The top 5 search marketing trends for 2023 and the 3 essentials

We are about to bid farewell to 2022, and say hello to 2023. It’s an excellent time to look back at notable shifts in search behavior and to plan for our digital marketing efforts next year.

This article will focus on the top search and digital marketing trends for 2023.

Trends in search: Relevance and experience

Let’s first understand what the most significant changes were in search for this year, and how we can anticipate them next year.

In 2022, Google published several . There are three main categories that can be divided into these algorithm updates.

• Core Updates: These updates are made to improve search results and make it safer.
• Useful content: Recent updates to improve search results.
• Experience: New updates to improve user experience on all devices

Google is determined to recognize websites offering exceptional user experiences.

This means that your content should be related to the query. This means that relevance and experience are crucial to success in search today.

Let’s not forget these critical ingredients as we create the ultimate search marketing strategy and must-haves in 2023.

Trends and insights from consumers: Reevaluating priorities

We realized the importance of trusting customers when we looked at this year’s most searched queries and shared helpful insights from various companies.

Although there are many trends and data points being covered, this article will focus on the five key consumer insights that you need when creating your search marketing strategies in 2023.

• Privacy and security: Customers are worried about their privacy and trust brands to protect it.
• Advertising with purpose: Customers are increasingly attracted to brands that include sustainability initiatives in their advertising and marketing campaigns.
• Personalization – Google Shopping offers a wonderful example of personalized experiences that are based on preferences and search history.
• Directly to the consumer: A more interactive and visual experience is essential to get consumers to take notice.
• Predictive Analytics: Making informed decisions is critical based upon multiple data points.

We can better understand the consumer preferences and insight to help us evaluate our marketing priorities. This gives us confidence that we will deliver relevant, helpful advertising.

Let’s now look at five marketing trends, and how you can leverage them in 2023.

The top 5 most searched terms in 2023

We must start the new year on the right foot. The days of keyword density, and content being the only king are long gone.

It is not enough to have more. Quality is better. It is time to review our priorities, and to meet the expectations of our customers.

Having reviewed search queries and consumer search insights as well as the largest releases in 2022, here are the five main trends that we believe will be the key to a prosperous 2023.

Trend 1: Multisearch, a way to search beyond the box

The average consumer spends more than 82% time searching for information. Google this year and published several support algorithms that will change how we discover and get information.

Google continually tests various formats in order to show relevant search results from different sources. This reflects how users are searching for information on a variety of subjects.

Good news! We now have the ability to search across a variety of assets including images, videos, PDFs and text.

Multisearch offers marketers the greatest untapped potential and it is easy to see its direct benefits. Google Lens allows consumers to take any photo and explore all aspects of it.

Google is able to quickly find the best search results by combining entity data with relevant, high-quality and contextual images.

We will witness savvy search marketers leveraging all kinds of assets, Google Vision API, and entity data in 2023 to deliver the best quality and relevant assets.

Your key to winning and unlocking new doors in 2023 is futureproofing your digital assets.

Trend 2: Helpful content – relevant, qualitative, accessible, authoritative, experiential

Google recently updated its quality raters guidelines , and useful content system . It is best to cover critical touchpoints as well as micro-moments in order to determine if your content is useful.

Your customer can access helpful content from any digital device, so they don’t have to go searching elsewhere.

uses search results to train a machine-learning algorithm. This is an all-site signal. If there are too many domain pages that have poor quality, such as duplicates, thin, or made solely for search engines, it could cause a significant drop in your search engine performance.

Search marketers will need to ensure discoverable content in 2023 is informative, quality, authoritative, experiential, and relevant.

Businesses will be rewarded by search engines for providing high-quality, informative content. By sharing relevant entity-first content, brands can increase their online visibility.

All types of content should be included in a content strategy, such as videos, product reviews information, FAQs, images relevant to the topic, and PDF. Expert advice is also an option.

The brand must map all current content to the of their customer journey and work hard to fill any content gaps.

Trend 3: Omnichannel experience

Consumers move between devices frequently, making it important to have a consistent experience on all touchpoints.

For seamless, omnichannel experiences in 2023, it is important to centralize critical business information and distribute it across all channels.

