Whether you own a local business in Canada or are an international company wishing to expand your services across Canada, you need to ensure your website is optimized for Canadian search results.
Why?
Because on-page and off-page optimization are key to staying on top of the digital marketplace. And without an optimized website, your brand’s digital existence will be next to none.
Perhaps, this is your sign to contact an SEO outsourcing agency to optimize your website as per the search engine algorithms.
Besides, in this ever-evolving SEO landscape where search engines like Google continually update their algorithm to enhance the user experience, your partnership with a digital marketing agency can help your website stay fresh and competitive.
Also worth noting is that as algorithms update, it becomes crucial to incorporate new website optimization techniques, too. And one best way to stay up-to-date is by keeping up with the trends and predictions.
Listed below are a few trends that can come in handy to fortify your SEO strategy in 2023 –
1- Display first-hand experience with the content
Showcasing first-hand experience on the content topics you create is the number one SEO trend you should focus on.
Why? Well, it goes without saying. Search engines like Google want to provide their digital users with the most value-adding information possible. And if your content is capable of doing just that, there is no reason why your content won’t be prioritized by search engines.
The best way to ensure your content displays relevant expertise is by focusing on topics you have appropriate, real-world experience.
Tips to optimize for this trend in 2023 –
- Take an in-depth look into the existing content and topics that you have covered. The notion is to determine whether or not you are creating content within your wheelhouse, thereby displaying your experience and expertise.
- Identify who is writing for you. If you are hiring an SEO expert company for content optimization, ensure that the writer who is developing content for your firm knows your industry inside out. He/she must have appropriate knowledge of covering topics you wish to cover.
- Avoid the temptation of covering numerous topics take over. Why? Developing content that is outside your niche area can have a negative impact on your site’s ranking in the long run.
2- Prioritize conversational queries
If you have been overlooking conversational queries until now, it is time you prioritize them in 2023.
Why? Well, search engines focus on enhancing users’ search experience on a regular basis. They want to assist digital users in finding information promptly and easily.
To improve conversational queries, you first need to understand the complexities of the languages.
One of the launches of Google, LaMDA, was designed to better understand the natural language. Using LaMDA, Google aims to comprehend the dialogues digital users use to efficiently deliver results.
Here are some tips to optimize your site based on conversational queries –
- Since conversational queries are trending in 2023, you might want to emphasize voice search.
- With voice search optimization, you are bound to have the upper hand, given the natural language processing (NLP) of voice search can help understand conversational searches better – something Google prioritizes.
- To modify your site for voice search, you can –
- Focus on targeting the phrasings. For instance, when searching by typing, people might type, “best places to eat.” But, when it comes to searching verbally, the query can become “what are the best places to eat?” By choosing to modify for verbal searches, you can easily aim for conversational keywords.
- While focusing on conversational keywords, it is crucial to keep the answers short. The notion is to deliver helpful information as fast as possible.
- Almost every region across Canada uses varying phrases to describe objects and places. Considering the vernacular can make opt local SEO optimization for conversational tone successful, too.
3- Use video marketing to your benefit
In recent years, video marketing has gained immense popularity. This trend continues in the year 2023, too. Videos help in making purchase decisions faster compared to texts.
And with an increase in people watching videos, you will require prioritizing it to strengthen your overall SEO strategy. Besides, even Google is launching features to assist digital users in obtaining information faster using videos.
Two new features of Google include
3.1- Clip markup
Highlights the key sections of the video, thereby allowing the users to hop directly to parts that offer the information they seek.
3.2- Seek markup
This feature lets the search engine know how the URL structure works. This critical information tells Google to automatically showcase key moments of your video. Seek markup even makes it easier to link the specific section of a video.
Both of these launches can help you optimize your video so it can appear in the search results for competitive and relevant terms.
To optimize for video marketing, focus on –
- Incorporate videos on many pages across the site. Since digital users are biased toward videos, incorporating them into your content can significantly improve site traffic, ranking, and engagement rate.
- When using the features, be sure to use detailed and keyword-rich markups. For instance, if you have a video on “Five ways to save money,” avoid using markups like 1st way, 2nd way, and so on. Consider using markups like “Save by adding money to bank,” “Find an alternative to costly things in your life,” etc. The idea is to get ranked in relevant searches, thereby increasing the engagement rate of the video.
4- Strengthen your EAT signals
Amplifying EAT signals (expertise, authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is crucial, too. Even Google’s guidelines have stated the same multiple times.
Since user experience remains the central focus, you will require showcasing search engines that your site is worth visiting. And by doing so, you can significantly improve your site’s ranking.
To strengthen EAT signals, focus on customer testimonials, expertise, badges, social proof, etc.
Here are some website optimization techniques that can come in handy in optimizing for this SEO trend –
- When creating content for the website, always keep EAT in mind. For instance, adding value adding details to your content, such as facts and statistics, links to authoritative sites, display badges and awards, etc.
- Winning over links from authoritative sites can assist with EAT strategy, too.
5- Focus on image optimization and accessibility
Not all websites have taken the best practices suggested by Google seriously. If you are one of them, then this is your sign to prioritize them.
