SEO
9 Essential Steps In Building A Winning SEO Strategy
Online shopping has taken over the world.
While people still run to the store to pick things up, the allure of buying just about anything from the comfort of your home is unstoppable.
From plumbing fixtures to pizza rolls, if you want it, you can get it delivered with the push of an app – without leaving the house.
And even if your business sells services, rather than products, there’s an incredible chance that the majority of people are shopping for it online.
This means ecommerce should be a focus for every company that’s selling something. And that means you need an increased focus on web traffic.
After all, you could have the best website in the world, with cutting-edge design, optimized for ideal user experiences, and copy that would make David Ogilvy gnash his teeth in envy, but if no one ever sees it, it’s not doing you an ounce of good.
You need to get found. And that, of course, is why SEO is a crucial part of any modern marketing plan.
You want to rank highly in search engine results pages (SERPs), so you get found organically by your targets.
However, this is much easier said than done. But don’t fret, we’re here to help.
Whether you’re an experienced professional looking to brush up on the fundamentals for a client or a complete newbie trying to figure out how this whole SEO thing works for your business, you’re in the right place.
Here, we’ll walk you through the steps of creating, implementing, and optimizing an SEO campaign that will have your site shooting up the rankings in no time.
What Is An SEO Strategy?
You’ve probably already figured out that an SEO strategy is your plan to make your website or landing page more appealing to Google and other search engines
The goal here is to rank higher and drive more organic traffic (and hopefully conversions).
It sounds simple enough, but there’s a big catch: Search algorithms are always changing.
As Google seeks to enhance the quality of its searches and provide users with better solutions to queries, its algorithms are updated several times a year.
What that means for SEO is that you can’t just set it and forget it. Every search engine optimization needs iterations.
You need to regularly analyze and course-correct to ensure you’re taking advantage of the latest best practices and strategies.
That’s good for SEO professionals – otherwise, we’d be out of jobs rather quickly
But it means a bit of a commitment for you.
To stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the world of search, you need to regularly consult with reliable sources (like this one).
Luckily, there are a wealth of resources you can mine for quality information. Whether you prefer articles, webinars or podcasts, there’s SEO content available for you.
Do You Really Need SEO?
Right now, some of you contrarians are sneering at your screen and asking if you really need SEO to find customers.
You have somebody handling paid search or affiliate marketing for you, so you’re not sure there’s much of a benefit to investing all this time into organic search. Don’t fall into that trap.
Organic search is what drives more than half of all website visits and should be an important part of any organization’s digital marketing strategy, whether you’re a multinational mega-corporation or a mom-and-pop shop.
And it’s especially important for direct-to-consumer sites. By providing useful content, you’re not only building trust, but you’re matching your website with customer intent, which means higher quality leads.
And even better, you’re not paying for every click, which means a lower cost-per-conversion.
So, even if you have the world’s best pay-per-click (PPC) and affiliate marketing campaigns routinely driving motivated customers to your site, you’re still only fighting half the battle by ignoring organic search.
Creating An Effective SEO Strategy: 9 Fundamental Steps
Though SEO requires a comprehensive strategy, you can break it down into several manageable steps.
1. Align SEO With Business Goals & Define KPIs
First things first, you need to know where you currently stand, where you want to go, and how you’ll measure success along the way.
You’ll want to begin by performing an SEO audit.
This is the roadmap that will guide you throughout the entire optimization process and allow you to benchmark against your current site.
You need to examine a variety of aspects, including:
- Domain name, age, history, etc.
- Page factors like headlines, keyword & topical targeting and user engagement.
- Content organization, content quality, and the quality of your images (no one trusts stock photography).
- Duplicate content.
- Website factors like architecture, schema, markup. and click-through rate (CTR).
- Past and upcoming website updates.
- The quality of inbound links.
- On-site factors like sitemaps, image optimization. and robots.txt.
For a step-by-step guide on how to perform this audit, we have an excellent series that will guide you through it.
Once you know where you’re starting from, it’s time to plan your timeframe and allocated budgets and resources.
This is yet another area of life where you get what you pay for. If you’re looking for fast and cheap, you’re not going to get the results you would by investing more time and money.
Obviously, your budget and timeframe will depend on your company’s unique situation, but if you want good results, be prepared to pay for them.
