In today’s era of technological advancement, if you apply SEO to your business website but don’t optimize the site from time to time with the latest Google updates, you’ll lag for sure. SEO is all about keeping yourself and your business updated with the latest trends. If you don’t research regularly and keep learning and applying the changes to your sites, you can’t keep pace with your competitors in your niche. So, let’s learn how to keep up with SEO trends in 2023 (ultimate hacks) from this blog.
Stay Up-to-Date with SEO Trends
If you want to keep yourself well aware of the latest SEO Trends please go through this blog-”15 Latest SEO Trends in 2023.” Now, here I’ll focus on some additional facts to keep your business site updated with modern trends. So, let’s get started.
Just have a look at the things you need to do to stay updated with SEO trends:
- Perfectly Optimized Search Engine-Friendly Articles
- Topical Authority
- Link Building Plan
- User Experience
- Voice Search
- Optimize for Semantically Related Keywords
- Optimize images or photos for SEO
Now, let’s discuss all these steps thoroughly.
1. Perfectly Optimized Search Engine-Friendly Articles
Well, writing such articles is not just a task but an art. You need to be an artist to come up with such articles. Yes, you heard that write because you need to complete each step here artistically. Do the following things to develop a perfectly optimized search engine-friendly article.
a) Keyword Research:
Google organic search will help you a lot. Again, nowadays, various keyword research tools are available such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, Ahrefs, Surfer, and the like. Find out your target keywords and related keywords. Consider match types and negative keywords. Go for long-tail keywords because they are less competitive and give you better results.
b) Content-Type: Keyword Search Intent:
Write your target keyword in the Google search bar to see which Google is ranking which type of content now. You’ll get an idea about which content are helpful from Google’s point of view. You can also get an idea about the search patterns. When you’ll understand the search intent of people, you’ll be able to create your content better.
c) Perceive the Ideal Article Length:
Read the top best articles on your topic and consider the length of those articles. Make an average of the length of those articles and try to keep your article length within that range. This is a manual procedure. You can also use keyword research tools like SEMRush and the like to get this ideal length.
d) Search Google to Get the Right Article Format:
When you are searching in Google, you’ll get the top articles on the first page, and try to read the top ten articles and get an idea about the right format of your article.
e) Develop an Outline by Evaluating the Top Results:
Now that you’ve read the top ten articles on your topic, develop a unique outline by evaluating those articles.
f) Generate a Question List from the Section “People also ask” of the Search:
Generate this question list from the section “People also ask” of Google search, and try to answer those questions in your article. Make your article helpful, and informative, and follow the EEAT principle of Google.
g) Place Keywords in Titles:
First, understand the difference between the meta title and the post title. The meta title is for the Search Engine Optimization and the post title is for your readers. Place your target keywords in your meta title. You need to keep your meta title within 55 to 65 characters.
h) Develop Post Meta Description:
Each WordPress SEO plugin lets you include a meta description for your post. Place your target and related keywords in your meta description and try to keep its length within 155 to 165 characters. This meta description plays a vital role to rank your content in the SERPs.
i) Image Alt Text:
Google won’t be able to read the images in your article. So, you need to name them exactly. Several people make the mistake of using images with names like “image:02”, but Google won’t recognize such images. Suppose, you have used a screenshot of a digital marketing plan, you need to name it-”digital-marketing-plan”. You need to use your keywords in the alt text of the images, it will increase the chance of appearing those images in the search results.
j) Interlink within the Post:
Consider linking back to the old posts of your site, it will increase your site’s vitality to Google and it will give Google a possibility to revisit those old posts of your site. It will ensure improved navigability of your website and it will also decrease the bounce rate. During interlinking, consider using the anchor text technique.
k) Eliminate Stop Words from Permalink:
Do you know that some words are ignored by the search engines such as articles a, an, and the? Apart from these, there are also other words that the search engines ignore. Generally, your post titles have many stop words. You need to eliminate or remove these stop words while writing a post permalink.
For instance, your post title is 15 ways to prepare a business plan. Here, to and a are stop words. Just click on “edit permalink” and edit it as “business plan”.
l) Apply the Exact Heading Tag:
Apply the exact heading tags such as H1, H2, and H3 tags in your article. Generally, you’ll use the H1 tag for your post title, an H2 tag for the following subheading, and then an H3 tag for another subheading, and so on. As per SEO rules, using keywords in H1, H2, and H3 tags is a good practice.
