It’s that time of year again, the time where we reflect back on how the previous year went and look ahead at upcoming trends. 

If you’ve been a long-time listener of this podcast, you know that each year I put out an episode talking about digital marketing trends to watch for the coming year. 

I also reflect back on my previous year’s predictions to see how they held up.

So, tune in now to learn about how the digital marketing world played out in 2022 and where I see the industry heading in 2023.

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Episode Transcript

Erica: Welcome to the Unconventional RD podcast where we inspire dietitians to think outside of the traditional employment box and create their own unconventional income streams. We’ll talk all things online business to help you start, grow, and scale your own digital empire. Yay. It’s that time of year again, the time where we reflect back on how the previous year went and look ahead at upcoming trends. If you’ve been a long-time listener of this podcast, you know that each year I put out an episode talking about digital marketing trends to watch. And then I also reflect back on my previous year’s predictions to see how they held up. These types of episodes are really fun and creative for me. So I can’t wait to have a little chat about where I see the industry heading in 2023 and a little fun fact, my episode on this topic last year. So the trends to watch in 2022 was actually my most listened to episode of the entire year. 

So I hope that you enjoy this one as well. I put a lot, a lot of effort into it. I have 26 pages of notes. To share with you. So, before we get into my predictions for 2023, let’s talk about the predictions I made for 2022 and see whether or not they came to fruition. I’ll start by saying that some of my 2022 predictions are bleeding over into my 2023 predictions. So I’ll keep it somewhat brief as I go over these so that we can dive into the meat of the episode with the trends to watch for 2023. 

So, what did I predict would be the trends to watch last year? And was I accurate with these predictions? 2022 trend number one was know your monetization goals. In 2021, I came up with three blogging business models that I saw people in my audience trying to pursue. The first one, I coined the publisher model where people are primarily interested in publishing large amounts of free content on their site, and then monetizing that content via relatively passive methods like display ads, affiliate links. 

Or maybe some sponsored content or brand work, for example, many food and lifestyle bloggers fall into this category. Model number two was the online business model where people are trying to sell digital products to their audiences. Things like eBooks, online courses, membership sites, group programs, et cetera. 

With this model, it’s not just about getting large amounts of traffic. But about getting the right type of traffic that will be interested in buying from you. And the third model was the services model. Where people are trying to attract clients that would like to work with them. One-on-one either in person or online. 

This model is similar to the online business model in that you need to be focused on creating content that will specifically bring your ideal customer right to you. The main idea behind these three business models is that you really need to understand your end goal with your business, from the get-go so that you can properly chart your course to get there. 

I found over the years that a lot of new online entrepreneurs skipped this step and didn’t have a lot of clarity of where they were trying to really go with their business. They may have had a niche and understood what they wanted to be an expert on, but they didn’t have their monetization strategy dialed in. 

So sure. Maybe they were creating content that was picking up some traction in Google. And growing their audience, but without understanding how they plan to monetize, they may have been going about it in the wrong way. For example, if your goal is to monetize with ads, Writing about topics that get, say 50 searches a month is probably not the best strategy. If your goal is trying to get to 50,000 monthly sessions in the next year or two, realistically, you need to be targeting keywords with a much higher search volume in order to get there. 

And vice versa. If you wanted to sell an online course about nutrition. Let’s say gestational diabetes. But you’re creating content about generic lifestyle and recipe topics. You will most likely have a very hard time making sales. If the audience that you’re building, isn’t interested in the topic you want to create a course on. 

So my point with including this in my trends to watch in 2022 was to drive home the point to my listeners. That they really need to prioritize, having clarity on their business goals. If they want to see results from their content creation efforts. Honestly, this was nothing super groundbreaking, but I had just seen that common issue come up again and again in 2021. So I felt like I needed to bring it up as something for my audience to focus on in 2022. 

And to be honest, this is going to remain something that I emphasize every single year, because it really has that important. So, if you don’t yet have clarity on how you plan to make money from your blog content, this is your official nudge to pin that down before we get too far into 2023. And if you need some extra help in this department. 

I recommend listening to episode 61 of this podcast, where I dive deeper into each one of these business models and the type of content strategy that goes along with each. Trend number two from 2022 was always check, search intent while blogging. Ah, yes, this one was right on the money and has only become more relevant with time. 

What I meant by this was to make sure that you’re not getting keyword research, tunnel vision when planning your blog posts. It’s not enough to just look at a keywords, monthly search volume and keyword difficulty in your SEO tool when choosing whether or not to write about something, you need to manually Google that keyword and look at what’s ranking to make sure that you understand what people are looking for when they’re searching. 

For example, are they trying to buy a product? Are they looking for a list of ideas? Do they want a recipe? Do they want a tutorial? Are they looking for a product review, a product comparison, the website for a specific brand in answer to a question that they had, those are just some examples, but it’s critical to understand what someone wants when they’re searching so that you can create the right type of content that aligns with that intent. 

If it makes sense for your brand. Because if you come out of left field with a piece of content that does not match up with the type of content that Google is currently ranking at the top of the search results, your chances of getting good visibility and clicks on that content are very, very low. And it’s probably not a good use of your time. 

Okay. Emphasize the importance of search intent a lot inside my signature course. SEO made simple. And I only see this remaining relevant in 2023, as search continues to advance bloggers who really understand search intent and how to critically evaluate search results before deciding whether to create a content on a topic will have an advantage in 2023. And as always, if you want to learn more about my SEO course and enroll the next time it opens up. 

We should be in a few months, maybe spring 20, 23 at this time. Uh, add your name to the waitlist at seowaitlist.com. Trend number three for 2022 was to niche, niche niche. Over the last couple of years, I started to notice that Google was giving ranking preference to websites that had strong topical authority on a subject. Even if their domain authority was sometimes on the lower side. Niche expertise seemed to give them a little boost in the search results. Sometimes above larger websites that had a more generic focus. 

And I don’t want to give too much away yet since this idea of topical expertise is also bleeding over into my 2023 predictions. But yes, this trend was again right on the money. And again has only increased in importance over time. In today’s day and age, it is essential to build strong authority on a topic, especially if your content falls under the, your money or life category, like nutrition does. 

If you try to cover every topic under the sun on your website, and you lack a clear demonstration of which topics you’re actually an expert on, you will struggle in 2023. So we will circle back to this concept later in the episode. But yes, this trend prediction was spot on. 

If you are trying to start or grow an online business in 2023 using SEO strategies, you need a clear niche. Trend number four from 2022 was to keep an eye on changing tax laws. Last year, I noticed that there had been a lot of new tax laws around e-commerce and selling digital goods. And I wanted everyone to be aware of how online sales tax worked for digital goods and how much it varied state by state. 

And to be honest, 2022 was a pretty hectic year for me. So I didn’t keep up on the news in this arena as much as I probably should have. So for now, I’ve just been checking my sales stats and Stripe, which is the platform I use for my online transactions to find out if I’ve met the sales tax cutoffs. 

