What We Learned in 22 and Where Search Is Going in 23

SEARCH ENGINE REWIND
What we learned
in ‘22 and where
search is going
in ‘23
A look back at big changes and how to
plan for business success in the new year
Written by Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital
1
ABOUT
NP Digital
The alternative to the agency status quo
Our technology is offered for free in 150+ countries and in 9

languages. In 2022, we hit 3.3 million active users. That data
was used to inform this report.
We rank in top positions on Google for “online marketing”, “digital

marketing”- our blog is one of the top read in the world, we continue
to average over 9,000,000 organic search visitors per month!
In 2022 we hit 1.1MM subscribers to our YouTube channel. Over

the course of the last 12 months our videos have received over 12
million views, averaging just over 1 million / month.
2,000+ Marketing School podcast episodes

dropped in total. Updated daily with over 1 million
monthly downloads.
NP Digital + Neil was listed by Forbes as the 7th

most “Influential Companies & Celebrities With
Top-Notch Branding Strategies”.
‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

1
introduction
Trends matter, preparing for what’s to come matters more
Companies that ignore marketing trends Thanks to Ubersuggest and Answer
may leave thousands (or millions) of the Public we have access to 600m+
dollars on the table. monthly search queries, 6b+ keywords,
2t+ backlinks, and 32b+ website pages.

But for some marketing pros and SEOs,
This data helps us be more proactive in
that’s what happens. A certain algorithm
both paid and organic search.
update doesn’t seem like a big deal.
There’s not enough budget to invest in This isn’t just a Google thing, either.
video. Maybe someone in the C-suite Understanding these trends and the
has never heard of the sunk cost fallacy. strategies to take advantage of them
applies to other engines like Bing,

It happens.
Naver, Baidu, Yandex, and others.
Here’s the thing: Trends matter. Being
What you’ll find in the following pages
ahead of the curve matters. And in
looks back at the big trends that made
search, where a single moment’s
2022 a wild year in search, and the
hesitation can set you back months, you
coming changes that will make huge
need to be proactive—not responsive.
waves in 2023.

3
contents
→ Google algorithm updates and their impact (6)
→ SERPs have more to offer than ever (8)
→ Failing Core Web Vitals could leave you behind (10)
→ Video is priority #1 (12)
→ Search engine trends that will shape ’23 (13)
→ Augmented reality adds a new dimension to search (14)
→ AI writing brings content at scale (15)
→ Search is everywhere, and branding is intertwined with success (17)
→ Building a successful search strategy (21)
→ Keyword queries are trending long-tail and specific (23)
→ GA4 will be the only game in town (24)
→ Big changes are coming for paid search (26)
→ The anti-trend, quality always matters (30)

4
search
engine
Trends that shaped ‘22
Every year sees new trends and priorities
for SEOs, and 2022 was no exception.
Google continues to be the gold While some of the following trends had
standard that drives priorities for digital a greater impact than others, marketers
marketing. The priorities for 2022 who could adjust quickly and pivot to
continued to be informative, useful include new technologies had a leg up
content that answered user search on their competitors who did not.
queries.
If there’s a story to tell from 2022, it’s
that Google’s algorithm updates
continue to impact the past, present, and
even future of both web development
and content creation.

5
Google algorithm updates and their impact
Google pushed several key algorithm shows that the May algorithm update
updates throughout 2022. These prioritized site performance
changes caused SEOs to adjust their (specifically load speeds). Those with
strategy and see past content differently. faster speeds and greater
As usual, Google did not specify any performance tended to rank higher
concrete changes that each update than those that performed poorly.
made to the algorithm. But that didn’t Other priorities for this update
stop us from noting key points about included strong backlinks and non-
each update. invasive web content. For e-
commerce sites, this meant

→ March Product Review Update: The
rewarding those that produced non-
first of several updates this year
product specific content only.
focused on identifying high-quality
reviews. This shows the importance → September Helpful Content Update:
of encouraging positive reviews and This update had a ripple effect across
comprehensive ones that inform all sorts of industries, but the overall
readers and tell them what they need impact was to reward those sites
to know about a business or service. with “people-first” content. Writing for
search engines may have been