For an idea of how much you should be spending, consult this article.
During this step of the SEO process, you’ll also want to define your key performance indicators (KPIs).
This is how you’ll measure the success of your new implementations and figure out what’s working for you and where you need to make adjustments.
Some of the KPIs you should be tracking are:
- Organic sessions.
- Keyword ranking increases.
- Leads and conversions.
- Bounce rate (keep i mind that bounce rate is an internal metric and is 100% dependent upon the events you set up on your pages and will be phased out in GA 4)
- Pages per session.
- Average session duration.
- Page load time.
- Top exit pages.
- Crawl errors.
For more information on what these are and why they’re important, be sure to read this piece on top SEO KPIs.
2. Perform Keyword Research
Search engine rankings are determined by an algorithm that evaluates a variety of factors to decide how well a website answers a particular search query. And a huge part of that is the use of keywords.
From single words to complex phrases, keywords tell search engines what your content is about. But adding keywords isn’t quite as simple as just plugging in the name of the product or service you want to sell.
You need to do research to ensure keyword optimization, and that means considering the following:
Search Intent
The beauty of the English language (and the bane of SEOs) is in its richness.
But words often have multiple meanings, which makes it crucial to consider search intent, so you don’t attract an audience that was searching for something else.
For example, if you’re trying to attract customers to a haberdashery, ranking highly for [bowlers] may attract people who want to roll a few frames instead of those looking for a new hat.
Relevant Keywords
Once you’ve identified your targets, you need to figure out which keywords are important to them.
It’s usually best to target only a few keywords, as targeting too broadly will make it difficult for the search engine to determine what your pages are about.
Keyword Phrases
These are short phrases consisting of two or more words that people type into search engines to find specific content.
For example, someone looking for dance lessons may ask Google for [tango classes near me].
Keyword Research Tools
The brainstorming process is a great place to start keyword research, but to ensure you’re attracting the right audience and proving your value to search engines, you should utilize a research tool.
Most SEO professionals use Google’s Keyword Planner for this, but it can be a bit frustrating to use, so you may wish to consider other options.
Long-Tail Keywords
These are specific search terms people use to find an exact match for their query.
They tend to be longer and are more likely to be used by people who are closer to making a purchase.
An example of this would be [vegetarian restaurants in San Antonio], which would most likely be used by someone with a craving for a plant-based meal.
Search Volume
This will tell you the number of searches for a particular keyword over a specified timeframe, giving you an overall idea of the term’s value and competitiveness.
[Christmas lights] is going to get a lot more volume in November and December than it will in July. A lot of terms are seasonal, keep this in mind.Likewise, [used cars] is going to have more competition than [2006 Volkswagen Passant].
Funnel Keywords
These are keywords targeting users at various parts of the sales funnel.
People at the top of the funnel are more likely to be attracted by more general terms like [Cancun vacation], whereas those who are nearer to purchasing are comparing prices and brands and will more likely be attracted by things like discounts or hotel names.
Keywords are as much about your audience as they are your content.
For a more detailed explanation of every part of keyword research and optimization, we have a detailed ebook on the topic.
3. Define Your Most Valuable Pages
Every team needs an MVP, and in the case of your website, that’s your most valuable pages.
These pages are the ones that do the bulk of the heavy lifting for you.
For non-ecommerce sites, these are usually things like your home page, your services pages or any pages with demos or other offers.
These pages are also likely MVPs for ecommerce sites, but will also be joined by category and/or product level pages.
To find which pages are your site’s most important ones, you should consider what your organization is known for.
What verticals to you compete in? What pain points do you solve? Define these or add more based on the high-level keywords you came up with in the previous step.
Once you’ve identified the category and product pages that bring in the most visitors, you’ll be able to focus your strategy on improving them and increasing your organic traffic.
Read more about how to find your MVPs here.
4. Conduct A Competitive Analysis
If you didn’t have any competition, there would be no need for SEO. But as long as other companies are manufacturing refrigerators, Frigidaire needs to find ways to differentiate itself.
You need to have an idea of what others in your industry are doing, so you can position yourself for the best results.
You need to figure out where you’re being outranked and find ways to turn the tables.
You should know which keywords are most competitive and where you have opportunities.