For various states or countries. In 2021, I didn’t meet the requirements to owe sales tax in other states, but that may have changed in 2022. I haven’t run the numbers yet to know for sure. But the main point here is to not bury your head in the sand on this one. I know taxes can be intimidating, but I’ve actually found the various agencies I’ve communicated with like the VAT people in Ireland to be super responsive and helpful. So this is one of those rip the band-aid off moments. Just do it, dive into the tax laws, or find an accountant who can help you with this and make sure that you are in compliance and paying the right taxes wherever they are due. 

If you use Stripe as a payment processor, this is a great place to start simply log in and go to the more section and then click on tax in that area. It will show you exactly how many sales and the value of the transactions you’ve done in each state and country in the world, and whether or not you’ve exceeded the reporting threshold. 

They’ll also help point you in the direction for how to register and make payments if needed. It’s great. And this is an area of online entrepreneurship that isn’t fun or sexy. But it is important. I’m sure there are plenty of accountants out there that you could outsource this task to. So that’s probably something I should look into moving forward, but yes, this trend is still important to keep up on. 

Since the laws are constantly changing and probably will continue to do so. Trend number five from 2022 was to start dabbling in AI. And wow, it’s crazy to think that just one year ago, I had only started dabbling in AI, but wow. Things come a long way in the last 12 months. So last year when I was recording my trends episode, the AI tool Jarvis had just rebranded to Jasper and I was playing around with creating content on it. In fact, I fed it a prompt and I read that content that I created out loud lash on last year’s episode. And we were all impressed by how natural it sounded. 

But Ooh, things have come a long way in 12 months. Again, this topic is one of my trending topics for 2023. So I don’t want to spoil my thoughts on it quite yet, but yes, yes. Yes. AI is here and making huge waves and everyone who creates content online should be paying attention. And my final trend for 2020 to trend number six was to be flexible with social media in the coming year. 

In 2021, there was a lot of chatter about social media platforms not being what’s the, what they once were. Facebook ad retargeting was no longer as robust due to some privacy changes that had recently happened. Pinterest had seemingly gone off the rails and lost focus. Trying to become sort of some sort of social platform rather than the powerful visual search engine that they once were. 

And Instagram went through a lot of changes with declining, organic reach and engagement for people who are not keeping up on the cutting edge of the content creation trends. No one was predicting that social media would completely fall off or become unimportant. But there was a sense last year that a lot of things were changing and that content creators needed to adapt their strategies. 

To stay relevant and to continue to get good results. I think that overall that sense was spot on. Things have changed. And in some ways I feel that is just the inevitable with online business. It often feels like the only constant is change. In fact. The speed at which things change online was part of the reason why I decided to scale back some of my offerings and go deep into teaching about SEO and growing your audience through evergreen content creation on your website. Because trying to talk about SEO, ad revenue, affiliate marketing, online courses, selling digital goods, running a membership site, and email marketing was just way, way, way too much for me as a solo preneur. 

I’m not ruling out the possibility of teaching on these topics in some form, again, in the future. It’s just the way that I had previously set everything up with super-duper in-depth tech tutorial, heavy self study. Online courses was not sustainable given how quickly the strategies and the interfaces change online. 

And if you run an online business, I bet you relate to this. I imagine you feel like it’s tough enough to keep up with best practices on whatever content creation platform you prioritize. Now imagine trying to do that on multiple platforms. So, yes, there were a lot of changes in the world of social media in 2022. And I have a feeling that more changes are ahead still, especially with the uncertainty, with what will happen with Twitter, the prioritization of short form video on almost every platform. 

And the never ending battle to one up each other and copy features from other platforms. Social media really? Isn’t a core focus of mine at this moment, I guess, outside of my free Facebook group. And that is the unconventional RD community on Facebook. If you haven’t checked it out yet. So I don’t have a ton of insights to share with you on this topic right now. 

I will say though, that organic growth and reach for my free Facebook group has slowed down pretty dramatically. Over the last two years, the heyday for my group was definitely 2018 to 2020 with an especially great year in 2019. In that time span, we were getting 2,500 to 3000 new members each year. And about 50% of those were joining my email list. 

And in 2022 and 2023, we only gained about 1500 new members each year. So roughly half of what we were getting in 2019. Now of course, part of that could be due to my reduced personal participation in the group over the last few years. I also changed the way that I sent out emails in my business, and I stopped including links to the Facebook group inside weekly emails. And of course, I do think that the algorithms changed as well during that time in favor of more video and new content discoverability in people’s feeds over content from groups. 

So it is what it is, but I think reduced organic reach probably applies to every social platform except maybe tech talk right now. 

I’m going to talk a little bit about how I plan to utilize social media in 2023 later in this episode. So I’ll leave it here for now, but I would say that this trend of quickly shifting social platforms and content creation strategies will probably never end. So that’s it for the trends of 2022. And I’m ready to dive into the five digital marketing trends to watch in 2023. 

And since I have niched so far deeply into blogging and SEO over the last few years. Those topics are particularly top of mind. And a lot of my predictions and insights have to do with the way Google might change in the coming years and especially the impact of AI on online business. So I’m really excited. 

To dive into the trends for 2023. So trend number one. Google becoming more of a content suggestion slash curation platform rather than just a search engine. So honestly, this trend is probably a little more than one year away. So something to watch beyond just 20, 23. But I do think it’s something to start thinking about while planning your strategic long-term business moves. 

Over the last few years, Google has added some features that hint that they may in the future attempt to curate and suggest content to their users directly, rather than people having to go to the Google search bar and type in keywords to find something they’re looking for. For example, as of late 20, 22, Google has been playing around with adding suggested search modifiers at the top of the search results to help you find what you’re looking for without having to go back and start a search all over again. 

So let’s just make up an example right now to flush this out. Currently, I’m only seeing the suggested search modifiers when I search on mobile. So when I’m searching on my phone, but I know that they’ve been testing them on desktop as well. So if you search for something in Google, on your phone, let’s say lasagna recipe. 

Underneath the search bar at the top of the page of results, you will now see additional keywords that you can add to your search term to hone it even further. These are what Google is gleaning topics, and they are essentially keywords related to what you’re searching for. That will help you find something more specific. 

So in this example, when I search lasagna recipe, the suggested topics that Google is showing underneath the search bar are videos, vegetarian Italian for, for. Cheesy lasagna. easy with ricotta, no ricotta, traditional beef images with ground beef and then the rest of the regular search result types like shopping news, books, maps, et cetera. 

So if you click one of these suggested search my modifiers. It will add that term to your search and the results that you’re seeing will change. For example, if I click on the first suggested topic vegetarian, it changes the search from lasagna recipe to lasagna recipe, vegetarian. And brings up vegetarian lasagna recipes. To me, this indicates that Google is trying to guide people to the information that they’re looking for. 

And become more of a helpful content discovery engine than just a search engine. Do you see the slight difference there with just a straight search engine? You have to already know what you want to find and then search for it. Using keywords, Google, then Combs all the content. It has indexed across the entire internet and tries to show you the best and most helpful results that match what you’re looking for. 

