As we head into 2023, search engine optimisation (SEO) remains crucial to any business's digital marketing strategy. With search engines constantly evolving and updating their algorithms, companies must stay up-to-date with the latest SEO best practices to ensure their website ranks high in search engine results pages (SERPs).

To help you navigate the ever-changing world of SEO, we've compiled a list of the top 5 best and worst practices for 2023.

Top 5 Best SEO Practices:

1. Conduct Keyword Research: Keyword research is the foundation of any successful SEO campaign. It involves identifying the words and phrases that your target audience uses to search for your products or services. Optimising your website's content for these keywords can increase your chances of ranking high in search engine results pages.
2. Optimise Your Website's Content: In addition to keyword research, you'll also need to optimise your website's content for search engines. You must create high-quality, informative content relevant to your target audience and includes your target keywords.
3. Use Structured Data: Structured data is a way of organising your website's content, so search engines can better understand it. Using structured data markup, you can provide search engines with additional information about your website's content, such as its type, author, and publication date.
4. Build High-Quality Backlinks: Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website. They are an important ranking factor for search engines, as they signal to search engines that other websites consider your content to be valuable and relevant.
5. Monitor Your Analytics: Finally, it's essential to regularly monitor your website's analytics to see how your SEO efforts are paying off. You can use tools like Google Analytics to track your website's traffic, engagement, and conversions and adjust your SEO strategy.

Top 5 Worst SEO Practices:

1. Keyword Stuffing: Keyword stuffing is the practice of overusing keywords in your website's content to manipulate search engine rankings. This practice can hurt your SEO efforts, as search engines now penalise websites with keyword stuffing.
2. Duplicate Content: Duplicate content refers to content that appears on multiple pages of your website or other websites. Search engines penalise websites with the same range, which can signify spammy or low-quality content.
3. Cloaking: Cloaking shows different content to search engines rather than website visitors. It is a deceptive practice that violates search engine guidelines and can result in your website being penalised or even banned from search engine results pages.
4. Buying Links: Buying links is a black hat SEO practice that involves paying for links from other websites to boost your search engine rankings. This practice is against search engine guidelines and can result in your website being penalised or banned from search engine results pages.
5. Ignoring Mobile Optimisation: With most internet users now accessing the web from their mobile devices, ensuring your website is optimised for mobile is more critical than ever. Ignoring mobile optimisation can result in a terrible user experience, hurting your search engine rankings.

In conclusion, by following the best SEO practices and avoiding the worst ones, you can ensure that your website ranks high in search engine results pages and attracts more organic traffic. If you need help with your SEO strategy, Real Social offers a range of SEO services to help you achieve your goals.