The State of Technical SEO Report 2023 is out from digital marketing agency Aira and the Women in Tech SEO group. So what is needed in 2023? Here is a brief summary of the most interesting results.
Resources are essential. The biggest risk that the report identified was the lack of resources in the organization. Lack of content means that conversions are not made or are too slow – which means less than SEO results. So if you work in a company where resources are scarce, prioritizing work becomes very important.
Tools and technology are essential. Google Search Console was the most popular tool for professional SEOs – 92% reported using it. It was also the top tool used (78%) for measuring organic search rankings.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider was a popular choice for crawling and analyzing log files. So far, Semrush was the best choice for website search engine optimization.
For non-ecommerce platforms, professional SEOs tend to work on WordPress. Wix was considered very difficult to work with.
Time is important. Sadly, months of waiting for SEO changes to happen is very common – 88% of respondents wait anywhere from 1 month to 24+ months for technical SEO changes to be made.
Perhaps a little surprising: 22% reported waiting just over a month for technical SEO updates to take place. Meanwhile, 20% reported waiting 12 months (which was down slightly from the previous year). And 11% of respondents said they were waiting 24 months or more.
Important skills. What are the top three skills an SEO should have? According to respondents:
- Data analysis (72%)
- Reading and understanding of HTML/CSS (58%)
- Marketing strategies (39%)
It was surprising to see the group’s strategies so high. But as Steph Greaves said in the report’s comments:
- “It’s useful to know the content of the website to better understand the opportunity to interact with the user.”
Technical SEO = marketing. Search Engine Land contributor Mark Jackson says that SEO is marketing. So it was good to see that marketing (74%) was the main answer to this internal question: “In your organization, which group is responsible for SEO technology?”
You seriously. There is a lot to read. Here is the full, unedited report: The State of Technical SEO Report 2023
Why do we care? Overall, this report is good news for our industry. Of course, we are facing challenges, especially economic uncertainty. Also there have been many deletions. But it is encouraging that the report finds that the SEO situation is still good and the importance of SEO remains in a good place.
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About the author
Danny Goodwin is the Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & SMX. In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC, and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin also manages the expert list of Search Engine Land articles. They also help organize our conference series, SMX – Search Marketing Expo. Prior to joining Search Engine Land, Goodwin was Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal, where he led the brand’s editorial efforts. He was also an editor at Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many major search conferences and events, and gained his expertise in various publications and podcasts.