But now they’ve added a new layer where once they know what you’ve searched for, they try to nudge you in a few more directions that might make you continue down your search rabbit hole to discover new things. To give you an even more fun and unique example. I tried searching for famous dietitians in Google. Initially brings up a table of 15 RDS that they consider quote, unquote, famous. 

Including people like Ellie Krieger who hosted a show on food network or Marion Nestle. Who’s an author and professor at NYU. But underneath that search, it also gives me the suggestion to add the search modifier on Instagram or male or black or Indian or in us, or for weight loss or near me. As a user. I kind of like these suggestions because yeah, maybe, initially I wasn’t thinking about finding dietitians who are famous on Instagram, but after seeing the suggestion, I’m like, huh? Yeah. Actually I would like to know that. 

And I can imagine that the keywords that are suggested as modifiers by Google might get more traction than expected or predicted. By keyword research tools because they’re sort of being served up on a platter to people right there. So as a content creator, this could be a really fun way to come up with potential new keywords to target on your website. 

For queries in your niche, it’s kind of like, You know, a hint. If, if people in your, hypothetical niche are searching for X, Y, Z topic, Google’s basically serving up on a platter, other topics that they based on their algorithmic knowledge would assume that this hypothetical person would always also be interested in. So use that to your advantage, play around with it and see what you think. 

I also noticed that for some queries on mobile. Google also 

automatically starts showing you content from related search terms. If you scroll far enough down on the page. So I assume that they think if you scroll down far enough to see like 50 plus pieces of content on the search results and you haven’t clicked into anything and been satisfied yet. That maybe you would enjoy seeing some suggested searches as well. 

So, for example, I searched for vegetarian lasagna on my phone. And after scrolling down long enough, they started showing me related searches with eye catching content underneath. The first suggestion was vegan. Spinach, lasagna. And it shows the search terms sort of in a search bar with a prominent YouTube video right there at the top. It sort of in like a call-out box underneath the regular search results. So it’s, it shows like a little fake search bar. It says vegan spirituals, Anya. 

Then there is a big YouTube video, a placeholder, and then underneath that there’s two recipe posts, sort of side by side and little boxes underneath. Uh, the next suggested search was cheap, lazy vegan lasagna with the same sort of formatting for the results. One large YouTube video with two recipes underneath. And then the suggestion just keep coming after that. So again, as a content creator, you could consider looking at these related searches for content ideas. 

And I’d even say that based on just this one example I was looking at. It appears that they are prioritizing showing video at the top of these suggested searches. So if you see suggestions. That don’t have a video in the little suggested content card yet. Perhaps that’s an opportunity to NAB that space. 

And if you actually click on the search bar, and if you click on that fake search bar for vegans, spinach, lasagna. Uh, it will actually open up the search results for vegans, spinach, lasagna, and you can see that the YouTube video that they are so prominently highlighting in these suggestions. 

Does not show up at the top of the regular search results, which I find very interesting. The other two recipes do those are both the top two spots for the organic search results and the recipe carousel. But that video piece, I feel like they’re trying to use the video to capture your attention. Uh, in the suggested search that you don’t leave Google and you want to continue. 

Um, so that’s just a very interesting observation that I saw. Uh, it is important to note that these suggested searches at the bottom of the search results are different from the suggested search modifiers that I just talked about that are up at the top, you know, the search bar. So don’t skip over them assuming that they’re the same. 

So get creative, try Googling different things in your niche and see if any of this applies. And finally, another way that Google is curating content for users is with Google discover. If you’re not familiar with Google, discover it is what shows up underneath the search bar. When you search on an Android phone. 

Or in the Google app on any device. Essentially Google shows you a curated feed of content in many formats, including written blog posts news. web stories and YouTube videos, basically any content that is indexed by Google could show up here. 

And they show you this content based on your search history and online behavior, while you’re logged into your Google account. And what they think you might be interested in. Of course, Google discover is nothing new. It’s been around since 2018. But the fact that it stuck around this long is a good indication that Google likes what the Google discover feature is doing for them. 

If you think about it, it does make sense. If people are in the habit of going to Google to discover new content that they like, then they might also be more likely to use the search bar while they’re there. And searches paired with paid advertisements is what makes Google money. And of course, Google now has also created a new ad type, a new type of paid advertisement, known as a Google discovery ad within the Google discover feed as well. So they’re both building their brand. 

And making money off of this feature. And as a publisher of content, you have a shot at getting your content to show up in Google discover as well. But this type of content distribution does not follow the typical SEO rules. The content that shows up in Google discover is not based on keywords or things. People are searching for. 

Instead Google, Google auto curates content based on a user’s interests and behavior online and thus the content that they will experiment with showing someone in the discover feed will change over time as someone’s behavior changes. So for example, if someone is often looking at business news, Google will probably show them a lot of business related content in their discover feed. If someone is often looking up vegetarian recipes, they might see a lot of vegetarian related content in their feed. 

So as a publisher. The way to increase your chances of getting displayed in Google. Discover. Is to really know and understand your reader. And create interesting, timely, relevant content that they might care about. I’ve talked about this before in a previous episode, but I have heard examples of people watching the trends and strategically creating web stories on trending topics, which then pick up traction in both Google discover. 

And regular web search. In order to show up and discover you need to use high quality, interesting images to entice people to click, and they must be at least 1200 pixels wide in order to qualify. So if you have an epic piece of content, but the featured image that you uploaded is only 800 pixels wide. You have zero chance of getting shown in people’s discover feeds. So don’t mess up that one small little detail, make sure that the images you’re using are at least 1200 pixels wide. 

Headlines also matter since people are essentially scrolling through a feed of images with titles. And then deciding what to click on. So creating content that will spark interest for people in your niche may help you as well. For example, a listicle like 25 easy vegetarian dinners to try in the new year. Maybe could be something that would do well in discover if you know, their audience is vegetarian and tends to be very busy. For example. 

Of course, I recommend keeping traditional SEO as the cornerstone of your content creation strategy, but oftentimes you can double dip and find keywords that you can rank for and craft the title in an interesting way, which should help boost your click through rates in regular search. Anyway. And if you’re not sure if your content is currently getting shown to people in Google discover, you can figure that out by looking at your Google search console dashboard. 

On the left-hand side when you’re logged in under the performance area. You will see a section called discover if any of your content has ever been shown to people in Google discover. And then from there you can see specifically which posts have gotten impressions and clicks from the discover feed. 

And then you may notice some trends based on that data, which you can use to lean into what’s working. So overall, I think the lesson here is that getting your content discovered by Google. Or via Google, I should say. It’s starting to move beyond traditional SEO and just matching your content to keywords that people are looking for. 

We’re now starting to see Google suggest related searches. And related content to people and also show them unique new content based on their interests and user behavior. And both of those new avenues avenues are new ways that you, as a content creator could also get discovered by readers. So it’s definitely something to keep an eye on in the years ahead. 

