The new year brings fresh opportunities and potential, but when you start the year with many goals, it can be challenging to decide which aspects of your business should get attention to reach the next level of success.
So to help guide your business into the new year, our digital marketers and SEOs have offered their thoughtful insights and advice. Below you’ll see their ultimate tips to help your company start 2023 off right.
And if you still need to check it out, you should catch up on the things we learned in 2022. These lessons are still relevant and will prepare you for a prosperous year.Â
Get your website’s performance and load times as fast as possible.
“Core Web Vitals will be an even more significant influencer in rankings for 2023. We saw Google pushing for a better page experience for the past two years, and now we see website performance impacting SERPs.“
– Jacob Evans, Director of Digital & Development
Protect your business with a technically sound website.
“It’s a safe bet Google will update its search algorithm 500 to 600 times in 2023. While only a dozen of these updates may create extreme volatility in the SERPs, the best hedge for businesses to avoid losing visibility quickly (i.e., declining SERPs) is to have a technically sound website meeting Google’s best practices. We run multiple technical SEO audits on each of our client’s websites every year, and rarely do our client’s websites fall victim to SERP volatility that many of their competitor’s websites experience when Google updates its algorithm. There are no secrets here; you can find exactly what Google expects from websites by reading their blog!”
– Eric Kronthal, Founder & President
Focus on developing and maintaining your online reputation.
“An excellent online reputation gives you competitive advantages and can help differentiate you from competitors. In fact, your reputation can often be the deciding factor in whether someone chooses you over them.
Besides that, search engines use online reviews (amongst many other things) when making ranking decisions. Almost all consumers (97%) use online media to research and compare product and service offerings in their local area, and 93% say online reviews influence their buying decisions.”
– Rakesh Sharma, Senior SEO Analyst
Focus on local SEO.Â
“Optimizing your website for local search is indispensable if you have a physical business location or serve a local area. This includes claiming your Google My Business listing and including your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on your website. Local SEO also includes utilizing other high-quality local directories such as NextDoor and Yelp and optimizing those the same way you’ve optimized your Google My Business listing.”
– Stephanie Parnell, Senior Account Manager
Start using GA4.Â
“Anyone with a website needs to be informed and ready for their analytics data to change. GA4 (from Google Analytics) is our newest necessary evil from Google. It’s a rather big switch from Universal Analytics, and it will take some getting used to, but GA4 offers many new features that businesses will benefit from. Get on board with GA4 as soon as possible (preferably before Google stops supporting Universal Analytics in July 2023), that way you have historical data to look back on a year from now.”
– Paul Mancini, PPC Acct. Manager & Google Analytics Analyst
Invest in Quality Content.Â
“Content is still king, and now more than ever, businesses need to produce quality content that their customers are looking for. What is quality content? It’s content that is interesting and relevant to your audience, answers their questions, solves problems they may have, is easily scannable, and is well-written. Not only is it better for your user experience, but it will boost your SEO rankings too.”
– Chelsea Bagley, SEO Content Developer
Let Us Assist with Your Digital Marketing Strategy
If your business follows the recommended methods from our experts, you’ll be on the path toward success, but it’s difficult to do it all alone (and keep normal business operations going too). Contact periscopeUP at (443) 475-0787 or info@periscopeup.com if you have any questions or would like help getting started. Our team of experts is here to support you on your journey!