Take a look at the images on your site and determine how those images score on the optimization meter. The images on your site should serve optimally even for people who have visual impairment or disabilities. If they aren’t, work with an SEO agency that delivers image optimization in their on-page optimization services.
Keep in mind; images do more than just deliver the visual idea; they will prove useful in gain information, searching for shopping, and more.
Here is how you can optimize your website for image optimization and accessibility –
- Ensure to compress the images for fast-loading the site.
- Cater images in the next-gen configurations.
- Ensure to name the images properly. Use relevant keywords wherever possible.
- Provide the images with unique alt text.
6- Benefit from the featured snippets
Yet another impressive trend of 2023 is featured snippets. As time goes by, we assure you that featured snippets are going to become more prominent on search engines.
Featured snippets are result boxes that often appear just above the search results. They can be anything from bulleted lists to FAQs, single sentences, and how-tos.
Featured snippets are excellent for gaining better ranking on SERPs, given you aren’t required to craft long-form content. If your site manages to deliver valuable information, the chances of the content that proves relevant to the search can become eligible to be featured, too.
How can you optimize for this trend? Find the tips below –
- To ensure your content makes it to the featured snippet, consider thinking about the digital user, their search intent, and their searching pattern, and focus on producing question-based content.
- Use “People also ask,” and Google’s autocomplete to find profitable topics and keywords you can write content on.
- Also, ensure that the content you are producing via SEO Outsourcing Canada features relevant schema markup.
7- Employ semantically related keywords
Now that Google’s algorithms have become highly sophisticated with time, it is important to focus on semantics.
During a recent I/O conference, Multitask Unified Model, or MUM, was introduced by Google. This new I/O will have a huge impact on the future of search, given it is an AI that is capable of discerning intent and emotion in more than 75 languages from search queries.
There is nothing wrong is saying that the strings of text-to-match days are coming to an end. The future of search will now become more relevant and intuitive than ever.
Here is how you can optimize for this trend in 2023 –
- Rather than prioritizing a single keyword, try focusing your content creation on topic clusters. In simple terms, generate ideal customer personas that you wish to reach through your content and write for them with solutions that address the queries these customers might have. And don’t forget to use semantically related keywords and phrases in the content.
- Work with a keyword research company that is capable of thinking like the searcher to develop keyword lists and combinations that reverberate with your target audience.
8- Author authority is a must
Using AI, marketers are tapping into various avenues. For instance, now, it is easy to produce blogs and website content using AI.
But, even though AI reduces the time and effort required to produce written digital content, the 2023 search engine trend is all about content produced by real people. The reason behind this is, of course, AI’s limitation. No matter how evolved the AI gets, it simply cannot written digital content that manages to provide an array of value to the users. A real writer surely can!
That is why it is time to ensure all the content produced by your brand emphasizes author authority and expertise. In fact, it is crucial if you aim to enhance your ranks on SERPs.
How do you optimize for author authority? Here are some tips –
- Work with a local SEO consultant that has excellent knowledge of topics you wish to produce content on. If you wish to hire an in-house content writer, it is imperative that you highlight the writer’s expertise on your web page.
- You can include the author’s bio to showcase your author’s expertise and knowledge. If the author has social accounts, ensure to link them so the search engines know your writer is a real person. If you have multiple writers on the team, create author pages. This way, you can link every content the author has produced for your brand.
9- Mobile-friendly sites will never go out of trend
No matter what the year, mobile search is here to stay for the long haul. And since there is an immense increase in the number of mobile device users, it would be absurd not to prioritize mobile-friendly sites at all.
Here are some tips to keep in mind to ensure your site is mobile-friendly –
- Focus on producing websites that are easy to use on almost every device.
- Prioritize responsive design to ensure the site functions properly.
- Work with SEO agencies that employ various website optimization strategies to diversify the site’s functionality, irrespective of the device used.
10- Leverage SEO automation to scale up your brand like never before
Using AI at certain avenues of your business operations can prove to be a useful decision. For instance, there are various repetitive tasks that can easily be automated to streamline everything.
Perhaps you can invest your money in relevant software to automate SEO and make the most from it in 2023.
Here are some automated techs that Kelowna SEO companies use for added efficiency –
- Keyword research tools come in handy in finding high-value keywords in no time.
- Website monitoring platforms can help track numerous SEO metrics, including keyword ranking, website traffic, and so on.
- Website auditing tools used by PPC agency Canada gives complete PPC and SEO campaign score, thereby assisting in addressing the issues on time.
11- To sum it up
Irrespective of your brand’s geographical location, if you wish to stay on top of the competitive digital landscape, you need to continually keep tabs on SEO trends.
The top 10 search engine trends listed above can come in handy in producing fresh SEO strategies that not only help your website perform well but drive quality traffic, too.
Consider speaking with the experts at SEO Resellers Canada if you are finding it challenging to work on the trends listed above. Our local SEO marketing company has relevant expertise, tools, and resources at our disposal to produce strategies that resonate with our client’s goals, objectives, and target audience.