2. Topical Authority
A topical authority is a concept of SEO where a site or website focuses to become the proven authority single or multiple topics. Developing topical authority means letting search engines know the topic of your website so that it can rank your site for topically relevant keywords. You can build topical authority in four ways:
- Perform keyword research so that you can get all the vital aspects of a topic.
- Arrange the data or information into topic clusters.
- Develop content that fulfills the topic keywords’ search intent.
- Develop relevant or related internal links and external links to the content.
3. Link Building Plan
Suitable links will let you get more traffic to your website. Always keep in mind that link building was invented to send the readers to other pages from the page they are currently reading. So, make sure that you send them to the right and relevant pages where they’ll get helpful content to read. You need to have a link-building plan to do your job accordingly.
You can develop a link-building plan by following these steps.
a) Get knowledge of your audience:
When your motive is to attract more visitors to your site, you should know things like who is your audience. What do they look like? It’s better if you know the difference between the target audience and the target market. It will let you target and expand your present audience and attract new audiences who might be interested in your offerings.
Perform research to know the audience. It will let you know them better, and you can decide who your actual audience is, along with whether you are reaching them now.
b) List those sites that are attractive to your audience:
Now, list those sites that are appealing to your audience. Those websites’ links will let you reach the people that can be interested in your site but have no clue about it yet. Remember that you don’t need links from each website because a spammy website’s link or a site that is not at all compatible with your industry is of no use. Even in many cases, it might harm your search rankings.
So, be aware of spammy websites. Link building is an art. Having these links need to seem like a general marketing effort and a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization approach’s part.
c) Write supreme quality content:
As I’ve already mentioned above, make your content helpful, and informative, and follow the EEAT principle of Google. Your contents need to have supreme quality so that other sites will like to link to your site. Your contents need to be the solution to your audience’s pain points. Develop content quality that replies to your audience’s questions, not just markets your services or products.
Give your audience the information that they need. It will not only develop trust, but also you’ll have more links to your site because other sites will understand your content’s value. Ensure your articles and pages are readable, nicely written, and well structured. Consider hiring a content writing agency for supreme quality content and consider some things carefully before hiring.
d) Compare content to competitor sites’ content:
If you are satisfied with your written content, now compare your content with the competitor sites’ content. The list you prepared in step (b) will help you here. Think about which websites will want to link to your written content. You can feel like sending your created everything to each site on the list, but it will damage your probability of any site wanting to link to your article.
Be choosy to find the sites that match your blog post’ or page’s particular topic. Probably, these sites will be wanting more to link because your blogs match their content. Again, visitors coming to your site following those links will be interested in your blogs, making the probabilities of repeated visits and conversions much higher.
Here, a positive thing is that if you are a follower of long-tail keyword patterns, your competitor websites’ numbers won’t be large. So, these few sites will be more likely to link your created content.
e) Contact your desired websites:
When you have decided which websites you like to contact, try to send them emails, or contact them through social media such as Twitter. You need to know these websites and their audience to enhance your probability to get the backlink. It will help you contact them in a personalized way. Don’t send out direct messages or automated emails.
Consider sending them a gentle email where you’ll tell shortly about your blog posts and ask them to link to your articles or content. Remember, mostly, you won’t get any replies at all. Try explaining the reason for which your posts are unique to increase your chances to get a link to the content. Don’t make the email too long because then people won’t read that at all.
f) Apply social media:
You can also get links by utilizing social media. Ensure that you share the latest content through social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Thus, you can have your content promotion and reach newer people. When some people will share, like, and comment on your content on social platforms, you’ll also get some links.
4. User Experience
You can improve your site’s SEO and user experience by following these steps:
- Make the site responsive:
It will improve visitors’ experience on tablets and phones. Mostly, Google uses content mobile versions for ranking and indexing, even if the visitors are only on desktops.
- Divide your content:
Use headlines, graphics, and bulleted lists to divide your content into easier, and smaller readable pieces. Avoid using larger paragraphs that can make your visitors go to other sites for their desired information. Keeping visitors longer on the site can signal to Google that your content is helpful.
