SEO Optimization in 2023: Insights from Brandon Leibowitz

As the world of AI and search engine optimization (SEO) continues to evolve, it’s crucial to stay updated on the latest trends and strategies to ensure your website’s visibility and success. In this episode of eCommerce on Tap with Brandon Leibowitz, the founder of ‘SEO Optimizers,’ several important points were discussed regarding the current state of SEO.

Let’s explore these insights and understand how they can shape your SEO strategy in 2023.

Can AI Content Work for SEO?

Questions about AI content have received clearer answers ever since the announcement of AI content generators like ChatGPT embedding a digital watermark to allow for recognition of the generated content’s source.

Brandon says that since the release of Google’s Panda algorithm update in 2011, the search engine giant has prioritized high-quality content created by humans.

Given the frequency and significance of each update, article spinners and AI-generated content won’t be viable options for fooling search engines for long. Google has a keen eye and has always called for an original, well-written text that provides value to users.

It is also important to prioritize quality content written by human experts on the subject matter to avoid potential penalties and long-term damage to your website’s rankings.

Importance of SEO for E-commerce Brands

Many early-stage or mid-size e-commerce brands have heavily invested in social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram but may have overlooked the potential of SEO as a growth channel.

Leibowitz suggests that a key aspect of SEO for e-commerce websites is incorporating text into every page. For search engine crawlers, which primarily rely on text, images and videos do not provide sufficient information.

Category or collection pages often feature multiple product images, lacking textual content. To address this, it is recommended to include a paragraph or a few paragraphs of text on these pages, providing descriptions and information for both search engines and users.

Placing this text at the bottom of the page allows for a visually appealing design at the top, optimizing conversions, while still providing relevant content for search engines.

How Important is Backlinking in SEO?

Backlinks play a crucial role in building trust and authority with search engines. Google places significant value on backlinks from reputable and relevant websites. Quantity is no longer the sole focus; quality is paramount.

Relevancy is a key factor, meaning backlinks from sites related to your industry or niche hold more weight. For example, if you sell shoes, a backlink from a sports or fashion website would be more valuable than one from a restaurant site. Additionally, the authority or popularity of the linking website also impacts the value of the backlink.

While large media outlets may have shifted to using no-follow backlinks to combat spam, these still hold some value as citations and can contribute to your website’s visibility.

Understanding Do and No-Follow Backlinks

The concept of no-follow backlinks was introduced to combat spam and maintain the integrity of reputable websites. Platforms like social media and major news publications often utilize no-follow tags to prevent misuse and paid links.

However, it’s important to note that no-follow backlinks still have value, albeit different from do-follow backlinks. While Google doesn’t consider them for SEO purposes, these links serve as citations and can contribute to your website’s credibility. For instance, being cited on Wikipedia may not provide a direct backlink, but it can still positively impact your online reputation.

To excel in SEO optimization in 2023, it is crucial to focus on creating high-quality content, leveraging backlinks from relevant and authoritative sources, and understanding the nuances between do-follow and no-follow backlinks.

By incorporating these insights into your SEO strategy, you can enhance your website’s visibility, increase organic traffic, and ultimately drive growth for your brand in the competitive digital landscape.

How Good is Sponsored Content for SEO?

Google has guidelines for disclosing sponsored content, which is when someone pays a website to publish an article or piece of content with backlinks. The search engine algorithm also encourages websites to use the “Sponsored” tag to indicate that the content is sponsored. This helps ensure transparency for users and distinguishes it from organic content.

Using the “Sponsored” tag may also affect the SEO value of the backlink, potentially devaluing it to some extent, but it’s worth not risking penalization in the long run.

Buying Old Domains and Redirecting Traffic

While there are no guaranteed quick wins in SEO, there are some strategies that can potentially yield positive results. Building backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites can help improve search rankings.

Additionally, purchasing expired domains related to your industry or your competitors’ domains can provide some SEO value when redirected to your website. This process, known as a 301 redirect has helped brands like Barnes & Noble as they bought and redirected visitors from an old domain books.com, giving them a powerful keyword advantage.

However, Brandon says that the full SEO value of the old domain won’t transfer to your site, that is you might not get as advantageous a position as books.com originally had. While you may gain some SEO value from the redirected domain’s backlinks, it’s typically not as strong as having those backlinks directly linked to your site.

And this is why it’s important to focus on building high-quality backlinks and creating valuable content in the long run, as shortcuts or black hat techniques could lead to penalties from search engines.

Alternatively, some people choose to rebuild old domains and redirect each page individually to a related page on their own site. This method requires more effort but may potentially yield better results.

When considering buying domains, it’s advisable to research and choose domains that are relevant to your industry and have a good backlink profile.

Incorporating Schema Markup

One effective technique shared by Brandon to enhance your website’s search engine listings is by incorporating schema markup. Schema is a coding language developed by major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo over a decade ago. Schema markup allows you to enrich your website’s appearance in search results, making it more engaging and informative for users.

For instance, schema markup can display star ratings, price information, or even recipe details directly in the search results, grabbing users’ attention and enticing them to click. This is particularly advantageous for e-commerce businesses, where product images, ratings, and prices play a significant role in attracting customers.

While implementing schema markup may seem technically challenging, there are user-friendly tools available, such as schema generators, which streamline the process. These tools enable you to input the necessary data and generate the corresponding schema code. To ensure accuracy, Google provides a schema validator that can be used to verify and validate the generated code.

By incorporating schema markup into your product pages, you can effectively communicate essential information to search engines and improve the visibility and appeal of your listings. Embracing this advanced SEO technique in 2023 will give your website a competitive edge, increasing its chances of attracting organic traffic and driving valuable conversions.

About Brandon Leibowitz, Founder of SEO Optimizers

Brandon specializes in SEO and founded SEO Optimizers, helping businesses increase their website traffic since 2007. With a primary focus on organic SEO, the company also added social media and PPC optimization for ROAS to their portfolio of services, working with small and medium-sized businesses.

SEO Optimizers offers a personalized approach to SEO because they understand that each business is unique and requires tailored strategies. Brandon offers a free website analysis to assess the SEO performance of a website to identify what works and what needs improvement.

This includes a competitor analysis to understand niche specific SEO strategies and determine how to bridge the gap between the client’s website and the top-ranking competitors.

By understanding the competitive landscape and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a website’s performance, SEO Optimizers aims to help businesses improve their organic search rankings and drive more targeted traffic to their websites.