You should have some understanding of the opposition’s backlinking and site structure, so you can optimize your own site for the best possible search ranking.
Learn more about how to perform this analysis and develop a template for it by reading this piece.
5. Plan For User Experience & Technical SEO
Don’t overlook the importance of how your site is structured, both technically and how users interface with it.
The best content and keyword strategy in the world won’t lead to a single sale if your site is constantly broken or is so frustrating to use that people close your page in disgust.
You should carefully consider your site’s architecture and user experiences to ensure people are taking the desired actions.
Likewise, you should find and fix any technical issues like broken links, slow load times and bad site schema.
There are a number of free tools you can use to ensure your site is working optimally.
6. Consider Your Resources
SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum – it impacts many other parts of your organization, including marketing, sales, and IT.
If you’re looking for the budget to perform SEO, you may find some of your employees are already well-qualified to help.
For example, your sales team probably knows which products people are most interested in.
Enlisting them in your SEO strategy development will help with lead generation and find new targets who are already qualified.
Similarly, SEO can tell your marketing team what types of content resonates best, so they can fine tune their campaigns. And your copywriters and graphic designers can develop the type of content that will help you shoot up the rankings.
Your IT team probably already has control over your website.
Your SEO strategy should be designed around their expertise, to ensure website design and structure, development cycles, data structure, and core principles are all aligned.
And these are just a few ways you can integrate SEO into your existing workflows.
Others exist if you look closely and it’s very unlikely that you’ll need to start completely from scratch.
Evaluate your existing software, technology, and personnel, as there’s a good chance you have some of the pieces already in place.
And if you need to scale production up, you may find the budget already in place in existing departments.
7. Align Your SEO Strategy With Your Customer Funnel
At the end of the day, sales are the name of the game. Without customers, there’s no revenue, and that means no business.
To aid in the sales process, your SEO strategy should align with your customer funnel.
Sometimes described as the customer journey, your sales funnel is a summation of the touchpoints customers have with your company as they go from awareness to post-purchase.
SEO fits neatly with every stage of this cycle:
- Awareness: In the modern world, many customers first hear about your business online. Through a Google search, for example.
- Interest: This is where customers start doing research. And what better place to do research than your website?
- Decision: The customer wants to buy and is deciding between you and the competition. Your meta description mentioning free shipping could be the thing that sways them.
- Purchase: Ecommerce continues to grow. Having a search engine optimized point of sale makes it easy for people to buy.
- Post-purchase: Customer reviews, either on your website or on a third-party site are a great way to build trust and increase your relevancy for keywords.
8. Report And Set Realistic Expectations
Reporting is essential. You need to be able to effectively measure and report on the progress you’re making.
Reporting allows you to establish consistent, accurate data that earns trust.
It helps you understand the factors behind your ranking and identify areas where you could improve, and not least of all, it proves the value of SEO to the organization’s decision-makers.
One of the most common mistakes people unfamiliar with SEO make is expecting overnight results.
And because of the variables involved with competition, inbound links, and the content itself, it’s nearly impossible to provide a definite timeframe.
You need to go into the process with an understanding that SEO takes time and the more competitive the keywords you’re going after, the longer it will take to climb to the top.
This needs to be conveyed to stakeholders from the start, to ensure expectations are realistic.
For a guide on how to create impactful reports that generate quality insights, read our guide here.
9. Measure And Document Your Strategy
Congratulations on making it this far, but you’re not quite done.
After you’ve generated the reports on how your SEO strategy is working, you need to track the metrics and prove its impact.
Some of the most important metrics you’ll want to consider include organic sessions, bounce rate, top exit pages, and crawl errors.
By identifying all of these, you’ll get a better idea of what you customers are looking for – and what’s driving them away.
For more information, read this article on top SEO KPIs.
There are a variety of both paid and free tools available that you can use to measure and track conversions, and compare them weekly, monthly, or by another timeframe of your choosing.
Simply find one that works for your budget and needs.
Conclusion
No one ever said SEO was easy, at least not anyone who has done it. But it’s a vital part of any modern organization’s business plan.
However, with a solid strategy, a willingness to learn, and a little old-fashioned elbow grease, even a complete beginner can send their website to the top of the SERP.