Trend number two for 2023, the integration of AI into online business. So last year I talked about AI and the use of a technology called GPT three to create human-like text. When you feed it a prompt. Well in late 20, 22. GPT 3.5 hit the scene and a free AI tool called chat. GPT was released by a company called open AI. 

Jasper has that AI tool that I was talking about previously has also since incorporated a GPT 3.5 and introduced a chat function as well. Even Canva just rolled out an AI tool within their docs service that can create content for you when prompted. And other tools like a tool I use called searchy that, can make videos in my course searchable. 

They have added an AI component as well. That can do things like automatically create titles and descriptions for any videos that you upload based on the content that they contain. And I have to say the quality of the content that AI can now create is pretty impressive. Some ways that I have seen AI used well include creating social media, captions, writing emails, coming up with a potential site structure, format, writing code for websites or apps. 

Generating blog, topic ideas, creating catchy headlines or titles, writing introductions and conclusions. Drafting outlines for blog posts, creating first drafts of longer form content summarizing text into a main point and answering frequently asked questions. And notice how I didn’t say that AI is perfect for mass producing blog posts straight out of the gate without any editing or oversight. 

We’re at the bleeding edge of innovation with this one. And there is still a risk versus reward scenario because we don’t know how this will play out with Google and other search engines. People who are comfortable taking risks may go all in on quickly. Creating AI generated content to try and rank while they can and earn money. 

Knowing that they may eventually get dinged. If their strategy is to create a managed dozens of niche sites, they may not care about taking this risk on a handful of their sites. Since the short-term payoff could be significant. In contrast someone who runs an authority site and who has all their eggs in one basket. 

May not want to take that risk. They may not want to risk their rankings. If SEO is a critical part of their traffic strategy and they only have one brand. We still don’t know yet whether Google can confidently detect AI generated content. Although I think they can, and we don’t know yet whether or not they will decide to penalize this AI content in the future. 

Based on the documentation that they released with their helpful content update. It seems like they are trying to dissuade people from using AI. When they say that helpful content is content that is quote written by people for people. I don’t think the BI people statement was on accident. So take that as you will. 

But at this moment in time, however, Google has not penalized AI content in any sort of obvious way. And AI content is currently able to rank in the search results. If it is well optimized. So the debate amongst SEOs right now, and this is changing honestly day by day. So hopefully this is still accurate when this episode comes out. 

But the debate right now. Is whether or not Google really cares if something is written by AI or whether they just want the content that they rank in the search results to be helpful above all. If a piece of content is written by AI, but it’s also the best piece of content out there. Then does it matter? 

Only time will tell in this one. A lot of SEOs are hedging their bets, and they’re using AI as a part of their process. For example, to generate ideas or outlines or get started with a helpful introduction that they can slightly revise in their own voice. Or they’re using AI to write pieces of a post like responses to frequently asked questions, but they’re not writing their article. 

A hundred percent with AI. I kind of fall into this camp. I’m using AI sparingly as a part of my process, but I will never use it to write entire posts, especially without heavy editing. I think that’s way too risky for me at the moment. But I do think AI does a great job creating outlines that you can use to definitely speed up your writing process. 

Of course AI tools may apply more to some niches than others. AI is only trained on data up to 2021. So it can’t cover current events. It also can’t do things like testing recipes for you. Although obviously it can write basic recipes, it can generate meal plans and even shopping lists. So that’s pretty cool. It can’t do things that require hands on experience, like create videos for product reviews or something like that. And it can’t keep up with cutting edge data or science. And it’s also not always accurate when it answers questions about certain topics. So it is critical to always, always fact check. 

And it seems that. Maybe one of Google’s answers to the mass production of content that AI might bring is the introduction of an additional E. In E T yep. That’s right. Just a few weeks ago. Google announced that EA T is now E a T or doubly 80. So instead of just expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, we now have experience expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. 

Google updated their quality rater guidelines to include this new concept. And essentially they said that they want to see proof that someone has experience in or with whatever they are talking about. If it’s relevant to the search query. So, for example, if you’re going to do product reviews, they want proof that you have actually used the product that usually comes through things like product in hand, pictures or videos. 

Since most people who want to read product reviews, want opinions from people who have experienced with that product, not just Joe Schmoe who read the reviews on Amazon and then tried to create a review post from that. They also use the distinction of, Hey, if you’re looking for help on, let’s say how to fill out your tax returns. 

You probably are looking for content from an expert, but if you’re looking for reviews on various DIY tax prep, softwares, Then you probably want information from people who have experience using those products above all. So what does AI lack that only humans have the ability to experience something and write about it? So for those types of search queries, 

I don’t think AI will have too much of an impact. I also think this may push Google to put a greater emphasis on the reputation of brands and authors and those who have more positive mentions backlinks features, et cetera, might gain a strong, a stronger trust signal with Google that can help them rank. 

My thought is that people who are not real experts in something and who are just trying to use AI to push out content to rank are probably not going to be getting much, much positive feedback from others in their niche. Whereas a true expert in the field will probably be mentioned and create content that gets shared creates buzz, et cetera. 

So my advice in 2023 is to really give your brand and objective. Look what comes up when you Google or Google your name or your brand name. Do you have an online footprint? Have you been featured in authoritative places? Is it clear what you do and what you’re an expert in from the first page of the search results or any structured data that might exist on you? 

Like a knowledge panel. If you’re not super happy with what shows up in Google for your name or your brand name right now? Then you have some work to do in 2023. And we will talk about this a little more in depth later in this episode, but working on boosting your brand awareness will only benefit you across the board. 

In fact, one of the students in my SEO made simple course. Recently share it, that she set an intention to become a thought leader in her space over the last year. She doubled down on focusing her messaging and creating content around what she really wanted to be known for. That ended up getting her a ton of PR and backlinks, which likely boosted her domain authority and trustworthiness and led to her tripling, her website, website, traffic, which was already high enough to be a member of media vine. So that’s amazing. 

She focused on sharing her message and the media doing talks for her peers and professionals getting featured in prominent news outlets. And of course, continuing to publish high quality content on her site. And share it on social media. So all of those efforts really boosted her rankings, reputation, followers, and her bottom line income. 

So that’s the type of stuff I’m talking about doing for your brand in 2023. If you feel like you’re authoritativeness and trustworthiness could use a boost. And before we move off of this topic of AI in 2023, I wanted to mention that if you are someone who is in my SEO made simple course, or who’s just into SEO content creation or freelance services, I really think that learning how to use AI is going to be a really valuable skill moving forward. 

These AI tools can basically pour rocket fuel on your content creation process. Making it a lot faster to create content for your online business. But they still require some finesse to generate good output. The more specifically, you can direct the AI tools with your prompts, the higher quality content you’ll get. So I think the skill that you can master and then use to sell yourself and your services. 

Is the ability to create high quality content with these AI tools. For example. I recently experimented with asking Chad GPT to write a sales email for me. If you just type something bland and like maybe you say in the prompt box, Write a sales email for my program. SEO made simple. Then you’re probably going to get some things kind of bland in return. 