→ May Algorithm Update: While Google
helpful in the past, but Google has
never actively says what it prioritizes
been vocal about prioritizing anything
in updates, our study
written for its users. Sites with legacy

6
Google algorithm updates and their impact
content that hasn’t been updated or
reviewed in a while may have seen some
drop in rankings on the search engine
results page (SERP).
The Helpful Content Update also shows
the impact that true subject matter
experts (SMEs) can have on authority.
Companies with bonafide SMEs should
consider encouraging them to review all
content before publication. Once they
approve, they should receive credit as an
author or reviewer.

7
serps
Have more to offer than ever before
Have you recently noticed how much stuff lives on the SERP these days? Between ads,
knowledge graphs, business listings, shopping tools, and images, it’s a lot. You may have
previously heard about zero-click content, but it’s even more of a reality than ever. Zero-click
content—where a person finds the information they need on a SERP without clicking through to
a new page—accounted for 25.6% of desktop searches and 17.3% of mobile ones.
Google has previously mentioned expansion into video content is part of a bigger overall
strategy: the SERP page as a comprehensive source of information instead of a directory of
useful resources. Some of the major features on the SERP include the following items:
→ Featured snippets: The boxes at the top of a SERP that provides short answers to a user’s
query. They can be paragraphs, bulleted lists, images, or other widgets.
→ Knowledge graph: A basic overview about a topic, person, or entity. It can include things like
hours of operation for businesses, a brief description of what a person is best known for, or
detailed information that is sourced from a longer article or story.
→ Visual results: The addition of product ads, image listings, thumbnail images and image
carousels in web listings to provide more context.
→ Short videos: On mobile SERPs, short videos take up significant real estate.
→ Related searches: Search queries that relate to what you’ve looked for.

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SERPs have more to offer than ever before
Content creators may shrug this off In fact, 87 people logged out of Google
because they feel like they’re not getting and searched privately, and they still
conversions from people reading the saw different results. For these reasons,
listing, but there are still plenty of brands need a deeper understanding of
reasons to optimize for those features. the intent behind a person’s search, to
People still read them, after all, and provide them with better information.
information in featured snippets comes
directly from well-optimized, high-
ranking content.
Take full advantage of the SERP. Use
schema, Google Business Profiles, and
the robust Knowledge Graph info on
your pages to make sure your site is the
most comprehensive resource possible
beyond what’s on the webpage itself.
The information you provide needs to be
user-centric, however. Intent kills the
unique #1 position, which means what
one person sees for a term may differ
from what another sees, even if they’re
both logged out and in private mode.

9
core web vitals
Failing to address issues could leave you behind
Keyword optimization, mobile first interaction, like clicking a link.
experience, and backlinks are all

→ Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): The
fundamental parts of SEO performance,
sum of all unexpected layout shifts
but Core Web Vitals help describe the
during the loading of a page.
on-page experience. These signals
→ First Contentful Paint (FCP): How long
represent a page’s visual stability,
a page takes from the initial load to the
loading speed, and general
first rendered content displaying on the
responsiveness.
screen.
Here’s a handy glossary with all the main
→ Time to First Byte: The time span
components of CWV your team needs to
between the first client request and the
be aware of:
first delivery of data by the server back
→ LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): The
to that client.
render time of the largest image or
→ DOM Content Loaded: When the main
text block visible within the viewport,
document has been loaded.
relative to when the page first started
loading. → Onloaded: When a page and all its
associated resources have been

→ FID (First Input Delay): How long a
downloaded and parsed.
page takes to respond to a user’s

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Core Web Vitals
Companies that previously put CWV at the bottom of their list of priorities may have gotten
away with it in the past, but that’s no longer the case. In early 2022, just 33% of sites in a study
performed by Ahrefs passed CWV checks—up 10% from the previous year.
While that number seems low, consider making sure your website meets these
that more and more websites are slowly standards.
creeping up across both desktop and

