With the digital marketing arena changing so frequently, knowing where to invest your budget and which areas you could skip can be hard.
We recently surveyed over 120 marketing professionals who work with the biggest brands in the country on their present SEO and content marketing strategies to get invaluable insight into what is working, what isn’t, and where they see their strategy going in 2023.
Let’s talk about what our SEO study found and how to use it to make the most of your 2023 SEO budget.
Key Takeaways From Our SEO Industry Study
The SEO study gave us valuable insight into what experts are working on for 2023. Here are the key takeaways from what we found:
- 69.4% of marketers said that content marketing is their top priority for securing higher rankings in 2023.
- 59% of marketers will increase their SEO budget during 2023.
- Almost half of those surveyed in our SEO study—49.6%—said their rankings stayed the same after Google’s Helpful Content Update, with 43.8% saying they actually improved.
- And thanks to proven success after Google’s Helpful Content Update, 50.4% will produce more content in 2023.
- Over 74% of marketers now use creative assets, such as images and videos, in their content. This represents a transformative growth from previous years.
- 73% of markets will incorporate YouTube into their SEO budget and strategy in 2023. This is a massive increase from previous years.
- 34% of marketers will spend most of their SEO budget on video content.
- Product or service demo videos are the most popular form of short-form video content, with 53.7% of marketers saying they will make more of that type of content in 2023.
- How-to videos are the second most popular form of upcoming content, with 48.8% of marketers saying they are increasing this type of content creation.
- Only 10% of those same marketers will spend most of their SEO investment on blog content.
- Marketers’ opinion on the greatest threat to the SEO industry is fairly split, with 19.3% saying Google updates as the biggest threat and 18.5% saying lack of SEO experience.
Now that you know the key takeaways of the SEO study, download your copy here.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into the results.
SEO Industry Study 2023
SEO Study: Greatest Threats to SEO
Search engine optimization is constantly evolving as digital marketers develop new and improved techniques aimed at getting their content more traction.
One of the biggest topics of conversation in the world of content marketing lately has been ChatGPT. And while this chatbot has the potential to shake up the industry, it doesn’t seem to be the biggest threat to SEO.
What’s the greatest threat to the SEO industry?
As you can see from the chart, experts surveyed in this SEO study are far more concerned about Google updates and a lack of SEO experience resulting in brands using the wrong strategy than they are about ChatGPT or Google Bard.
Google Updates
Just when you think you have your SEO game down, Google comes along, performs an update, and shakes everything up. Or does it?
Many marketers were nervous about Google’s Helpful Content Update tanking their rankings, but of the marketers who took part in this SEO industry study, the majority either saw an increase in their ranking or no change at all.
Have you seen an impact in your rankings since Google’s Helpful Content Update?
In fact, the majority of those surveyed said that this recent update has only inspired them to invest more into their SEO budget by producing more content and refreshing old pieces.
How will Google’s Helpful Content Update affect your 2023 content strategy?
Now that we know Google’s most recent update isn’t the doom and gloom we all expected, we can get to work on creating high-quality content that our audiences will love.
SEO Study: Insights Into Link Building
Once considered one of the most important parts of a brand’s SEO budget, link building’s importance seems to be decreasing.
What aspects of SEO do you plan to spend most of your budget on?
With only 16% of SEO study respondents saying their budget will go toward link building, it’s safe to say that content marketing and creation are where experts are seeing the highest return on investment. While link building still has its place in your SEO budget, it no longer takes up a lot of space there.
Video Content From an SEO Perspective
Is it any surprise that the popularity of video content is on the rise? From TikTok and Instagram Reels to YouTube, many marketers are investing more time and money into creating quality video content.
Consumers prefer short, high-impact, highly edited, and punchy videos over long-form videos.
Of those that participated in our SEO study, 48.8% of those said that video content is the most valuable type of content for their brands. But the type of video content varied, depending on the industry and platform.
What types of videos are you planning on creating in 2023?
According to our findings, you can expect to see more brands investing their SEO budget into making product or service demos, how-to videos, and customer testimonials.
What kind of creative content do you find the most valuable?
These videos will be short though. An overwhelming 92.6% of respondents said that short-form video is the way to go.
What videos get the best ROI for your online advertising campaigns?
This is probably due to the fact that most consumers want bite-sized pieces of information that they can consume quickly before moving on to something else. Most SEO experts expect the demand for short-form video content to only increase in 2023 and beyond.
Make the Most of Your SEO Marketing Budget
With so many options for content marketing, it’s hard to decide where to direct most of your SEO budget and effort and where you can slack a bit.
If this SEO study is any sign, we can safely say that content marketing—specifically sharable and video-centric content — is the future.
In fact, of all those surveyed, a whopping 96% said that content marketing has been highly effective for them when it comes to generating new business.
While social media channels seem to be where most conversions are taking place, other content marketing channels such as organic SEO, direct advertising, paid media, and email marketing also still hold a spot in the game.
The Biggest Takeaways From this SEO Industry Study
Everyone seems to have an opinion on the best way to market businesses online, but one thing is for sure: search engine optimization isn’t going anywhere.
In fact, if you want to see the most success possible, you’ll want to revamp your SEO budget to include increases in video content, social media content creation, and more. Keep it quick, shareable, and informative to help build brand awareness, convert consumers, and make sales.
SEO is a fast-paced game, but it’s one you can win, with the right strategy and high-quality content.
When asked about the survey’s results, Ignite Visibility CEO John Lincoln said, “I think the biggest takeaway from this study is that with all the different pillars of SEO, the biggest focus in 2023 is going to be using multimedia to increase the value of content marketing.”
Click here to download the full report and learn more about what this invaluable SEO industry study revealed.
