How Many Backlinks Does It Take to Rule Your Niche’s SERPs?
SEO is undergoing a dramatic evolution. Despite this, when it comes to those trusty old…
The search engine optimisation (SEO) landscape is constantly evolving. For the uninitiated, the SEO playing field is a daunting place, leaving many to abandon their efforts before they’ve even started. The good news is that changes in algorithms, ranking factors, and influential updates are what make digital marketers like us here at Click Intelligence tick – we just love it!
Once seen as a luxury investment for select businesses that could afford it, the fact is that in 2023, SEO is an essential expense for all companies, big or small. If you want to drive organic trafficOrganic search traffic (sometimes called natural or unpaid search) is the traffic that's driven to a website because of unpaid placement on a search engine results page. to your web pages, get them seen by people looking for services or products like yours, and leapfrog your competitors, you can’t afford to not invest in your SEO.
Whilst our passion for all things search is plain to see, if you’re stuck wondering why your SEO needs some love in 2023, we’ve put together this list of the top 10 reasons to love SEO this year and beyond!
Content that ranks highly on Google does so because the search engine deems it to be from a trustworthy and credible source. E-A-T, which stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trust, is what Google bots use to determine how well content meets the user’s needs. Following the E-A-T guidelines is essential if you want your business to be considered credible and appear in search results.
Increased trust and credibility can be achieved by using the following SEO practices:
Growing credibility and trust requires steady effort, but once mastered, it will translate into increased search engine results page (SERP) rankings.
You can do your SEO yourself or hire professionals like us who will get it right every time, thanks to our 20 years of experience in the game. You will likely need to spend money if you want the best results, but SEO is a cost-effective business investment. When you consider that SEO will drive important traffic that will convert into sales for your business, the reward is much greater than the initial spend. When this is a continual effort, your results will hold strong long after 2023 is out of the way!
Although SEO and content marketing are 2 separate entities, they can support each other on the path to successful campaigns. Search engines demand high-quality, informative, original, and keyword-optimised content for it to rank highly. This is where your content marketing comes in. Although brand new shiny blog content that can be shared across platforms and inspire other related fresh content is vital, if you are strapped for time, search engine crawlers constantly crawl your web pages for updated content.
So if you don’t have time to produce multiple pieces of new content each month, you can update and refresh what has gone before to boost your rankings! Do you have a piece that offers advice specifically for 2020? Well, look at how you could sprinkle some freshness into it for 2023!
Now, this is arguably one of the biggest benefits of SEO! For most websites, organic search is the main source of website traffic. According to Jumpshot, almost half of all product searches start on Google. These searches are people looking to buy products like the ones you offer. If you aren’t investing in your SEO and tailoring it to the different stages of the buyer journey, then you simply won’t rank for these all-important organic searches, and you’ll miss out on conversions. With 4.3 billion users and more than 99,000 search queries every second, climbing up to Google’s top spots should be a priority in 2023. Quality SEO will get you there and boost your audience.
SEO is a data-driven beast. SERP analysis, analytics, and search query data. This information allows you to understand your audience more. Guess what? When you understand what your audience is after, you can target them more effectively through content that matches their search intent and behaviour, driving traffic and conversions.
Mobile search’s rise in popularity has been continuous. The majority of searches on mobile are for local businesses, so investing in Local SEOLocal SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank on the 1st page of Google for a search term and geographic location that is relevant to your business. that focuses on improving your rankings for users looking for your service in your location is more important than ever for small and medium businesses. Local backlinks, citationsA citation is a mention of your company, product, or service in an online publication. Citations increase the ranking of your site on search engines, optimised on-page content, and keywords are the ingredients for local search success. A Google My Business profile cannot be overlooked in 2023, either!
In 2023 users don’t have time for sluggish websites. User experience is a ranking factor that Google values highly. If your on-page and technical SEO is affecting your site speed, page load times, how images are displayed, and is not optimised for mobile and desktop, then you will have a big problem getting your page rankings up and having visitors stay on your website. When you address these issues, you will be more likely to appear in the SERPs, and your bounce rateBounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who visit only one page. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are not satisfied with your website. will be lower. A win-win!
Investing in SEO will give you an edge over your competitors and allow you to beat them to the top of the SERPs. Of course, it is likely that the competition is already focusing on SEO, so you need to too. Use competitor analysis to see what they’re doing right, wrong, and what they’re missing to help inform your strategy. Search Engine Watch specifies that results on Google’s first page get over 90% of all traffic, so you need to feature there! Ensure your content is high quality, considers search intent, and is keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. optimised. Next, look to make sure your technical and on-page SEO efforts are watertight to outrank your competitors.
SEO isn’t a quick fling. Instead, you should view it more as a deep and meaningful long-term relationship. It’s a slow burner, so it can take months to see results. You can make some quick fixes to improve the on-page experience, but the off-page stuff, like acquiring backlinks, can take some time to take effect, but when it does, the results will be distinctive! Slow and steady wins the race when it comes to SEO.
Variety is the spice of life, and there is never a dull moment in the world of SEO! With algorithm updates, changes in ranking factors, and pesky penalties to avoid, there is always something to learn. This is what makes SEO so exciting, as it’s like a game between marketers and search engines to see if you can keep up and stay one step ahead of the process.
So now you know what we think are the top benefits of SEO, you might wonder what comes next. How do you implement the changes needed to reap these awards? Where should you start? What strategy is the best to get results? Well, wonder no more. Our Managed SEO service is here to help! Our 20 years of experience across more than 40 sectors means we have the know-how to handle all your SEO needs. Get in touch today to find out how we can help you.
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