If you’re still on the fence, our below
mobile. Sites that continue to lag and fail
study spells out just how important
to improve their technical SEO will fall to
CWV is to small and mid-sized
the back of the pack.
companies:
If you haven’t made a plan to audit your

Can your small business afford to fail
site’s CWV and take steps to improve it,
Core Web Vitals? No.
it’s time to start. Those changes don’t
have to happen tomorrow, but a long-
term plan is better than none.
Google places an increasingly large
emphasis on passing CWV tests as part
of its search ranking guidelines, and not
just as a “tiebreaker.” For small
businesses with limited marketing
budgets, that means investing money in

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“ Google knows that video is in high demand from the general audience, and
that’s why it’s working to incorporate more video into search results via video
shorts and video indexing. Companies should build out relevant content that
video
fills these features and supports their pages to seize that popularity...
- Neil Patel: co-founder, NP Digital
Should remain priority #1 for marketers
While social media’s much-vaunted pivot Video marketing can take several
to video created issues for publishers forms, and it’s not just limited to ads.
who relied on those platforms for For one brand, it might be building a
distribution, the importance of video to YouTube channel or putting testimonial
search cannot be understated. There’s a content on landing pages. How-to
good chance this isn’t the first time videos make for excellent content for
you’ve heard this, but video is here to product-focused businesses.
stay.
Let's look at the work management
Video content is performing well on company Asana. Their YouTube
platforms like TikTok and Instagram and channel, which has over 34,000
in search itself. Marketers pointed to subscribers, provides several different
video as the number one format in their resources including:
content strategy. Over 80 percent of → Product tips
marketers point to video as a significant → Short ads for the product

source of increased traffic and sales. It’s
→ In-depth how-to videos
a vital strategic asset, and it’s not going
→ Examples of how the company uses
anywhere. its own software

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“ Looking ahead there is a new frontier of computing with potential that takes
all of this even further – and that’s augmented reality…
-Sundar Pichai: CEO, Google
2023
Search engine trends that will shape us next
If algorithm updates and SERP elements Augmented Reality Adds a

influenced 2022 search, what does 2023
New Dimension to Search
have in store?
Most people view augmented reality
User behaviors are changing. New tools
(AR) as a fun way to play with phones,
are expanding the scope of scalable
but it’s more than that.
content production and impacting how
Tech companies—including Apple and
users see the world around them.
Qualcomm—are placing a high priority
Branding is back at the forefront of
on more powerful tools to facilitate AR
search concerns.
growth.
Understanding where the industry is
AR allows companies like IKEA and
heading lets your team lay the
Wayfair to show users what specific
groundwork for success today. When it
furniture looks like in their homes.
comes to search, being proactive is
always better than being reactive. Even Google is focusing more closely
Changes need time to take hold after on the AR game, according to
they’re implemented. comments made by CEO Sundar Pichai
at Google IO in late 2022.

Knowing what’s coming and planning for
it will put you ahead of the curve.

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augmented
reality
What does it mean for search?
Google announced the development of AR search results in late 2022, specifically within
Google Maps. These AR search results place markers in a video feed in 3D space. While the
hope is to eventually make that the interface for goggles or glasses, it is currently limited to
phones.
It’s not hard to imagine a use case for these search results, especially when it comes to local
SEO. Ensuring businesses have updated business listings can put them in the viewport of
searchers as they use their phones to help navigate the world.
Will AR make sense for all marketers or businesses? No. But much like videos became a
greater priority in 2022, it might be worth exploring in 2023. Google Lens is helping to create
new categories for SEOs to consider: visual search optimization.
SEO experts have always stressed optimizing images for search. The rise in AR makes this
even more of a priority. The best ways to ensure images are ready for search are to:
→ Use high-quality images.
→ Write appropriate, descriptive alt-text.
→ Write captions to provide more detail for users.