Consumer trust is built when there are rapid changes across all channels. If you change the information on your website or other social profiles, it should be updated immediately.

Google has released to help marketers focus more on customers and in the customer journey than just the one that was clicked the most.

For 2023, site health, discovery of content and user experience will all be essential.

Information that cannot be will be unavailable to the public, rendering it inaccessible. Search marketers need to prioritize as the economy slows down and their budgets get tighter. This will ensure that good results.

Trend 4: Personalization & Localization

Information is sought out by consumers based upon their interests, geographic location and other unknown and known factors. Brands with strong connections with local consumers are more likely to be bought by online shoppers.

It is important that our global search marketing strategies be tailored to each location.

Google finds images that match searcher intent. Today, images occupy approximately 36% on a smartphone screen. Consider:

• Answering frequently-asked questions
• Provide relevant information, images and other local details.
• Customers will have amazing omnichannel experiences.

Greg Sterling, a local SEO expert says that Google continues to consider local search to be incredibly strategic. However, the search engine has begun to focus less on local search (as an ad driver), and more on product searches. This means that local SEOs will be less supported and businesses in the local area will suffer.

Google plans to further enhance product search and the SERPs in order to compete with Amazon. This will allow for more product-search use. Google is determined to grow and retain the top online advertiser, which means that retailers are still the most important. You’ll find more local product inventory online in real time, even from smaller retailers.

Localization is critical but I believe that personalizing data based on customer preference for 2023 will be a necessity. This area is key because it allows customers to use customer data platforms for their preferences, creating content and campaign based on those data.

Trend 5: Expert community and influencer marketing

Social media marketing has been slowing down, but influencer marketing is rising at a rapid pace.

Before making purchase decisions, smart consumers gather information from trusted sources and then follow the expert opinion of influencers.

Already, we are seeing social media channels sharing information about expert reviews/community and making interactive videos.

Brands will be able to reap the benefits of:

• Establishing an expert network of influencers.
• Provide the best informative and helpful content possible in an interactive format.
• To measure success, align various KPIs like engagement and clicks.

Sterling pointed out that Google’s changes in the SERPs are influenced by TikTok popularity and its push to make searching more visually-oriented.

Google will therefore be focusing more on visual content, and possibly de-emphasizing reviews for ranking purposes.

Google will intensify its efforts to combat review fraud. It will also continue to capture “innocent reviews” on its web.

It is important for local marketers to continue to receive Google reviews and to be ready to lose some reviews due to Google’s AI filtering.

The top 3 strategies you must have to be ahead

Let’s now discuss our top areas of focus to capitalize on the trends.

1. Business intelligence

Global economic growth is slowing down. In 2023, it will be crucial to derive business insight and take action from the best data points.

You should keep an eye out for market trends and competitive benchmarking. Customer behavior, channel usage, goals prioritization, etc.

Businesses that are more savvy will turn to business intelligence for the best information. This includes prioritizing high-quality content and assets, and based decisions on actual data.

2. Artificial intelligence (AI/ML) and machine learning

AI/ML is a key strategy for solving complex marketing issues in 2023. ChatGPT, an AI-generated chatbot, has been a major feature in digital content and marketing.

Google also uses machine learning to quickly translate any language. We will be seeing many AI models such as GPT-3 and GPT-4 used to resolve complex problems.

3. Success plan

Last, but certainly not least: In 2023 less will be greater.

It is important to define and align your business goals, channel drivers, critical metrics, and solutions to help you reach those metrics.

We are grateful to Bill Hunt and Greg Sterling as well as Andrew Shotland, Dixon Jones, for their insights and suggestions for this article.

These opinions are not necessarily those of Search Engine Land, but they do reflect the views of the guest author. Here are the names of staff authors.

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Luke Smith

Luke Smith is a paid media consultant specializing in performance marketing such as SEM, paid social, video, and display. He has worked at a media agency in Sydney, Australia for over three years, running Facebook, AdWords, YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitter activity for large multi-national companies. With his expertise in lead generation, he has helped online coaches and entrepreneurs build their business online using targeted Facebook Ad strategies alongside a solid marketing funnel and provided services to large corporations including Estée Lauder, Clinique, McDonald's, Bobbi Brown, and Bacardi.

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