But the more details you can feed in the better the results will be. So if you say something instead, like write an email in an enthusiastic tone about a new 12 month payment plan for the course, SEO made simple where people can now enroll for just $85 per month. This is the lowest price ever. And the last chance to enroll in the course before prices double in 2023. 

Let people know that I’m thinking about them and want to give them an affordable option to join if they’re really interested. So if you use that prompt, this is what chat GPT spit out, uh, as a potential email that I could use. Dear friends and fellow marketers. I hope this email finds you. Well, I have some exciting news to share with you. We have just launched a new 12 month payment plan for our popular course. SEO made simple. For a limited time, you can enroll in the course for just $85 per month. 

This is the lowest price ever for this course. And it’s your last chance to enroll before prices? Double in 2023. I know that many of you have expressed interest in improving your SEO skills. And I want to make it as easy as possible for you to join us. That’s why we’re offering a special payment plan. We want to give you an affordable option to learn from the best and take your marketing skills to the next level. 

SEO made simple as packed with valuable information and practical tips that will help you optimize your website and drive more organic traffic. Our team of experts has spent years honing their skills and are excited to share their knowledge with you. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn from the best and invest in your future. Enroll in SEO made simple today and take control of your SEO strategy. I’m thinking of you and want to give you every chance to succeed. Sincerely your name. 

So I basically used that email with a little bit of editing and sent it out to my list last week. And I made 22 sales in 22 in two days. Uh, and that is basically a value of. About $22,000. Once everyone has paid in full and it took about five minutes to do this. So. See what I mean about applying rocket fuel. 

Prior to testing out chat GPT. I was totally having writer’s block about this and really not liking anything that was coming out as I was typing. But with a few small tweaks, I really liked the email that chat GPT wrote. And clearly it was effective and resonated with my audience. It’s the little things like specifying the tone that you want AI to use and feeding it, relevant details to include in the email that will give you an output that still sounds like you, and that is specific enough to not feel like a robot wrote it. 

So I think there’s a ton of opportunity for people to get creative and learn how to generate helpful content through the use of AI, especially for platforms that aren’t getting indexed by Google. Like email or social media captions, et cetera. And, you know, maybe this sounds like something that you would be amazing at. Maybe this is exciting to you. If so, I challenge you to sign up for catchy. 

GPT and start playing around with it. It’s currently free. So you really have nothing to lose. And if you develop a skill that could help people get out there and offer it as a service. Okay. Off of my AI soap box now. Trend number three for 2023 is repurposing content in multiple formats. This one really hits home for me. And it’s something that I’m going to intentionally work on in 2023. 

I know, I tend to talk about the importance of focus. In the beginning stages of starting a business. I recommend selling one product on one platform when you’re starting out until you have your systems in place and your offer is sort of selling on autopilot. But once you have some success with that setup, it is wise to start branching out. 

And that usually means starting to tackle a new place to expand your audience, like a new form of content creation or a new social platform where you can pick up new traction. I don’t recommend trying to be everywhere in the beginning because you will most likely end up dabbling in each platform. And not going all in, into owning the content creation strategy that you’re going to need to understand in order to pick up traction. 

And of course, if you spread yourself too thin, And you end up not seeing results on any of the platforms. You’re more likely to burn out, get resentful and possibly pack up. Shop. But once you have some success in that beginning in the beginning, and you’re known for something in your industry and you have one solid place or platform where you connect with your people. 

You can start strategically expanding. And one of the smartest ways to start expanding is to repurpose the content, concepts and ideas that you’re already producing in new ways for other platforms. So for example, for the unconventional Hardy. My current core content creation method is this podcast. And my main place that I connect with my audience is in my free Facebook community. 

Again, that’s the unconventional RD community on Facebook. If you’re not already in there. And then by extension, I also connect with people via my email list and the majority of people get on my list from the Facebook group. When I release a new podcast episode, I share about it in my Facebook group and on my Facebook page. And I also send out an email about it. 

But beyond that, I’m pretty bad at sharing elsewhere. So now I have a ton of super valuable content. That I’ve produced that has only been seen by a relatively small number of people. And I’m ready to change that. So one of my goals for 2023 is to start repurposing content on other platforms, especially Instagram, and maybe Tech-Talk. 

But other options also include YouTube Pinterest Twitter, or if you’re not already on these platforms, Facebook, a Facebook group. And of course your email list. So I really want to focus on getting the most out of every piece of content I create. This might mean hiring more people on my team outsourcing more, or even reducing the frequency of my podcast episodes back to biweekly. 

I’m not sure yet. I’m going to make that call based on what’s working best in my business. Once I try new things and I’m going to lean into, what’s actually benefiting my business growth, my connection and bottom line in my business. But the main goal is to make sure that I’m getting full use out of each piece of content before creating another one. 

And another reason why I feel ready to start expanding the type of content I’m creating. Beyond just podcasting. Is that Google is starting to index more types of content, especially video and short form video like YouTube shorts and Tik TOK videos. So if Google is choosing to show those types of content around the topics that you’re creating content on, 

You know, it’s almost foolish not to attempt to create secondary pieces of content on the same topic, but just in different formats. So my takeaway here is as usual always analyze the search results for a query that you want to target. Really look at the type of content that Google wants to display. 

If you feel like you have your current content creation processes dialed in. And you have room for expansion right now. And don’t rush this. You will know when it’s time. Then you can start thinking about creating additional formats of content to compliment your blog posts. The key here I think is to use data Google’s data to guide you. 

If there is no long form or short form video or web stories or news stories at the top of the search results for any given query that you’re targeting. Then, you know, maybe you don’t need or want to waste your time creating this type of content on that topic. But for some topics in your niche, you probably will see additional search features. 

That you can target with well optimized content. And in case you’re curious. Yes, I do have sections in my SEO course that will help you learn how to optimize other forms of content, like video for Google search. But for example, I have a blog post on my nutritionist. Answer’s website called Double review. 

And we already rank in the first organic position in Google for that search term. But after a couple of organic search results, there’s also a video pack containing YouTube videos that review the product. So I’ve already created a full blog post on this topic. I know exactly what I would want to say in a review video. 

So I could easily spend an afternoon recording that, throwing it up on YouTube and have a shot at double-dipping my traffic, both from people who look for a review on Google and prefer to watch a video. And from people searching natively on YouTube for a review. Now have actually done that. No. Should I probably, it’s almost a no brainer. If you have the content already ready to go in blog, post format. 

Another example, if you Google tick talk salmon bowl, you will see first some regular blog posts at the top of the search results. Then a recipe carousel, then a short videos, carousel containing Tik TOK and YouTube short videos. Then a visual stories, carousel containing Google web stories. So that’s three different types of content. Google is showing for the same search query. So if you have the bandwidth to create on multiple platforms, it would make sense to perhaps create a recipe on your blog. 