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artificial intelligence
AI writing brings content creation at scale
Another innovation in marketing is the Some content professionals assume
explosion of AI writing (and AI art) tools. the AI writer can generate a firehose of
These controversial products use unlimited, instant, and immediately
machine learning to scan large portions usable content. Others believe AI-
of the internet and train AI to write written content is poor quality.
coherent, usable content. ChatGPT is in Because it’s important to know what’s
the headlines now. It’s an impressive on the horizon, we’ve started to work
idea, but the results have been mixed. with some of these tools. We’ve
discovered that the results fall in the

Immediately after these products hit the
middle.
market, think piece after piece started
rolling in. Will AI replace professional Plenty of AI writing tools exist that can
writers? Can these tools speed up the help organizations scale content
process of content creation? There’s a production, but let’s make one thing
healthy mixture of optimism and clear: They all require a heavy hand to
skepticism around the utility of these be effective. An AI writer is only as
products, and content professionals good as the inputs they use, and they’ll
have a reason to be skeptical. After all, never replace human emotion that
they have skin in the game. matters in marketing.

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AI writing brings content creation at scale
If you’ve never used one of these standing by to support them.
platforms to boost your writing process,

Saving time and energy with efficient
it’s time to start. The Ubersuggest AI
content production isn’t just good for
writing tool offers plenty of robust
SEO. Paid media and organic channels
options to help generate blog topics,
benefit from the lift in traffic and search
subject headings, meta descriptions, and
visibility that comes with high-ranking
more.
content for reasons we’re about to talk
Writers must supply the AI with baseline about.
information like keywords, suggested
tone, and topics. They also need to edit
the fresh content each program spits
out. Some paragraphs may require more
massaging than others. To their credit,
many AI writer tools are upfront about
this.
Skilled human writers are just as crucial
to the content marketing process as
they’ve always been. For organizations
who need to scale up content
production, AI tools can help—provided
there’s still a core team of writers

16
search is
everywhere
And branding is intertwined with success
As a consumer, what’s the most valuable digital tool you use daily? Is it email? Social media?
Online maps?
In a 2019 survey of how much compensation they’d need to give up digital services, the “most
valuable” resource was search engines. They were valued twice as much as email and nearly
five times as much as online maps. As far as “valuable tools” are concerned, social media was
close to the bottom of the list.
Fast-forward to 2023, and while search engines are still king when it comes to resources
online, there’s one social site that has immense value (especially for Gen Z): TikTok. In fact,
among Gen Z, TikTok ranks number 1 on the list of media usage in an internet minute.
Google ranks fifth.
Characteristic Amount per minute
Videos watched by TikTok users 167,000,000
Views received by Facebook Live 44,000,000
Messages sent on iMessage 12,000,000
People shopping online 6,000,000
Google searches conducted 5,700,000
Snapchat messages sent 2,000,000

17
Search is everywhere and branding is intertwined with success
That’s right. TikTok is the top search users. And where the users go, brands
engine for members of Gen Z, but not in should follow.
the ways you might think.

Digital marketers need to pivot and think
40% of young people use TikTok or about ways to build their brand presence
Instagram to find lunch spots or other across all platforms, not just traditional
destinations. Prabhakar Raghavan, the search engines. SEO and content are still
Senior Vice President who heads up worthwhile investments, but newer
Google’s Knowledge and Information opportunities such as influencer
division, explains it this way: marketing and digital PR should also be
part of the plan.

