Change is the only constant in the universe and time waits for none. So if you fail to change with time chances are, you’ll become obsolete.
No matter how good an equation is, there is always a slight chance for eccentricity. Similarly unpredictable is the SEO industry with algorithms evolving by the day.
The change is so fast a unique that the best SEO strategies used a year ago may seem completely redundant a year later.
Decades back in the 90s, the best and sure-shot way to get a website ranked well in SERP was the repeated use of keywords throughout the Meta tags and Web pages.
However, those good old easy days went extinct swiftly with the introduction of Google’s PageRank algorithm. It triggered an SEO revolution that is still evolving.
With every New Year come new SEO trends. Although some of the SEO best practices may persist, new trends and factors come into play nonetheless.
We have gone from using CRT monitors to little computers dangling in our pockets and likewise, have websites changed in forms and formats.
This means even though you have a well-greased SEO strategy working for you last year, you may still have to reformat your strategy for this year.
So What Is SEO and Why Are the Latest SEO Trends so Important?
If you are our regular visitor then you’ll not that we do ask and answer this question in many of our posts. This is because only by knowing what is SEO will you be able to know how to have a successful website.
SEO involves the use of a combination of strategies to increase your website visibility for a particular keyword search result in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) of any search engine.
In other words, SEO helps businesses and organizations attract new prospects through online search. We can safely assume that 90% of internet activities start with a search query and about 50% of web traffic comes from organic search.
Essentially, SEO helps to get a target audience and attract potential clients to your website. It does so by improving UX, boosting trust and credibility, influencing the buyer circle, increasing organic traffic, and other things. Besides, SEO is cost-effective as well as measurable.
By learning and employing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) latest trends you can ensure your website’s performance in the SERP.
Besides knowing the latest trends in SEO is critical because search engine algorithms keep updating themselves constantly and the majority of internet users concentrate on organic search results.
Your SEO strategy needs to be the best and it will remain so only if you are up to date with the ever-changing SEO trends.
Understanding SEO marketing trends help in being prepared for the future. It enables you to optimize your content and website for better Google ranking through search visibility. Hence, here are some top SEO trends that may need your focus.
SEO Current Trends
1. IndexNow
Google is expected to make use of the IndexNow protocol soon. If you don’t know, IndexNow is an open-source engine used by search engines for discovering new content. Its specialty is that it uses the push method instead of the conventional pull approach.
Besides, IndexNow pushes information to search engines from websites as soon as they put a new post, delete a post, or updated content.
It is worth noting that the IndexNow API was developed by Microsoft in October 2021. Search engines prefer IndexNow because it offers faster indexing thereby removing the need for excess crawl load.
2. Improve Your Rankings Through MUM
Google uses advanced artificial intelligence to improve the quality of search results. the drastic improvement it achieved was with the introduction of RankBrain and then later with BERT.
Presently, the search engine giant is on the verge of creating another revolution with the introduction of Multitask United Model or MUM.
Its new Natural Language Processing Model MUM is 1000 times more powerful than BERT and it’s capable of multitasking, explained Prabhakar Raghavan during the Google I/O 2021.
Its capacities for multitasking have further improved in that, it can analyze video, images, and text within 75 languages. It can also provide answers to complex search queries, he added.
In other words, MUM will combine different aspects of the search query trying to understand the sentiments, context, entities, and most importantly the intent of the user.
Thus it will provide answers that are very close to the user’s expectations. Although Google is still testing MUM, it is expected to become a part of the Google Search ecosystem soon.
Some of the implications of introducing MUM is that:
- Keyword stuffing may go redundant since the focus will be on natural content that touches the audience’s pain points.
- Pages providing a large share of the information that the users are seeking will rank better.
- Any other ramifications will only be known when MUM is put into practice
3. LaMDA:
Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) is another Language Model introduced in 2021 Google I/O) works but SEOs need to understand this system also.
Although it is a Language Model for Dialogue Applications, it will still affect search through its use on Google Assistants.
LaMDA is setting new benchmarks for natural AI conversations. It fetches information from Google’s Knowledge Graph to make conversations sound natural.
“It is designed to carry on an open-ended conversation with users without repeating the same information,” explained Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.
