To learn about the impact of AI’s rapid entry into the industry and identify key SEO and PPC trends for 2023, we spoke with renowned experts in the field and asked questions about AI technology, Google’s algorithm updates, Digital Marketing Tools and Strategies, Core Web Vitals improvements, and Ecommerce SEO strategies.
You can check all the names from the list on the left and access their information by clicking on their pictures.
Arnout Hellemans
What do you think of Google's algorithm updates in 2022?
I actually liked most of these updates that focused on meeting user expectations, but I was a little surprised by what happened with the automatic linkspam update on December 14, 2022. These affected a lot of websites significantly, and I think they weren't always accurate. This points to a change in how Google looks at how often links are repeated and other patterns, which is actually an exciting development for me to follow.
What different Digital Marketing tools have entered your life in 2022?
There are a few that I’ve started using quite heavily; the first is AlsoAsked.com , which gives me great insight into the Also Asked Questions (PAA) boxes on different SERPs, great for understanding user queries and tailoring your content accordingly. I’ve also been really impressed with the Performance Insights tab in Chrome developer tools, which really helps you understand what’s slowing down your page load for your users, to the point of seeing what’s causing the API calls or CLS issue. Finally, I’ve been really impressed with Branch Tools , which is a great way to dig into Search Console data and spot improvements by overlaying Google updates .
Barry Adams
What do you think of Google's algorithm updates in 2022?
Google’s algorithm updates rolling out in 2022 appear to be part of its overall efforts to reward “good behavior” and minimize the impact of spammy, low-quality SEO tactics. Several updates appear to be narrowly focused on types of spammy tactics, such as Product Review and Helpful Content updates that target specific SEO content approaches.
The general core updates that Google has released appear to be part of its overall effort to reward high-quality websites and downgrade low-quality content. They appear to be based on improvements to its machine learning systems from input from quality raters.
The way Google overlaps some of these updates means that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the impact of a particular update. However, I think it’s helpful to look at the sites that Google rewards and penalizes with these updates, as it can give us insight into what Google plans to focus on in the near future. They can provide data points that will help build business cases for (or against) certain SEO tactics to ensure your website’s long-term success in Google searches.
Have you budgeted for Core Web Vitals improvements in 2022?
While Core Web Vitals are a minor ranking factor in most contexts, they can be very strong usability signals for news publishers. Publishers, especially those looking to move away from the restrictive AMP web framework, need to make sure Core Web Vitals are in good shape for regular non-AMP articles.
Removing AMP without having a good CWV for non-AMPs could lead to a significant loss of visibility in Google's news rankings, so this is definitely an area where publishing clients are putting their resources.
What are your thoughts on content created with artificial intelligence technology?
I think content should be useful and trustworthy regardless overseas chinese in uk data of how it’s produced. AI can certainly produce useful content, but trust factors often rely on identifying the ‘who’ and ‘why’ behind a piece of content, and that can’t easily be done for AI-generated text.
Bastian Grimm
What are your thoughts on content created with artificial intelligence technology?
Overall, I believe that AI will significantly impact our (digital) lives going forward. Especially in content creation, it's very exciting to see what's possible now, but I'm even more excited to see what's potentially in the future.
From a format perspective (especially considering recent developments with ChatGTP) I think the most obvious issue is text generation, but in practice we are long past that.
DALL-E brought AI for images into the “mainstream”, and with its new April 2022 update, DALL-E 2 has changed things up again significantly. DALL-E will also become part of Microsoft Office and will be integrated into the Edge browser. In early November 2022, the highly anticipated DALL-E API was released as a Public BETA – perhaps proving that we’re in for a boom in 3rd party integrations. But Google with Imagen , as well as others like Stable Diffusion AI , are continuing to innovate in this space.
There’s also a lot going on with video. Meta has launched its “ Make-A-Video ” video AI and Google is also active in this space – Imagen video and PHENAKI are two very exciting programs to keep an eye on. However, creating video is much more complex than creating images because pixels need to be rendered correctly and the AI needs to predict how they will change over time.
Finally, use cases like voice (especially voice/speech recognition and content creation) are incredibly exciting. Definitely check out VALL-E if you haven't already.
Coming back to text content creation once again: What people tend to forget is that AIs don’t write content. There’s a reason they’re called “generative AIs.” Because that’s exactly what they do: they produce text content based on previously collected training data. However, they can be great tools for research and speeding up certain steps in the content creation workflow. You definitely can’t trust AI-generated output without human editing (including fact-checking, etc.).
Finally, it’s important to understand complex issues like detection (whether the content is AI-generated or an original piece of content produced by an editor), as well as sustainability, training data bias, and more, so you can make decisions accordingly.