“We keep learning, over and over again,
that new internet users don’t have the Not yet convinced? Consider this: Nearly
expectations and the mindset that we 89% of surveyed shoppers agree that
have become accustomed to…the YouTube creators give the most
queries they ask are completely trustworthy information when it comes
different.” to products and brands.
Search is one of the most popular
features on all social media platforms.
From YouTube to Pinterest and TikTok
to Twitter, users are searching for
content there. That means “social
search” is becoming a bigger priority for

18
Not blogs. Not review websites. In addition to the pure search considerations, it’s essential to
realize that social media platforms have their own algorithmic pressures. And sometimes
their best practices don’t align with Google’s. What we know matters for each platform:
Google Youtube
→ External links, internal links, keywords, → User watch history and action, view
search intent, content quality, content duration, topical interests,
thoroughness, on-page, technical competitive performance, relevance
issues, site speed to the current session
Instagram TikTok
→ Post format, post time & frequency, → Accounts followed, content created,
engagement, feature usage, user likes and shares, comments posted,
activity, interaction history, hashtags, keyword-rich captions, videos
interactive polls and sliders completed, favorited videos
LinkedIn Facebook
→ Usage of video, comments and → Interactions from followers, overall
shares, usage of new features, text- engagement, native video content,
based post with no links (advice), drive discussions rather than
employee’s activity has direct impact dropping links
on a brand’s reach

19
Need proof that social media involvement leads to brand recognition? We have it. In addition
to more traffic and visibility, we’ve built our place in the industry on it.
Let’s look at the below study to start:
Are often “followed” around the internet with ads about

products or brands they’ve seen on social media 15% 22% 43% 8% 12%
Read product descriptions on posts to learn

more about the brand 15% 20% 28% 12% 25%
Read social media comments to learn what

others say about the brand 19% 26% 33% 9% 13%
Believe it’s important for brands to respond to

comments on social media 20% 28% 28% 8% 16%
Have purchased a brand’s product after watching a

social media livestream 21% 32% 28% 7% 12%
Prefer brand videos over static

posts on social media 21% 25% 25% 11% 19%
Strongly agree Somewhat agree Neutral / don’t know Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree
The main takeaway here is that social ads, descriptions, livestreams and engagement are
strongly affecting purchasing behavior, especially video.
We’ve also established before that more and more people, especially younger generations, are
turning to social media as their first point of truth when looking for guidance. Remember, the
rise of zero-click content is real, and more and more users want answers to their questions
faster. Is it all starting to come together? It’s not going to be enough just to rank high in SERPs
anymore, as more and more people are looking elsewhere first when making their decisions
about a company. You need to invest time and effort into other areas. You need that DPR
presence, you need that social media presence, you need to start working with influencers.

20
branding
+ search
Building a successful search strategy
I’m a firm believer in practicing what I preach. When I say that you need to start combining
conventional SEO with other branding methods, my agency, NP Digital, is already doing it.
Even if your company is reluctant to jump feet-first into something like influencer marketing, a
little bit of branding goes a long way.
For one of our clients, we implemented a conventional combination of content and SEO
creation, but also added DPR support to boost awareness of our efforts.
Here’s a breakdown of the campaign strategy:
→ Research: Our client lacked organic visibility, so we relied on paid search data to identify
keyword gaps and content needs that we could target.
→ Prioritization: We scored non-branded keywords based on impressions, click-through
rates, cost-per-click and conversions over a 30-day period.
→ Content creation: We focused on increasing semantic relevancy for high scoring,
competitive, transactional “head” keywords. We developed and published in-depth articles,
guides, how-to’s and answers to FAQs.
→ Digital PR: We executed a robust campaign to promote our new content, share the client's
story and support overall domain and page equity.

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Building a successful search strategy
Digital PR was a crucial part of our Case closed.
efforts here. It ensured the new content

While finding the right branding
we created got in front of important
approaches is going to vary from
publishers, while helping create a
business to business, these are
cohesive brand narrative. Want to know
conversations you want to start having
what this blended approach got our
now. I’ve also been working to increase
client?
my personal branding across different
→ +1,164% year-over-year increase in platforms. The greater the audience I
keywords found in the top 3 positions can help with digital marketing, the
on Google. better. The audience gets immediate
help and knows they can come to me or

→ +561% increase in organic search
my agency if they need further support.
traffic year-over-year, 160% over
client goal.
→ 260% increase in primary conversions
year-over-year.
→ +218% increase in the number of
referring domains year-over-year.

