7 SEO Predictions for 2023 (and How to Prepare!)
– Search engine optimization in 2023 is gonna get bat (beep) crazy, and if you're not prepared for the changes you're gonna get left behind. In this video, I'm gonna lay out my seven SEO predictions for 2023. And most importantly, I wanna
explain what you need to do to prepare for these changes so you can avoid Google penalties and instead get massive traffic on Google.
In case we haven't met before, My name is Matt Diggity. I've been doing SEO since 2009, I'm the founder of SEO
Businesses, Dignity Marketing, the Search Initiative, the Affiliate Lab, and the Chang Mai SEO Conference. Last year I made a prediction video and 100% of the predictions
I made came true. So let's see if I can pull it off again. Please bare in mind,
what you're about to hear isn't gonna be the generic
non-actionable SEO advice that you're used to hearing. "In 2023, you need to
focus on quality content." What are you even
supposed to do with that? My predictions are gonna be based on the trends I'm seeing in this industry and my personal experience
managing over a hundred websites.
So let's go ahead and get started. But real quick, if you
appreciate the research that goes in making a video like this, would you please smash the like button? Obliterating the like button is a win-win, makes me happy AF, but also
lets the YouTube algorithm know that you wanna see more
videos just like this one. My first SEO prediction for 2023 is that AI driven content generation will become standard practice. And whether or not AI is something that you want to do for your own website, you should still know what
your competitors are up to.
AI content isn't just something that a few black hat SEOs are
doing to cheat the system. At the beginning of the year, people were just using AI
for non-important content, like e-commerce product
descriptions or guest posts. Now people are building full
websites on pure AI content and sure, not all of them survived. This site Conch House, skyrocketed to 6 million
visitors per month and then was completely decimated. But then you have more
stable sites like mine that are growing 30% month on month and are completely avoiding all
the Google update penalties. Let me tell you what
I'm doing differently. My AI content process starts
with creating a topical map of all the content you need to produce in order to become a topical
authority in your niche. If you're blasting out
five articles per day, you need to have a content roadmap. And once you complete
that content roadmap, Google has no choice but to deem you a topical authority in your niche, and that's when the traffic floods in. And the next section I'll show you how to create a topical
map, so stay tuned.
Next, you need to create an outline for each of your content pieces. You do this by Googling
your topic keyword. For example, Google, "Do you
need internet for Smart Home?" Open up the first result and look at the H2 and
H3 headings on the page. See these headings, "The Internet
of Things and ecosystems," "Why does Your smart Home need your wifi?" and, "The downsides of relying on wifi." These are all required
subtopics to the main question: Do you need internet for Smart Home? And they should be part of your outline. You also wanna look at the word count to figure out how long
your article needs to be. Now it's time to start
using an AI content writer and filling in the blanks
between your outline's heading. So far I've used Jasper for this, and if you signed up by using
the link in the description, you'll be helping to support the channel.
Because you've created an outline, Jasper already has a
framework to start from. Just press the button and
start filling in the gaps. Next, you wanna do a quick
editorial review of your content. AI content tends to make two
mistakes, grammar and facts. Go over your content and
check for repeated words or just straight up incorrect information. Lastly, it's time to scale. You want to hit five articles per day. I have a video coming out soon that goes over this
process in extreme detail, so make sure to subscribe
so you don't miss it. What will be the impact of
more AI on the internet? There's definitely a case
that can be made about it lowering the quality
of the search results, but with people turning
out content so fast even if the content isn't amazing, they're going to become
topical authorities, which is the most powerful
ranking factor in itself. Which brings me to my next prediction: Topical authority as a Google strategy will move from a secret strategy
that just a few pros use to a requirement to compete on Google.
If you add a single article on
smart homes to your website, don't expect Google to even notice. But once you cover every
single smart home topic Google now thinks you're
a topical authority, and your traffic growth will be explosive, just like this case
study I'm showing here. There's two reasons topical authority will become a 2023 requirement.
First is because, as you know, AI is gonna be allowing
people to flood the internet with fast and cheap content, and second, is because of the
concepts growing popularity due to folks like Koray
Tugberk and myself, who live and die by it. The problem is that many people
think they're doing it right but in actuality, they're not
creating a proper topical map that covers all the topics in the niche. I did a consultation for someone who was trying to rank for
Best Smart Home thermostats, and just by running a site colon command on their competition, I
was immediately able to see they were missing dozens
of articles on the topic. Here's all the places you should be gathering
topics for your map: Answerthepublic.com, Google auto suggests in the search bar, the 'People Also Ask
'section, 'Related Searches,' HREFs questions report, Google's NL API, and most importantly, your
competitors' site maps. Then you wanna use a
tool like Keyword Cupid to group your topics into single articles or separate articles, or if you want me to create
a topical map for you, you can use my service at lead spring.org/topical-map-service.
After you start producing content, the next step in the
topical authority process is smart interlinking. As a general rule, link
relevant content together. All your smart home thermostats
should link to each other, as opposed to linking
thermostats to smart bulbs. And link more to pages that
have a higher traffic priority. After you finish here, check out my video on how to get SEO traffic
without link building for a more in-depth topical
authority walkthrough, link in the description. My next prediction is about backlinks. Backlinks and link building are gonna be the key differentiator that determines who will
be at the top of Google. Since everyone is gunning
for topical authority, backlinks will be the
deciding factor on who wins.