LaMDA can be trained to read words, understand the relationship between words in a sentence. It can also predict what might be the next word and can do produce sensible and specific responses, instead of more generic replies.
4. Passage Indexing:
Google has announced a new algorithm called passage indexing. This is a game-changer for long-form content that fails to drive traction.
It will use the natural language processing feature while indexing web pages. Thus it will try to understand the meaning of each passage on the page.
In other words, a particular section (passages) inside your article will be shown on search results as a response to relevant search queries.
This will be done even if the small piece of relevant content lies deep within a vast primary topic. Passage Indexing will impact 7% of the search queries in all languages by the end of 2020, informed Cathay Edwards of Google.
It may be noted that during the launch of BERT in 2018, it was said BERT will impact 10% of search queries. Presently, BERT is used for delivering results in almost every search query, informs Prabhakar Raghavan.
Passage indexing is an internal ranking system that will have an impact on the website results in the SERP.
Besides, the Passage Indexing Ranking Algorithm will benefit web pages with highly structured content. This means Google will rank websites based on holistic content.
When Passage Indexing is live, the structure of your content will become equally important as the quality. It will be necessary to divide the content into multiple sections and each section into a sub-topic.
After all, Google aims to satiate the search intent of the users and will do so by judging the depth of your content and its value to the user.
The benefit of Passage Indexing is more valid for sites that have valuable content buried inside than sites writing short articles.
5. Core Web Vitals:
Before Page Indexing, there was Core Web Vitals and it caught the SEO community in a frenzy. Google search engine wants to deliver a good page experience to its user and hence pushes webmasters to provide a better page experience.
It has been using the Page Experience Algorithm for some time and core web vitals are a new addition to it.
This means the ranking of pages will be determined by the new addition along with the existing Page Experience triggers like HTTPs, Intrusive Interstitial, Safe Browsing, and Mobile Friendliness.
Core Web Vitals is made of three key page experiences metrics that inform Google on the user experience provided by individual pages on the net.
It will be a major determinant of page ranking but is limited to mobile search results. The Three Core Web Vital Factors are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CIS).
It must be noted that according to Google, websites that have activated AMP do not need to worry about the Core Web Vitals since they usually fulfill the requirement.
AMP pages have minimum elements that may otherwise take more time to load and are also rendered from Google’s server. However, using heavy images even within AMP can make it counter-productive.
Also, Core Web Vitals will not be the primary criteria to rank pages on SERP. Web pages with high-quality content and links will continue to get ranked even if they are not completely compliant with the vitals.
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6. User and Search Intent
In 2023, SEO reached the year where the search intent of the query and user behavior needs to be prioritized. The search intent and behavior of people keep changing all the time and search engines try to maintain pace with this change.
Similar is the requirement for businesses too, for they need to understand what a user is searching for and provide them with the correct content. This way both, the user and the business get benefitted.
SEO experts need to stop depending upon traditional SEO practices since they bear very little value against the stronger algorithms that are used today.
They need to focus more on search intent. Businesses paying attention to search queries will provide competitive content in sync with the audience’s taste.
In other words, the trick to ace SEO in 2023 is to be the best at providing the right information to the users. That can be done only when SEOs truly understand user intent.
7. Localized SEO
It looks like Google is pushing towards highly localized search results which means, local businesses are going to get more traction on the search engine.
Hence, it has become necessary to focus on earning quality reviews on Google My Business. This applies to other authentic review platforms as well.
Google is now providing country-specific content and this is a boon for local businesses. Besides, it will also benefit users through localized search results.
For example, a search for e-bikes from India will provide answers that are limited to India and not e-bikes from Germany. This also means a high authority German website will rank well in Germany but not in India.
Meanwhile, SEOs need to note that websites targeting local audiences need to include the name of the city, state, or country to ensure a higher ranking of their website by Google. Failure to do so can lead to Google missing your proper ranking.
Conclusion
In conclusion, SEO is not a static environment with fixed rules of play. SEO keeps changing with time and webmasters need to be well-informed on SEO current trends.
Human online behavior is changing constantly and artificial intelligence is growing by the day. So SEOs need to know, understand SEO latest trends, and apply them accurately.
Although the evolving SEO trends might seem a little daunting, you can always ensure the success of your website by making use of the latest SEO services of OneCity.