22
keyword
queries
Are trending long-tail and more specific
We know long-tail keywords have always been important to SEO, but they’re trending to
become necessary in 2023 and beyond.
It’s easy to look at keywords with high search value and assume that those should be your
focus but being more specific and anticipating user needs may serve marketing teams better
in the long run.
Competition for clicks and views is heavy. Between core algorithm updates, ads, knowledge
graphs, and attempts by Google to keep users on the SERP, it can be challenging to stand out.
Long-tail keywords allow marketers to get granular as people adopt voice search and more
detailed questions to search for what they need.
Companies can even adopt a long-term keyword strategy focusing on hitting users at
different stages of a sales funnel or adoption cycle. Consider putting one together that caters
to users out of the information-seeking stage and ready to buy.
HIGH
Category phrases (marketing)
Search Demand
Sub-category phrases (digital marketing)
Descriptive, long-tail phrases (digital marketing with the best ROI)
LOW HIGH
Conversion Rate %

23
GA4
Soon to be the only game in town
Have you taken steps to transition to Why? GA4 offers a new dashboard that
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)? If you haven’t, streamlines reporting features. In
you’re already depriving your future self addition, generalized data like
of valuable data. pageviews are out, and events are in.
Because some of the old metrics aren’t

Google recently reiterated that it is
moving forward to GA4, you should
officially sunsetting Universal Analytics
prepare to find replacements or
for most users on July 1, 2023. While
equivalents in future reporting.
users can continue to collect new data in
Universal Analytics and access that data There’s plenty of excitement around
for six months after the stop date, GA4 the new features in GA4—including the
will be the only available option moving updated dashboard—but it can look
forward. overwhelming if you haven’t
experienced it before. By taking the

Enterprise users can still use Universal
time now to get familiar with the new
Analytics until July 2024, but we strongly
elements and features, you’ll be ready
recommend setting up GA4 properties
to report on data by the time GA4
now to ensure your marketing team or
becomes the standard of analytics.
business is ready for the transition.

24
Your starter GA4 checklist
→ Go to google.com/analytics or log in
to your existing account. How to View Traffic
→ Create a GA4 Property: Click “Create → Click “Reports > Snapshot Users”.
a Property”.
→ Adjust data in upper right corner.
→ Adjust Time Zone + Currency: Add
your business name and adjust time Pro tip: Look at the summary card “Where
do your new users come from” for more
zone and currency.
information about your top traffic driving
→ Add Business Information: Size, how channels.
you plan to use GA4, etc. Click
“Create”.
How to View Engagement
→ Create a Data Stream: Add URL and
Stream name. Create one for each → Click the “Reports” tab in the left side-
website, iOS, and Android app. bar.
→ Click “Engagement > Overview”.
→ Add GA4 Measurement ID to your
website: Click “Add new on-page tag” → View average engagement time,
to view code, add this to your <head> engaged sessions per user and
tag. average engagement per session.
→ Activate Google Signals: In the

property column click “Data Settings How to View Events
> Data Collection”, then check Google
signals. Click “Apply”. → Click the “Reports” tab in the left side-
bar.
→ Add Recommended Events: Click → Click “Engagement”.
“Reports > Engagement > Events”,
then click + to add an event. → Select “Events”.
→ Add Additional Events: Copy and edit → View event count, event by user, etc..
current events or create new ones as Pro tip: Click “Conversions: Event Name”
needed. located under Events in the Engagement
dropdown to see which events convert the
→ Add Integrations: Connect GA4 to
most.
Search Console, Google Ads, Google
Optimize, etc. Click “Select Admin >
Account Settings”, then look for
“Product Links”.
→ Verify setup: Open your new GA4

property to verify data collection
(could take up to 48 hours).