The fact of the matter is that
backlinks never went away. Just look at the top three search results for "best sexting websites." Although, you might be
an expert on sexting, I highly doubt that
Mashable, the Chicago Reader, and Riverfront Times are. But one thing these sites have
going for them is backlinks. Despite this recent quote from
search liaison John Mueller who said that the weight
on links will drop off "a little bit," I just
don't see that happening. After all, if two websites
have similar content, how do you decide which one wins? Plus Google has been really big on the need to establish E-A-T, that's expertise,
authoritativeness, and trust.
And this tweet about a conversation with Gary Ilias from Google, says that E-A-T is,
"Largely based on links." Here's a breakdown of all the backlinks I'm focusing on In 2023: 40% of the links I'm
building are guest posts. These are coming from
both in-house outreach and using vendors like Authority Builders. Another 30% of my links
will be link insertions, getting links and existing articles that have links going to them,
and I also do that in-house or outsource to Authority builders. 15% of the links will come
from Help a Reporter Out, Haro, which we build in-house. 10% comes from digital
PR, here we're creating newsworthy stories and
outreaching to journalists. For this, I'm using Ferry
and the amazing team search-intelligence.co.uk.
3% is coming from business
directory citations, which I outsource to Authority Builders. And the remaining 2%
is from Link exchanges, just answering the inbox and
working out some exchanges with high quality websites that are already reaching out to me. My next 2023 SEO prediction
is that Parasite SEO will continue on to be a
perfectly viable strategy at least throughout the year. What is Parasite SEO? Go back to the search result
for best sexting websites and open up the Chicago Reader listing. Right up here you see the sponsored tag, meaning that someone paged Chicago Reader, placed this article on their site, and piggyback off their demand authority to the top of Google. It's the same thing here on
the Riverfront Times article.
Why do I think Google is okay with this? In August, 2022, Google released
a helpful content update. In their release notes,
they call for things that Parasite SEO clearly can't deal with. Does your content demonstrate
firsthand experience in a depth of knowledge? At sexing? Does your site have a
primary purpose or focus? These Parasite sites publish
any topic your heart desires. They also recommend you don't,
"produce lots of content "on different topics in hopes
that some might perform well." That's the name of the
game with Parasite SEO.
If the Parasite SEO tactic survived the helpful content update, then it's clear it's just
not on Google's radar, or the negative impact of
what Parasite SEO fails at is completely offset by
its ungodly link authority. Sure, I've seen some Parasite
websites lose traffic since the update, like Riverfront's
sponsored section here. But for every loser I can
find sites like Dallas News that are off to the moon. So what kinda actions can you take here? Should you pull a, "If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em," and start Parasite SEO right now? Unfortunately, if you're
competing in the US, I think the ship has sailed
for Valinor a long time ago. Most of these topics
have already been covered on these sites and exclusivity
deals have been made. However, there's always content caps. You'll always be able to find keywords that haven't yet been touched by Parasite. Also, Parasite ideal news sites haven't been exploited yet in foreign SEO, so the promise line is on far away soil.
The next SEO prediction
is that we're gonna get more of these specific
niche algorithm updates. Just a few years ago, Google
will release a handful of core algorithm updates per year, so you only had to crap
your pants every season. But just take a look at this
list of Google ranking updates. June 15th, 2021, page
experience update for mobile. Okay, that's new. December, 2021, oh swell, a product reviews update just
for affiliates, fantastic. February 22nd, page
experience update for desktop, two more product reviews updates, the helpful content update in August, then a core, product
reviews, and a spam update. Each of these updates has a different goal and no, it's not to
give you a heart attack.
Google is trying to optimize
for different sections of its algorithm at a time. – He is refining his
methods, he is evolving. – And what you've already
noticed is that 90% of your gains or your losses occur on
these specific update dates. So what I'm doing now
is focusing particularly on these updates themselves. How can I position my website to get beast mode gains
in the next update? I have a video coming out on
this exact topic next month, so make sure to subscribe
so you don't miss it.
The next SEO prediction is that
Google's gonna award content that gives a fast answer
to the search query. Last year, I predicted
that Google would increase the weight of user metrics
into their algorithm. This year I'm doubling
down on that prediction, but specifically the
metric of goal completion. Google wants its users
to get their answers as fast as possible, especially on mobile. In June, one of my Facebook
group members was searching on mobile, looked at a result,
then hit back on his browser.
He then found this, underneath the result that he previously visited,
he found this quick survey. "How easy was it to find what
you wanted on this site?" And in this age of distraction
and attention economy, easy means quick. How quick did you find what you wanted? So how do you give your
readers quick answers? If you're producing review content, give a list of your top
rated products immediately. If you're writing informational content, create a key takeaway section to summarize the answer
to the search question, or you can even use special fonts to highlight your quick answers. My next SEO prediction will come true whether it kills me or not. This channel will hit 100K
subscribers, do or die. If you want to be part of this journey it would mean a lot to me
if you would subscribe. In turn, I promise to continue
putting my heart and soul into delivering the best free
SEO content on the internet..