A Tik TOK video in a YouTube short and a Google web story around the same topic to maximize your chances of ranking towards the top of the search results. Even in this real life example, I just gave. The same person has a Tik TOK video and a YouTube short within the same video, short video carousel. And that’s basically doubling her chances of getting seen. 

Similarly, another blogger has one of the spots in the top recipe, carousel. And in the web stories, carousel. So she is double-dipping as well. And of course, as you expand on the other platforms, the goal should always be to get people on your email list so that you can keep in touch with them and hopefully eventually offer them something to purchase from you, or just continue to present your content to them. 

So that you can monetize in whatever way that you do, even if it’s through something like display ads, affiliate links, brand work, et cetera. So make sure that you have clear calls to action in your content as well. But long story short. My point here is to start thinking about whether or not you are at an expansion stage of your business. 

And if you are come up with strategic way to get your content in front of more people without having to do significantly more work. 

Trend number four for 2023 is the rise of tech talk. So I know I just touched on this with the last trend, but man, oh man has Tik TOK continued to dominate. 

While Google is still squarely at the top as the world’s most visited website. There have been a few brief periods of time over the last year or so. We’re Tik TOK, ousted, Google as the most visited website on the internet. Although at the time I’m recording this Tik TOK is hovering around the 10th, most popular site, according to Cloudflare’s radar tracking. 

Research has also shown that Tik TOK is the most popular app for gen Z and that many of them are actually using Tik TOK as a search engine for certain topics. Particularly if they want things like product reviews or restaurant recommendations. They like being able to hear from a trusted person firsthand on video versus reading an article from a huge faceless brand on Google. 

And I think Google realizes this. And that’s part of the reason why they’ve added this experience. E two E. T to compete with this and make their search results more helpful. I don’t think the popularity of tick talk means that we need to abandon our organic search strategies. We’re only start creating Tik TOK videos or anything like that. 

But we should definitely start to think about how we could double dip with our content creation strategies. Like I said earlier, if Google is also showing Tik TOK videos in the search results, and you’ve already created a blog post on this topic slash keyword. Why not also start creating short form video to go alongside it. 

Or on the flip side, if something is trending on tick talk, can you write about it on your website to capture the very top of the search results? Like in that Tik TOK salmon bowl example, and the example that I mentioned earlier, Even though the search term indicates that people are looking for a Tik TOK video trend, Google still actually shows regular websites at the top of the search results. 

Yes, Tik TOK and YouTube shorts are there in the search results as well. But they’re further down on the page underneath for organic search results and two recipe carousels. So if you are keeping up on the trends, you could possibly NAB the top spots in Google, simply by covering a new Tik TOK trend on your blog. 

If not many people I’ve written about it yet. The focus here is as always creating what the user wants and not what you want. If the trend is turning towards short form video for getting ranked, then we might need to adapt in the future as well. And I am really think this is especially true. If you know, in the future, maybe AI tools will eventually be able to answer queries directly without someone really needing to search online at all. Like if you could just ask a chat, bot your question and get a trusted answer. 

You know, what’s too. Uh, entice people to go to Google at all. I think we’re a long ways off from that, but it is something to ponder. Long-term. So I think if people start turning to AI for Q and a type of content, Being a known and trusted brand is only going to become more and more and more important. 

Which leads me right into trend number five for 2023. This is my final trend. And it is the importance of entity based search, including topics, brands, and authors. As entities with reputations. As the years have gone on, Google has seemed to put greater and greater emphasis on showing trustworthy information at the top of their search results. 

They are continually refining their algorithms and it’s up to us. 

As content creators to stay on top of understanding what Google wants and how to send the right signals to show Google that we are a trustworthy source of helpful high quality information. And did you know that you can see some of what Google quote-unquote knows about you or your brand directly in the search results? 

Try this. Google your brand name and then click on the three dots to the right of your website in the search result, listing. And I was doing this on desktop. So that’s what I would recommend. This should trigger a pop-up box that contains information quote-unquote about this result. The first section in that box is labeled source. And it will tell you when that particular website was founded. 

And whether your connection to the website is secure. If you are lucky enough to have a mention on a Wikipedia page. It may pull your description from Wikipedia as well, but that won’t apply to most of us listening to this podcast. Underneath that you’ll see a button labeled more about this page. If you click that, it will open up a new window with more information showing what Google knows about your brand. There’s three pieces of information that Google is trying to collect and display about you on this page. 

First, what Wikipedia says about you, if applicable second, how you describe yourself? And third, what other websites say about you? And based on whether or not you have these three pieces of information. You will see different messages on the page. If your site is on the new side, or if you have never really focused on SEO or building your online presence, you might see this message quote, Google can’t find much info on other sites to help you learn more about insert name of your brand. 

You Mike, and then it says you might consider, does the source seem trustworthy? What do other sources say? And then there’s a link to learn more. This message is highlighted in a blue box with an exclamation mark at the top. Almost like a warning about the quality, which I found interesting. This indicates that Google doesn’t really know much about your site, which in my opinion implies that your website is lacking that critical trust factor, which we know is a core component of EEA T. 

If you see this message, it is a huge wake up call that you have worked to do. In establishing yourself online. If Google doesn’t understand your brand or whether it is high quality. I believe that could potentially negatively impact your ability to rank for competitive terms, especially if those terms require high IE. 

That is just my conjecture, not something that Google has ever said. So please take this as simply my opinion, not fact. If you have a good site, but it’s not at the level of being referenced in Wikipedia, then you will probably see the message quote. Google looks for a description of your site.com on a reference site, but it couldn’t find a good match and they’ll show that message at the top of the page, but it doesn’t have that big blue call-out box or a warning exclamation mark or anything. It’s just a standard message. 

To me, this is a better message than the first one. It’s not straight up saying they couldn’t find any information about your site on other places on the web. They’re just saying that you’re not on Wikipedia, which to be fair, I would say most blogs or personal brands are not on Wikipedia. So to me, 

If you see this message, this means that you’re probably doing okay with building up trust. You’re just not in the big leagues. Like you would be if Google could source information about you from Wikipedia. And finally, if you are established enough to have information about your brand on Wikipedia, 

Google will show you show that at the top of the page. So I was poking around and I really only saw this on websites with really high DA’s, like 90 plus sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Healthline, web MD, very well health, et cetera. So that’s the first bit of information. What can they, whether or not they could find information about you on reference sites like Wikipedia. 

The next section on the page is titled in their own words. And they will put a description of how you describe your own company. Usually pulled from something like your about page or your Google business profile. And then finally underneath that. Uh, in your own word section. Is a section titled web results about the source from searches, from the sources name. 

I find this section to be the most interesting I’ve poked around and looked at other people’s websites and found that if Google can pick up on the sentiment around your website from other sources on the web, they will display that here. So to me, this is a really good hint at what Google might think about your website. 

For example, if you have a bunch of people online, raving about your brand, that’s a positive sentiment. If there are a lot of people publishing about how you are a fraud or a scammer or spreading misinformation, that’s probably not a good sign for doing well in Google. So for example, health lines section. 