- Develop the page loading time and the site speed:
When you have a faster site speed and the page loading time is also quick, your visitors don’t need to wait longer for their needed information. They can instantly go to their required page for the desired information.
- Ensure easy navigation:
You need to make the navigation on your site easy. If the users are on your site for their required information and your site has some other pages in which they might also be interested, they need to find those pages easily.
- Minimize the bounce rate:
When your site’s bounce rate is high, it means that the users can’t find their needed information quickly or they are facing some other issues for which they are leaving the site immediately. If you can improve the user experience, the bounce rate will decrease.
- Develop the site’s hierarchy:
Organize your site’s pages intuitively to ensure easy navigation through the site for your users. The site navigation guides your users from page to page, so try to make it so intuitive that it improves the user experience.
5. Voice Search
71 percent of users like to ask a voice search question instead of typing one. As your life is becoming more hectic day by day, you’ll obviously prefer a voice search. In such a scenario, keep your site optimized for voice search in the following ways:
- Search and apply conversational keywords:
Short and direct keywords harm your SEO strategies. Long-tail and mid-tail keywords can help you get more visitors because they are more specified. Again, if you can optimize your site for voice searches, you’ll be golden. You need to search and apply conversational questions and full phrases if you want to keep your site voice search optimized.
Keyword research tools will aid you in this regard. Try selecting all the conversational phrases such as why, what, who, where, how, and the like.
- Develop an FAQ section:
This FAQ section on your site is truly workable for your SEO. People looking for answers to their questions, come to your site and get their answers to their frequent questions, and they’ll become satisfied.
- Be multilingual:
If your audience speaks in multiple languages, try becoming multilingual. Suppose, in Bangladesh, most people speak Bengali, some people are more comfortable with English. In such a scenario, if your website is only available in the English language, you’ll lose that audience who are more comfortable in Bengali.
- Claim your business on Google Profile:
Around half the voice searchers search for information about local businesses every day. So, claim your business on Google Profile.
- Make your site mobile-friendly:
Around 20 percent of all mobile searches are done with voice search. So, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, your users will go away from your site. So, have a responsive design, no interruptive gaps, quick loading time, and easy readability to make your site mobile-optimized.
- Develop the domain authority:
When you have the desire to get yourself heard in voice searches, you need to place your site on the first page of SERPs. So, improve the SEO efforts like user experience, technical issues, backlinks, and local searches.
- Have featured snippets for the site:
Around 40.7 percent of voice searches result from featured snippets. If your site has an FAQ section, you have already completed most of the task. Because voice search and featured snippets both prefer clean and short replies to the users’ queries. Use simple language to be at the top.
- Apply schema markup:
Schema markup keeps your site information structured and structured data lets the search engines know the motive of every component on a page and choose the relevant answers to the users’ queries.
- Engage with your audience on social platforms:
Social platforms are also voice-search-optimized. Voice search outcomes sometimes have lots of shares and likes from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the like. So, keep yourself engaged with the audience on social platforms.
- Get your videos ranked in the search results:
If you want to get your videos ranked and appear in voice search in Google, you need to do the following:
⨳ Use conversational long-tail words in your titles.
⨳ Use keywords in your transcript and description of the video.
⨳ Include a clickable thumbnail.
6. Optimize for Semantically Related Keywords
Keep your site optimized for semantically related keywords in the following ways:
- Keep your site optimized for keyword clusters.
- Improve the content length and topical depth.
- Add related terms and synonyms.
- Give replies to “people also ask” questions.
- Include structured data.
- Utilize tools for content optimization such as Google Docs, Grammarly Extension, SEMRush, Ahrefs, and the like.
- Develop topic clusters on the site.
7. Optimize images or photos for SEO
Do it in the following ways:
- Perform an audit to see whether all images are optimized.
- Ensure that all images are compressed.
- Include relevant keywords and names to all images.
- Add unique Alt. text. Or tag in all images.
- Convert all images into a next-gen format like WEBP.
Final Words:
Now, you must have become well aware of how to keep up with SEO trends in 2023. If you have further please check out the FAQ section and need any digital marketing assistance, please contact digiSocial.