Embracing BARD, ChatGPT, and Beyond: The Landscape of SEO in 2023

Have you ever wondered what SEO looks like in the year 2023?

I often ponder about it. It's a bit like trying to imagine what it would be like to live on Mars, impossible to predict how search engines will evolve over time.

I will attempt to guide you through the most important trends and changes that I personally expect to see in the SEO landscape in 2023.

My first blog post about SEO (danish) has been one of the most read posts on my site, ever. Many of the terms, techniques, and strategies are still applicable today, but I thought it was time for an upgrade. So grab your favorite coffee cup (or tea, if you prefer), get comfortable, and let's take a look at the summer destination of the year: SEO trends 2023!

2023 is rolling on, and in the infinite labyrinth of the SEO world, we have again this year seen developments, exciting transformations, and new opportunities just waiting to be explored.

Lets dive into it!

User Experience (UX)

In 2023, Google has significantly emphasized the importance of user experience in their ranking algorithm. It's now more important than ever to ensure that your website is fast, easy to navigate, and provides a visually stable and attractive experience.

This is also where Google's Core Web Vitals come into play. These are a set of specific factors that Google considers when assessing the overall user experience of your website. They include things like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures loading time, First Input Delay (FID), which measures interactivity, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which measures visual stability.

Semantic Search

Google has become incredibly good at understanding what users actually mean when they make a search. This means that we can no longer get by just throwing a bunch of keywords into our content and hoping that Google will match them with the user's search. Now, it's important that we write natural, human texts that help users.

This applies not only to the content you produce but also to the keywords you choose. Think of it as a conversation with your users.

• What do they want to know?
• How can you best answer their questions?

This requires you to delve deeply into your topic and truly understand what users are looking for.

Voice Search

From semantic search to voice search, a trend that has gone from being a 'future' to being an integrated part of our everyday life. With the rise in smart speakers and voice-controlled technology such as Siri, Alexa, etc., it's important to adapt our SEO strategy to this new way of searching.

Again - think about user behaviour before anything else.

AI's Influence

When we think of artificial intelligence, it's easy to think of dystopian future scenarios where robots take over the world. But in reality, AI has rather taken over the SEO world in a somewhat less dramatic, but still revolutionary way.

Google's AI bet, BARD, has become a game-changer for SEO. Using advanced machine learning, BARD will probably be one of the first real steps to a more AI based search engine.

BARD has just been rolled out in Denmark. And in addition, AI will (maybe) be directly integrated into Google's search results.

Below is a screenshot of what Google Search could look like in the future:

I'm personally excited to see if Bing (owned by Microsoft, which has bought 49% of OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT) will become a real competitor to Google. With the integration of AI directly into their search engine, we might witness a shift in our search tendencies for the first time ever. I'm currently closely monitoring Bing Ads to observe their impressions (more users using the search engine).

Mobile-first Indexing

Just a few years ago, having a mobile-optimized website was considered a bonus. Today, it's an absolute necessity. Google has switched to "mobile-first" indexing, which means that if your website is not mobile-friendly, you've lost from the start.

Still come across a lot of sites which performs horrible on mobile devices.

Local SEO

If you thought that SEO was only about fighting against all other companies on the planet, think again. In 2023, we're seeing an ever-increasing weight on local SEO. For businesses that have a physical location or serve a specific geographic area, local SEO has become more important than ever.

In my work for Aarhus Osteopati, it has been crucial to think about local SEO and the integration part of our Google My Business.

E.A.T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness)

Google has not suddenly become diet experts. No, they have not launched a diet plan (yet), but one of their latest updates involves a content-based update around E.A.T, which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.

This means that Google now looks at the quality and credibility of your content when determining where your website should rank.

Since then, they've actually added an extra 'E' to EAT, making it E-E-A-T. The first 'E' now stands for "Experience", as in user experience, which I started by mentioning.

Linkbuilding

One thing that has maintained its relevance over time is linkbuilding, despite the term's negative connotation and often bad PR.

Having high-quality, relevant links to your website is still an important factor for Google when it comes to ranking your website.

You could use a strategy and incoorporate platforms for linkbuilding like Bazoom, or you could go for the more organic PR way of doing it. For me it often depends on the industry. Some industries tends to have easier access to PR than others - but yet again, it often comes down to creativity.

Video SEO

And last but not least, let's not forget video SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for videos on YouTube is a crucial process to maximize the video's visibility and reach.

The video game is a long-term game. But the video part is actually exponential. You can use videos on YT, cut them down to reels for IG, Snapchat and TikTok - and you can use them on product pages to increase conversion rate.

So even though it's a difficult game, it's often worth it. And not only for the SEO part of it.

That's all I had to share for now.

Did I forget something? Overlook any trends? ??

As always, I'm open to comments, input, and any good tricks you might have up your sleeve, so feel free to leave a comment below.