Includes an article from AP news, naming them as one of the world’s top health information websites in 2020. It shows an article from 2017, announcing that the department of health and human services is partnering with Healthline to distribute their information. And an article from 2016. Announcing that they raised $95 million in funding. 

And a lot of these stories are old, like five plus years ago, but it appears to me like Google is looking to display the most noteworthy stories about your brand. Uh, in this spot, on this page that might give people insight into your legitimacy, even if the information was published a long time ago. 

So for the unconventional RD, I don’t really have any sources talking about me like that on the web. So instead my results show. A link to my free start, a website tutorial, which is on a separate domain that I host my courses on. It shows a guest post by me on what RDS do.com, which was posted back in 2018, describing what I do as a dietitian and enlisting for my online courses. 

And the fact that I provide ceos at dietitianhub.com. And then there’s a button to click see more and it will continue to bring up relevant mentions. Uh, up to 10 different, listings. If applicable. In my case, clicking the see more button brings up a podcast interview. I did on dietitian connection and also a affiliate review post from Brianne bell. 

Stating that her website traffic exploded after taking my SEO course. So that’s not a horrible list, but it doesn’t really say a ton about my brand. I think it shows that I am legit enough to offer, see, use and be listed on directories in my niche. And that at least one person found value out of my course. 

But I could do better at generating mentions with positive sentiment. Especially since that section can display up to 10 results and I only have five. I did this again for my old food blog, which [email protected]. And when I look at the, um, about my, about the source across the web section, the first thing it shows is my Yelp profile with my one five star review. So if you have a Yelp profile associated with your brand, you may see that here. 

Especially since that is definitely a good indicator of sentiment. This is back from when I had a private practice under my name, and it was linked to this website, which then became a food blog, which is now basically nothing. I’m still all up there, but I haven’t updated it in like five years. 

Uh, the next link is to my Twitter profile, which I found interesting. And then a link to that article again, on what RDS do.com describing what I do as a dietitian. There’s not much here to help Google understand that this is a food blog, which honestly makes sense. Because back then I had no idea about SEO and I basically did everything possible wrong. So. 

Uh, that’s why you see these. This lack of clarity in my branding. For that website. But for comparison, and I apologize right now, if you can hear my dog snoring in the background, he’s lad and he is sleeping under the bed and snoring like a chainsaw. So, sorry, if you can hear that in the recording. 

Um, but anyway, I looked up another popular food blogger recipe, 10 eats to compare what her site says in this section. Uh, she has an article from the daily mail listing her as Australia’s most popular food blogger and million dollar earner. There’s also a post from the kitchen.com, which is a really big food website, which reviews one of her popular recipes and a link to SEMrush showing her traffic rankings and analytics from last month. 

So that is a strong showing and something to aspire to as a food blogger. And if you want an example from the dietitian space, I looked up Alissa, Rumsey and intuitive eating health at every size RD. And her top three listings here are her contributor profile for us news, which definitely shows some authority and trustworthiness. 

A link to her book on Amazon, which again, adds to her authority since she’s clearly a published author. And a link to a podcast interview she did on the podcast, food and body freedom. Which shows that she is relevant in her niche. All in all, this is a pretty strong showing for Alyssa and something that you could try to accomplish longterm as well. By getting more media mentions, participating as a contributor for major websites, doing interviews on podcasts and news shows, writing books, et cetera. 

So underneath this section, there is a quick note on when your website was first indexed. So that you can see how long a website or brand has been around. Most people consider established brands that have been around for a while to potentially be more authoritative. And then finally at the bottom, there is a section titled about the topic and then subtitled related results, which shows content from related sites around the same topic. 

For example for the unconventional RD. This section shows a link to my LinkedIn profile, the unconventional RD, Facebook page, and my online courses website. For Erica jolson.com. It shows a link to my LinkedIn profile, a link to my bio on my other website, nutritionist answers. And a link to a different Eric Olson out there in Wisconsin, who is a nurse. 

Yes, that’s not technically relevant to me this Erica Jolson, but it is a related topic and would meet people’s search intent, probably if they were looking for the general topic of Erica. Jolson cause you know, who’s to say that they’re looking for me, maybe they’re looking for her. And finally for my new site, nutritionist answers, this section shows a link to my other site, functional nutrition answers. 

Uh, post from the university of Utah health department, titled seven questions for a dietitian and a blog post from Julie nutrition.com. Titled nutritionist answers your question so that you, you can see that these are related results to the topic of a dietitian or nutritionist nutritionist. Answering your questions. 

And there’s one more thing I wanted to discuss related to the, about this results page. If you are one of the people who got the message that Google basically can’t find much information on your site or your brand. You will notice that underneath that message, there is a link to get more tips. If you click the link to get more tips. 

It basically gives users suggestions on how to evaluate whether a source is trustworthy. Which I think gives us great hints about what Google is looking for as well. Some interesting suggestions. They give here for how to evaluate a source. Is to perform a minus site search. Where you type in your name or your websites? Brand name like young conventional RD. 

And then space. And then you do like the, a dash, like the minus sign. Site S I T E colon. And then your domain. So the unconventional rd.com all of that together with no spaces. And then you click enter to perform the search. That is telling Google to look for the term, the unconventional RD. Across the internet, but to only show you results that are not from your own website, that helps you determine what other people say about your, your brand specifically. 

So when I perform that search. I see a link to my free Facebook group, my Facebook page, my free start, a website tutorial, a bunch of listing for my podcast on different directories. My LinkedIn page, a mention of my courses on dietitian hub.com and linked to my Twitter profile. So, you know, really nothing that exciting or helpful, honestly. 

So I think I could do some work there to have more exciting things mentioned about me on the internet. But basically. 

This get more tips page from Google. Also suggest Googling the author to figure out their credibility and expertise. They recommend using websites like Wikipedia to find more information and other sources and they recommend checking their social media profiles to get an idea about what the author posts. 

I think the suggestion to look at the social media pages is super fascinating. When I searched for my own name. I see in Google, I see a link to my now closed Google business profile for my private practice in the sidebar. Uh, links to a few of my different websites, like my old food blog, then conventional R D a nutritionist answers. 

I see my LinkedIn page. A few listings related to that other Erica Jolson, who’s a nurse. I see my Instagram and Twitter profiles and then a few links to my author pages on healthline.com, super kids, nutrition and today’s today.com community section. Overall, I think this is a pretty decent spread of results. You can tell that I am a dietitian. 

That I run multiple websites and that I’ve been a contributor for other sites, especially relevant ones like health line. So I think, you know, In Google’s eyes. I probably have some good. Authority and trustworthiness as a personal. Entity. 

The next tip from Google is to look at the date that something was published. They suggest that older posts might not be as relevant. If you’re looking at a topic that changes a lot over time, they also suggest that it may take some time for publications to publish content on emerging new stories or on medical conditions and treatments, but that the quality of the search results can improve over time. 

