Search engine optimization (SEO) tactics never stay the same. They change almost every year, and 2023 will be no different. 

Here are a few SEO pitfalls businesses must avoid if they want to increase their online visibility in 2023 and beyond.

1. Unlocalized Keywords

If you’re running a business that caters more to a local crowd but is not using localized keywords, you’re going to drop in the rankings. Therefore, whatever you sell, if it has a local appeal and target demographic you want to sell to, use localized keywords. 

Hire a local digital agency to take care of this for you. They’ll know which keywords to use for which products both intuitively and through the proper data analytics. 

For instance, let’s say you sell upholstered furniture in Tupelo, something that the place is famous for. When you work with a top Tupelo marketing agency, they’ll know to use localized keywords like “best Tupelo furniture” or “top Tupelo upholstered furniture.” In doing so, they’ll help you gain the attention of a potential local customer base you otherwise would’ve missed out on. 

2. No Google Business Profile

A business without a Google Business Profile is missing out on a lot of opportunities. If you, too, are one of these businesses, it’s high time you register your brand or business on Google Business. 

It’s an easy-to-use tool that will let you manage your overall online presence across Google. This will especially come in handy when your customers try to find your business online or verify certain details regarding it.

Having a Google Business Profile is good for SEO, too. When you sign up for this service, you have to include a lot of information regarding your business, including where it’s based, its current locations, branches, the base of operations, contact information, operational hours, etc. 

All this information is then associated with your brand or business so that when someone searches for it online, they’ll find your Google Business Profile at the top of the search results. 

Thus, you can say that it’s a relatively less complicated way of occupying the first spot on Google Search. 

Creating a Google Business Profile is super easy. With your Google account, simply create a profile on Google Business Profile by entering your business name and what category of business it falls under. Select a location and service area, add your business contact information and a website URL, and you’re done in a matter of minutes. 

This is a great way to get listed on Google, and the best part is that it’s free, so make sure you take advantage of this. 

3. Poor Technical SEO

There is a big difference between normal SEO and technical SEO. Normal SEO deals with the content. This includes the use of keywords, semantic keywords, content quality, and so on. Technical SEO, on the other hand, strictly focuses on the performance of your content and the site or platform it’s on. This can include things like the website’s code and how clean it is. 

Technical SEO allows search engines to identify and see your website as something with a high value. This prompts the search engines to rank you higher in the search results.

Poor technical SEO means that no matter how good and rich your content is, it will fail to rank your website at the top. It also means that you can make as many tweaks as you want to your content quality, but you’ll still fail to get the results you expect. 

4. Lack of Customer Reviews

There are many reasons why a lack of customer reviews can impact your SEO rankings.

Firstly, Google sees these reviews as an indicator of your website’s authority, relevance, and legitimacy. The more positive reviews the site has, the higher it is likely to rank. 

Secondly, customer reviews, in a way, can generate content for your site. Since these are valid reviews from actual clients, Google prioritizes their comments and uses them for ranking your site. 

Lastly, reviews can help your business optimize your products and services on your site accordingly. You can see which products and services are selling the most and which aren’t. You can then revise your SEO strategy accordingly to make sure that everything you sell is optimized for maximum online visibility. 

5. Using AI-Generated Content

In 2023, we’ve already seen an increase in AI-generated content thanks to tools like ChatGPT. However, using AI-generated content can get your website flagged by Google. That’s because Google doesn’t rank AI content and can also drop you down a few ranks. As that happens, you’re likely to lose the little or so visibility you had before. 

Therefore, don’t use an AI tool to simply generate text and place it on your site. Instead, use the tool wisely to get the most out of it while staying safe from Google’s watchful observations. 

With that, we’ve reached the end of this informative blog post. By now, you have hopefully gotten some idea regarding the state of SEO at present and how you can get the best out of it for your business.