What different digital marketing tools have entered your life in 2022?
Regarding my comment above regarding AI and content creation, the Peak Ace team tests and uses a relatively wide range of AI tools. Most recently, we reviewed ChatGTP , but prior to that we were also quite busy testing tools like:
Elephant
As the power of artificial intelligence increases in 2023 and beyond (ChatGPT for example), will Google provide more accurate results, and in this sense, will the much more accurate rich appearance in all SERPs create problems in terms of site traffic?
These topics don’t have to be directly related, in my opinion. Google has been busy adding more and more elements to its search results pages in recent years – recently they’ve become more graphically based and therefore more popular; this also applies to rich snippets, of course. But this graphically-first approach doesn’t just make sense for Google, it’s good for the searcher. Especially for informational searches, Google wants people to stay on Google, not leave the SERP once their query has been resolved. And of course, the quality of these direct answers still doesn’t mean a job is done.
This will change for AI (or with AI), but it won’t be perfect in the near future. This is partly because AI innovators like Google need to solve the problem of in-the-moment (or real-time) first. Right now, training data for large language models can be months or years old, meaning anything new will produce output that is not currently useful (=wrong). So current AI can’t help with that right now.
Another thing that’s unique to Google is its monetization model. It’s no secret that the majority of Google’s revenue comes from advertising. Now, I’m not saying that it’s impossible to monetize “ChatGTP-like apps,” for example, but it’s clear that Google will be extremely cautious about how and what they change. While I’m sure Google could produce something that “feels” like ChatGTP in a short amount of time, the real question is whether they want to. Google is more than capable of creating something similar to ChatGTP with their Pathways AI and PaLM … these are exciting times!
What do you think of Google's algorithm updates in 2022?
When it comes to Google Updates, 2022 has been a very exciting year, especially the last quarter. Anyone interested in learning about the officially confirmed Google Updates will read this overview with interest . Of course, these are just the tip of the iceberg, the updates that Google has deemed worthy of mention. Given that several updates or new algorithms are usually released every day, the real total number is still much higher. Interestingly, most of the 2022 updates seem to be aimed at improving the quality of SERP content, which is both in line with Google’s policies and a useful guide for website operators. All these official and other updates are of course a factor that explains the SERP fluctuation. Google has no intention of resting, so I believe that exciting new SEO developments await us all in 2023.
To what extent did off-site play a role in your Digital Marketing efforts in 2022?
In summary, off-page signals were and continue to be a huge factor! Backlinks in particular are one of the key factors that drive SERP success. Or, when Google violates its Search Spam Policies in an extreme way, it leads to SERP failure. Along with technical, performance, and content signals, off-page factors continue to be among the most important factors to consider when conducting a preventative SEO audit.
When creating off-page signals, including backlinks, it’s important to focus on links that convert traffic rather than links that pass PageRank. Being visible with authority in the niche where your primary audience is located will not only increase organic mentions and links to your website, but will also increase positive user signals for branded and non-branded search visibility in search engines. While organic search visibility increases, positive visibility within your niche will also lead to additional conversions. So yes, with the right focus and investment in creating off-page signals, you can have your cake and eat it too .
How to Create an E-commerce SEO Strategy in 2023?
Any SEO strategy needs to focus on the inputs sent to Google search algorithms (your website’s SEO signals), which are ultimately the responsibility of the website owner.
Creating an SEO strategy depends on the product, brand, unique selling proposition, size of the web platform, intelligence of the developers, allocated budget, management expectations, acceptable risk levels, return on investment, conversion expectations and many other factors.
Every SEO strategy is tailored to the needs, requirements, and limitations of the organization operating the website. In some cases, when budgets don’t allow for a comprehensive, data-driven SEO effort, an SEO strategy may be put on hold entirely to focus limited resources on what’s most important: customers and product. However, significantly larger organizations can begin to develop their own strategy by conducting an SEO audit and using last year’s server logs in the process.
Focusing on the inputs for search engines (your website's SEO signals) is an excellent starting point for defining, creating and implementing a superior, winning SEO strategy in even the most competitive niches.
Grant Simmons
What do you think of Google's algorithm updates in 2022?
It’s geared toward improving the search experience through Helpful Content Updates (targeting automated/AI-generated content) and page experience updates, which many SEOs have brushed aside but are likely to have a big impact on tiebreaker results based on Core Web Vitals. These recent updates have taken up a lot of resources with little positive impact, but the cleanup and basic optimizations of code and platforms that SEOs should always be looking at are all about the user experience of completing tasks on a page.