That’s a little vague to me, but I think they’re essentially saying that fresh results are usually seen as better for topics like news and health. So in my opinion, this is a plus one for updating your content routinely. Especially if you blog in the health and nutrition space. Then the last suggestion for finding information about a source is to look to see if there’s an information panel next to the results. Google says that for some types of searches, like health-related topics, you might see an information panel about the source. 

To help you understand more about where the information is coming from and that the information panel may include information about where funding for the content comes from like government or public funding. I wasn’t actually able to find any examples of this in the real world on Google. But I ended up going down a crazy rabbit hole, clicking in links in Google’s documentation. And I found some really interesting stuff happening over at YouTube. 

Essentially YouTube is in the process. Uh, vetting health sources that publish on YouTube and making it so that you can apply to be a reputable quote, unquote health source. On YouTube. If you are a licensed healthcare professional. They don’t specifically mention dietitians in these resources. So I’m not sure if we would eventually fall under this umbrella and become eligible right now. They mentioned doctors, nurses, and certain types of therapists. I believe. 

But the idea is that YouTube will partner with another organization to verify that people posting health content are actually licensed healthcare professionals and that they are publishing reputable content that doesn’t go against YouTube guidelines. If you apply to be a health source on YouTube, then your content can get a chance to rank in this from health sources section at the top of the search results. 

And you will get a little kind of call-out box on your profile saying that you are a licensed blank, you know, licensed doctor or a licensed nurse or whatever. Um, for health related topics. So I hope that they eventually expand this, um, for the realm of nutrition. I think that will be amazing for dietitians, a huge, huge win. 

But yeah, that is what’s happening. Literally right now, it said. It could take one to two months to get approved. And that we might be seeing these features roll out in early 20, 23. So this is so, so interesting to me. And I wonder if something like this will ever spread to regular search results to. 

Like I said, I totally went down a rabbit hole here, but I just really found it. Interesting. It seems like each year Google. And of course there are other platforms that they own, like YouTube are slowly increasing the importance of concepts, like E T for ranking. Well, and I think it’s things like this. 

That makes me really glad that I went back to school to become a dietitian. And, you know, didn’t just wing it without a formal certification. Uh, I think this should give all of us a leg up moving forward against other sources that don’t have verifiable credentials from a third party. Okay. Back to the topic at hand. Um, so in that document that I was talking about with more tips for evaluating a source, Google also gives tips on how to understand what other people are saying about a topic so that you can try to determine if the source that you’re looking at is credible. 

And I think the idea here is that a more credible source will probably align with the established medical consensus and not be publishing stuff. That’s not widely accepted by the medical community. And they recommend when you’re looking for information about a topic to search using neutral terms. So rather than priming the search results with words like good or bad, just look for the basic topic and then see what the results tell you. So for example, look up something like mushroom nutrition, not are mushrooms good for you or our mushrooms bad for you. 

Because that’s going to skew what you see. Whereas if you just look for mushrooms, nutrition, You just get a blank slate. What’s coming up. Are they good or are they bad? Well, maybe you’ll find out from looking at those more broad results. Whereas, if you asked if they were good, everything’s going to be about whether they’re good for you. If you ask whether they’re bad and everything’s going to be about whether they’re bad for you, and that’s not a, a fair shake. 

They also recommend looking at the, about this result page for different websites and looking at the sentiment of what shows up there and whether it’s good or bad, which is exactly what we were just talking about. They also give you the tip to look at the news tab in the search results to see what authoritative news sources are saying recently about the topic at hand. 

There is a tip that you may want to do a Google image search for images to make sure that they weren’t taken from somewhere else or modified from another source to be manipulative or faked. Um, they also say that you can use Google’s fact-check tool to see if a claim is true or false. Google started this fact-check initiative a few years ago. 

I can’t say that it’s really taken off. I almost never see it in the wild, but it’s basically a type of schema markup that you can add to your site to quote unquote fact check various statements. So then if someone is searching to see whether a claim is true or not, Your fact check results, have a chance at showing up in the search results. 

Uh, Google also has a direct fact checking tool that you can poke around on that pulls all the fact checking schema and people can kind of search directly. For fact checks and that can be found at toolbox.google.com. SLAs slash fact-check slash Explorer. And you can search by topic on that search bar and see what claims people are. Fact checking recently related to that topic. 

And the results show the source of the claim. So a lot of times we’ll say the source of this claim is social media. And then they show the source of the fact check, which is oftentimes a media outlet or a website. And then they say whether they say the results of the fact check. So whether they, this source said that that claim was true or false. 

So I’ll just give you a random example. I searched like vanilla ice cream or something. In the back check tool. And I guess there’s some claim going around that, Human traffickers are spiking. Ice cream to get their victims or something like that. And there was some website that was fact checking this claim. And I don’t re I think it said it was false. but that was just like a really random example, but it said the source of the claim. It was somewhere on social media. 

The source of the fact checker and then the outcome of their fact check super random. But that’s just one like real life example of what you might see on the fact checking tool. And then lastly, Google recommends looking to see if there is an information panel for any topic you’re interested in, just like they recommended looking for information panels for any sources that you’re vetting. So same idea just around topics instead of people or brands. 

But really long story short here, Google is seeming to put more and more emphasis on brands and sources and authors as a whole and quantifying their reputations. So to me, This means it is essential to get crystal clear on what you aren’t expert on and then work on establishing those signals across the internet, both on your own website and on other websites. 

This means that you need to select a topic or maybe a few related topics that you want to be known as an expert on and create deep content around those topics on your site. That is a much, much better angle to take than trying to cover 20 different topics in a shallow way. So I believe we need to continue to take a macro look at our brands and personal reputations online. 

And make sure that we’re being proactive and cultivating a trustworthy. And authoritative online reputation. So that is it for my five digital marketing trends to watch. In 2023. And I can go ahead and recap for those for you right now at the end of this episode. Trend number one was looking out for Google becoming more of a content suggestion or curation platform rather than just a search engine. 

Trend number two was the integration of AI into online business and how we can utilize that to our advantage as content creators. Trend number three was repurposing content in multiple formats. Trend number four was the rise of Tech-Talk. And why we shouldn’t be ignoring that. And yet how we can use that to our advantage as a primarily content creators on our websites. 

And trend number five was the importance of entity based search, including topics, brands, and authors. As entities that have reputations. So. Ooh, that was a lot. I hope you found this insightful and inspiring. I put a lot of time and effort. Into this episode every year. And I really enjoyed sharing my thoughts with you. And I look forward to catching back up around this time next year, to see how my trends panned out. And as always, if you’d like to stay connected and. 

Get more of this type of content head over to my free Facebook group, the unconventional RD community on Facebook. And I really suggest perhaps following me on Instagram. At the unconventional RD. Because I do have plans, like I mentioned, to become more visible on that platform in 2023. So I’ll catch you next week. And thanks for being such a wonderful listener. 

Erica Julson is a registered dietitian turned digital marketing pro. She has over 12 years of experience blogging and building online businesses and has taught over 900 wellness professionals inside her signature program, SEO Made Simple.