25
paid search
Big changes are coming
We’ve been talking about organic trends mostly until this point, but it’s important to recognize
upcoming trends in paid search as well. In many cases, these two pillars support any strong
digital marketing strategy. Here’s a rapid-fire look at some of the paid search trends that me
and my team are keeping an eye on in 2023:
→ User Privacy: It’s changing how we approach audience insights. Google recently
announced that Similar Audiences will be sunsetting by May 2023 as user privacy
continues to become a focal point of online advertising. What does this mean for
advertisers? You need to start shifting your audience strategy to focus on alternative
solutions such as Audience Expansion and Optimized Targeting. First-party data is also
more important than ever to make sure Google is able to utilize customer intent signals
and optimize toward high-value audiences. Advertisers will need to strategically implement
a diverse audience strategy to their paid campaigns that incorporates the upcoming
audience solution changes as well as leverage in-market, affinity, and custom audience
segments.
→ Google Enhanced Conversions: If you already haven’t implemented, you need to move
now. Yes, third-party cookies aren’t getting phased out until 2024 at the earliest, and we
still don’t know the entire story there. With that said, there’s still a clear paradigm shift to a
more privacy-centric advertising model, and it’s coming soon.

26
Big changes are coming to paid search
This feature helps improve the accuracy of conversion measurement by supplementing
your existing conversion tags. How does it work? By sending hashed, anonymized first-
party conversion data from your website or offline customer data to Google in a privacy-
safe way.
1 2 3 4
→ Automation and AI Machine Learning: We’re headed into a time of uncertainty in the
global economy. It can be scary, but we need to prepare. Under these conditions, some of
Google’s automation solutions can work for you rather than against you. In 2022, Google
released an update that customer match lists will be applied to smart bidding as intent
signals for optimization. With that said, since ad spending may fluctuate throughout 2023,
advertisers will need to consistently evaluate performance of their automated bidding. This
is best done by: utilizing high-value customer data, ensuring conversion actions are set up
with data-driven attribution, consistently adjusting bid targets to meet performance targets.

27
AI and machine learning have been a focal point for years now, but Google continues to
make enhancements, and advertisers should expect further automation updates in 2023.
→ Performance Max: This is set to become more prominent. Performance Max provides the
ability to scale performance by opening up a larger inventory of ad placements across all of
Google's channels such as YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. Released
in 2022, advertiser adoption has been steadily growing.
Granted, it’s not perfect. We still have growing pains like questionable traffic and fraudulent
leads, but Google has been receptive to advertisers’ feedback. In fact, they have issued
significant refunds from invalid and click fraud activity this past year.
On top of that, Performance Max will continue to evolve and improve over time with recent
product updates. Examples include the ability to optimize to new customer acquisition
goals as well as more optimization levers such as negative keywords coming in 2023.

28
After all, automated bidding was not a and with that comes changes to
wildly successful product at first Microsoft’s ad distribution settings.
launch, but over time it has become

Microsoft Ads will shift from its
an essential part of campaign
traditional partner network of AOL,
optimization with its ability to achieve
Yahoo and Microsoft-owned sites to a
ROI goals.
larger extended network.
Expect Performance Max to continue

Standalone search partner network
improving with better controls and
campaigns will no longer be an option,
data transparency in 2023.
but exclusions of specific placements
→ Microsoft Search Ads and Partner will still be available.
Networks: Microsoft’s search volume

Also, as the partnership between
has been quietly growing, but its
Microsoft and Xandr matures, expect an
overall digital advertising business
increase in traffic from search partners
has been making some noise. Key
through the Xandr network. This could
milestones in this direction include its
potentially offer a comparable
acquisition of Xandr and recent
alternative to Google search partners.
partnership with Netflix to offer an ad-
This option includes Microsoft sites and
supported version of the platform.
additional partner traffic for extended
Microsoft is expecting to double the
reach and expected lower cost-per-click.
size of its ad business from $10
billion to $20 billion per year in 2023,

29
quality
content
The anti-trend
No matter how much search trends
change, some things don’t. One of those
is that Google consistently wants to put

