wants to provide the user with the best possible results – this is also the case with the current SEO trends for 2023. In order to make your own website the best possible result, you could use many technical tricks to get your website to the top of the ranking. But it’s not that easy anymore, because Google is constantly improving and the requirements for a good ranking are becoming more and more complex. It is therefore important to stay up to date and to find out about the latest trends. We would now like to explain eight of them to you in more detail.

1. Rich Snippet Optimization

The rich snippet function will become increasingly important in the SEO trends of 2023. Relevant questions are increasingly being answered using rich search results directly in the Search Engine Result Pages, or SERPs for short. This sometimes leads to other search results being promoted to the second page in the ranking. It is therefore important that you optimize your rich snippets as much as possible. The rich snippet can include other elements such as ratings, links, images or dated events. As soon as you know which information is relevant for your company, you should store it in the source code. In this way they are then formatted and played out via Google.

2. Video content

YouTube now has more than 2.5 billion active users worldwide. So this clearly shows: Videos are more popular than ever and should therefore also be considered in your SEO strategy. So if you haven’t created any video content yet, then it’s time by 2023 at the latest. If you already have videos on your website, you can optimize them even further. First of all, you should customize the name and video description. Unlike the name of the video, the description isn’t just about using keywords, it’s mostly about giving an overview of your channel’s topic.

But of course, keywords are also an important factor to consider. If you want to optimize a video, you can use the automatic completion of the YouTube search, for example. The suggestions you see here give you a good overview of what users are currently searching for, similar to Google Suggest.

3. EAT Score

One of the most important things about the 2023 SEO trends, or search engine optimization in general, is that the quality of the content is critical to ranking. Google emphasizes this again and again. But what exactly does quality mean for the search engine?

Here, Google refers to the EAT Score. this stands for Expertise , Authority and Trust . Since the Google Core Update, these factors determine whether the content of a website is useful and what its quality is. The EAT score is particularly important in business areas that deal with the YMYL context. This stands for “Your Money or Your Life” and is therefore used particularly in healthcare or in the financial sector. The score evaluates websites and content where a recommendation can have a negative impact on the searcher.

So if you are in this industry, it is particularly important for you to pay attention to your content. To do this, you must first create your buyer persona so that you can ensure that the target audience is getting the right content. With the definition of the search intent, you can then create your customer journey and the corresponding content. When creating the content, always keep the EAT factors in mind. This means that statements must always be backed up with facts and statistics. It also helps to go to reputable websites with the domain extensions .edu or gov. to refer.

4. Mobile Optimization

If your website isn’t already mobile-friendly in 2023, you should do so very soon to stay ahead of SEO trends. Because now more than half of the search traffic comes from mobile devices via Google search. Operation via smartphone or tablet is very different from operation via computer. The screen and the fonts are much smaller and look completely different. If you don’t adapt your website to the format, it’s possible that users will jump off you because the UX isn’t pleasant. So adapt your website accordingly and also make sure that the loading times are still within a pleasant range. Especially with regard to the fact that in 2023 the focus will be on mobile local SEO, you should develop here.

5. Voice Search

Opinions differ somewhat on the importance of voice search in SEO. Some see this as not important at all, while others assume that a large number of search queries now come from voice control. In fact, it’s still very difficult to estimate how much voice control will affect organic search. Nevertheless, there is no denying that many people are now using the voice control of assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Cortana and voice search is therefore an important topic.

Voice search is primarily about achieving the coveted “0 position” in the search results with its optimized content. In order for this to happen, your own page must be displayed as a featured snippet. The point here is that you think again about which W-questions the users have and then answer them in a compact and easily understandable way. Also make sure to work with well-formulated sentences and not just optimize everything for certain keywords.

6. Long tail SEO

Zero-click searches are becoming more and more of a problem for website operators. These are short search queries where the answer is already displayed in the search results. The user no longer has to click on a website, but can end his search directly. This can result in missing out on valuable traffic.

However, this problem only arises with very simple or frequently occurring search queries. Therefore, as a website operator, you should increasingly rely on long tails, as they are associated with more complex search queries. So instead of SEO-optimizing on simpler words, you should rather target longer search terms or entire questions and optimize for them. So you have a good chance of going on the path of zero-click search.

7. Core Web Vitals

It started with the first updates in the summer of 2021, but the Core Web Vitals have become increasingly important for a good Google ranking. The search engine mixed up SERPs and pushed out one update after the other. The most important finding: The page experience is gaining in importance and is also determined by the core web vitals in the SEO trends 2023. The most important key figures for this are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): With this metric, the loading time for the main content in the user’s field of vision can be specified in milliseconds.

First Input Delay (FID): This value also stands for a time in milliseconds. In this case, until the first possible interaction of the user with the page. This is something like clicking on a link or entering data in a form.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): The CLS value indicates whether and how much the layout has changed after loading the page.

8. Google Core update in May 2022

In May 2022, Google released an announced update. Referred to as May 2022 Core Update by the search engine itself, there were already various findings after the first few weeks. The main message: With the update, Google tries to better recognize and fulfill the search intention. This is expressed in the ranking developments on the World Wide Web as follows:

Specialists are more serious than generalists: specializing in an industry or a specific topic has gained in weight for ranking on Google. On the other hand, publishers that cover all topics – such as portals such as T-Online or Chip – are becoming less important.

Useless accessories are becoming less: Stock photo sites or online dictionaries are becoming less important because Google does not consider this content to be useful in the top 10.

Direct way to the video: A particularly good update for YouTube. The video portal is gaining in importance. Pages that hide suitable videos, such as cinema trailers, behind deserts of text lose relevance as a result.

Conclusion on the SEO trends for 2023

In the SEO trends 2023 there are no revolutionary new approaches compared to the previous year 2022. However, you should make sure that you focus more specifically on individual aspects, such as optimization for mobile devices or the user experience. Ultimately, it comes down to a combination of different factors that ultimately determine a good placement in the search engines. So keep yourself up to date with the latest developments so that you can always optimize your website if necessary. This is how you manage to get to the top of Google.