The reality is as long as search engines exist, then so will SEO! We know it’s hard to keep up - Google is constantly updating its algorithm to be smarter and deliver more accurate results, so staying up to date with all the changes is almost a full-time job!

In addition, the SEO space has become incredibly competitive with more players than ever, so the days of doing the bare minimum and getting great results are well and truly gone.

So, if you really want to succeed in the digital marketing world, then it’s time to invest the time and effort to catch up. Here’s our top five SEO tips or 2023 to help you succeed:

1. Copy Alone is NOT king

SEO is more than just creating lots of content, including key search words or terms and adding backlinks. It’s about quality too. Google is keeping a closer eye on the accuracy and relevance of content so creating meaningful and useful content is crucial.

It’s not just written content either, videos are more engaging and result in increased visit duration and engagement. The longer a visitor spends engaging with your website (e.g., visiting multiple pages and viewing videos etc), the better it will rank. So, make sure you include a variety of quality content – especially videos!

As artificial intelligence technology develops and becomes more sophisticated, search engines will also be able to deliver better results. Multitask Unified Model or MUM is Google’s new multimodal technology, using an AI-powered algorithm which has the capability to understand information across a variety of formats including pictures, video and more than 75 languages!

A traditional blog post may have only existed in essay or article form but nowadays they must also include videos, graphics and even downloadable content such as fact sheets too. Using unique images are important too – have you tried Google’s image search? It’s pretty easy to find the original source so avoid stock images and always use your own!

2. Focus on UX and mobile 

User Experience (UX) design is the process of developing a website that will deliver an improved or optimal user experience by looking at things like usability, accessibility, and information layout. A UX designed website will include more conversion points and calls to action, easier navigation and reduced page load times (aka dead time when you are most likely to lose a visitor’s interest).

While UX is becoming more commonplace, the focus often remains primarily on desktop and mobile is forgotten. Yet, more searches are happening on mobile, so taking the time to understand and implement UX design principles to your mobile site is equally, if not more important.

As we’ve already mentioned, the more time and engagement your website or content receives the better the search ranking and results, so for the love of SEO – don’t’ forget about mobile!

3. Everyone’s got to E-A-T

Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness – also known as E-A-T - are the three key Google guideline you need to follow in order to create and share digital content that performs well.

Basically, the guidelines ask two questions - what’s the purpose and how beneficial is the website or content to users? This means a website which solely focusses on making money will be ranked lower than one that has a clearer goal and function of helping people!

Even if you’re a product-based business, you can still provide useful and free information to your existing and potential customers - starting by clearly defining who you are and what you do on your home page. Sharing regular news updates, blogs, top tips, how to’s and case studies are easy another way to supplement and balance your e-commerce content with helpful E-A-T content.

The benefits of creating strategic content like this are not limited to SEO. You can also share this content across your social media platforms and in e-newsletters too. Content that meets E-A-T guidelines will greatly assist in positioning your brand or organisation as a thought leader, which also helps improve credibility and increase brand awareness.

4. Longtail key words 

In our digital world it’s all too easy to become fixated on quick results, big numbers and data, so we often forget about qualitative factors – but more is not always better. One good example of this the use of short-tail vs long-tail key words.

While long-tail key words may cast a broader net and receive lower search volumes, the chances are these users will have a higher level of intent and be closer to converting than those using short tail key word searches. A good SEO strategy should have a combination of both short and long-tail keywords to capture users at all stages of the customer journey.

5. Digital PR

Unlike traditional PR, which focusses on securing news coverage in a limited number of mainstream print, TV and radio media outlets, Digital PR is about gaining brand mentions across a much wider range of digital platforms, social media and news sites. While most traditional media do have some digital presence, there are also an abundance of new digital media outlets, that primarily or only exist online!

Digital PR helps to create credible backlinks - the primary source Google uses to check the authority and popularity of a website. A couple of focus areas for Digital PR include blogger outreach - identifying and building relationships with industry influencers to secure content and/ links on their website, and the creation of a Digital Newsroom where official media releases, announcement, infographics, fact sheets and other downloadable resources are housed,

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With almost 20 years of experience in strategic business consulting as well as traditional and digital marketing, and a dedicated full-time SEO team located in Melbourne and Jaipur, knowing and implementing the latest developments and updates is a priority at Sentius.

If you need support with your SEO and digital marketing, contact us today on 1300 818 188 or visit sentiusdigital.com for a free 90-minute consultation.