What is EAT?
the best content forward for its users.
Expertise: This is speaking from an area
One of the best things any marketing
of experience and knowledge on a
team can do is prioritize high-quality
particular topic.
content on their pages.
→ Authoritativeness: This is when other
Remember: expertise, authority, and
publications or sources within your
trustworthiness (EAT). The emphasis on
niche link to your content, showing it
quality may not change, but the ways to
is accurate.
ensure it might. Even with exciting tools
like AI writing, expanded mobile AR → Trust: This is making sure your
features and the increased search content and site are credible,
reliance of TikTok, solving users’ specific accurate, up to date and easily
needs reigns supreme. Marketing teams accessible.
who lose sight of that priority will Add “Experience” to the mix too!
struggle in the new year.

30
conclusion
Search is constantly evolving
Are trends the most important thing to With the rise of TikTok and Instagram
consider when it comes to marketing? as authoritative platforms, it’s no
longer enough just to be an SEO expert.

No.
Marketers can follow all the best
But being aware of them can help inform
practices and still miss out. You're
your digital strategy for the next year.
leaving money on the table if you’re not
Remember: Failing to be proactive is a
putting energy (and money) into social
recipe for missed goals.
media or influencer campaigns.
In addition, you need to think about

What 2022 trends worked for
Google’s goals. They want to make the
you? What 2023 trend are you
SERP more of a destination and not just
most excited about?
part of the journey. If SEOs wish to be at
the party, they need to reach for every
tool in their bag of tricks to make it
happen: schema, business listings,
accurate information on the knowledge
graph, and more. Even if being there Follow us for more: @NPDigitalUS
doesn’t lead to clicks or conversions, the

/ if > - -
brand authority still counts.

31

What We Learned in 22 and Where Search Is Going in 23

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SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

plan for business success in the new year

Written by Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital

Our technology is offered for free in 150+ countries and in 9

We rank in top positions on Google for “online marketing”, “digital

In 2022 we hit 1.1MM subscribers to our YouTube channel. Over

2,000+ Marketing School podcast episodes

NP Digital + Neil was listed by Forbes as the 7th

‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

Companies that ignore marketing trends Thanks to Ubersuggest and Answer

dollars on the table. monthly search queries, 6b+ keywords,

2t+ backlinks, and 32b+ website pages.

applies to other engines like Bing,

‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

→ SERPs have more to offer than ever (8)

→ Failing Core Web Vitals could leave you behind (10)

→ Video is priority #1 (12)

→ Search engine trends that will shape ’23 (13)

→ Augmented reality adds a new dimension to search (14)

→ AI writing brings content at scale (15)

→ Search is everywhere, and branding is intertwined with success (17)

→ Building a successful search strategy (21)

→ Keyword queries are trending long-tail and specific (23)

→ GA4 will be the only game in town (24)

→ Big changes are coming for paid search (26)

→ The anti-trend, quality always matters (30)

‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

Every year sees new trends and priorities

for SEOs, and 2022 was no exception.

continued to be informative, useful include new technologies had a leg up

If there’s a story to tell from 2022, it’s

that Google’s algorithm updates

continue to impact the past, present, and

even future of both web development

and content creation.

‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

updates throughout 2022. These prioritized site performance

each update. invasive web content. For e-

commerce sites, this meant

reviews. This shows the importance → September Helpful Content Update:

to know about a business or service. with “people-first” content. Writing for

search engines may have been

‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

content that hasn’t been updated or

reviewed in a while may have seen some

drop in rankings on the search engine

results page (SERP).

The Helpful Content Update also shows

the impact that true subject matter

experts (SMEs) can have on authority.

Companies with bonafide SMEs should

consider encouraging them to review all

content before publication. Once they

approve, they should receive credit as an

‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

strategy: the SERP page as a comprehensive source of information instead of a directory of

query. They can be paragraphs, bulleted lists, images, or other widgets.

detailed information that is sourced from a longer article or story.

carousels in web listings to provide more context.

‘22 SEARCH ENGINE REWIND

information in featured snippets comes

directly from well-optimized, high-