In this piece, we’ve given you nine steps to take to get your SEO strategy off the ground. But of course, this is just the start.
You need a unique plan that will work for your industry and your needs.
Luckily, Search Engine Journal can help with this too.
Download our ebook on SEO strategy with a full-year blueprint for an easy-to-follow 12-month plan you can use to develop a solid strategy, track your progress, and adjust to changing situations.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Lena Noir/Shutterstock
SEO
Firefox URL Tracking Removal – Is This A Trend To Watch?
Firefox recently announced that they are offering users a choice on whether or not to include tracking information from copied URLs, which comes on the on the heels of iOS 17 blocking user tracking via URLs. The momentum of removing tracking information from URLs appears to be gaining speed. Where is this all going and should marketers be concerned?
Is it possible that blocking URL tracking parameters in the name of privacy will become a trend industrywide?
Firefox Announcement
Firefox recently announced that beginning in the Firefox Browser version 120.0, users will be able to select whether or not they want URLs that they copied to contain tracking parameters.
When users select a link to copy and click to raise the contextual menu for it, Firefox is now giving users a choice as to whether to copy the URL with or without the URL tracking parameters that might be attached to the URL.
Screenshot Of Firefox 120 Contextual Menu
According to the Firefox 120 announcement:
“Firefox supports a new “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” feature in the context menu which ensures that copied links no longer contain tracking information.”
Browser Trends For Privacy
All browsers, including Google’s Chrome and Chrome variants, are adding new features that make it harder for websites to track users online through referrer information embedded in a URL when a user clicks from one site and leaves through that click to visit another site.
This trend for privacy has been ongoing for many years but it became more noticeable in 2020 when Chrome made changes to how referrer information was sent when users click links to visit other sites. Firefox and Safari followed with similar referrer behavior.
Whether the current Firefox implementation would be disruptive or if the impact is overblown is kind of besides the point.
What is the point is whether or not what Firefox and Apple did to protect privacy is a trend and if that trend will extend to more blocking of URL parameters that are stronger than what Firefox recently implemented.
I asked Kenny Hyder, CEO of online marketing agency Pixel Main, what his thoughts are about the potential disruptive aspect of what Firefox is doing and whether it’s a trend.
Kenny answered:
“It’s not disruptive from Firefox alone, which only has a 3% market share. If other popular browsers follow suit it could begin to be disruptive to a limited degree, but easily solved from a marketers prospective.
If it became more intrusive and they blocked UTM tags, it would take awhile for them all to catch on if you were to circumvent UTM tags by simply tagging things in a series of sub-directories.. ie. site.com/landing/<tag1>/<tag2> etc.
Also, most savvy marketers are already integrating future proof workarounds for these exact scenarios.
A lot can be done with pixel based integrations rather than cookie based or UTM tracking. When set up properly they can actually provide better and more accurate tracking and attribution. Hence the name of my agency, Pixel Main.”
I think most marketers are aware that privacy is the trend. The good ones have already taken steps to keep it from becoming a problem while still respecting user privacy.”
Some URL Parameters Are Already Affected
For those who are on the periphery of what’s going on with browsers and privacy, it may come as a surprise that some tracking parameters are already affected by actions meant to protect user privacy.
Jonathan Cairo, Lead Solutions Engineer at Elevar shared that there is already a limited amount of tracking related information stripped from URLs.
But he also explained that there are limits to how much information can be stripped from URLs because the resulting negative effects would cause important web browsing functionality to fail.
Jonathan explained:
“So far, we’re seeing a selective trend where some URL parameters, like ‘fbclid’ in Safari’s private browsing, are disappearing, while others, such as TikTok’s ‘ttclid’, remain.
UTM parameters are expected to stay since they focus on user segmentation rather than individual tracking, provided they are used as intended.
The idea of completely removing all URL parameters seems improbable, as it would disrupt key functionalities on numerous websites, including banking services and search capabilities.
Such a drastic move could lead users to switch to alternative browsers.
On the other hand, if only some parameters are eliminated, there’s the possibility of marketers exploiting the remaining ones for tracking purposes.
This raises the question of whether companies like Apple will take it upon themselves to prevent such use.
Regardless, even in a scenario where all parameters are lost, there are still alternative ways to convey click IDs and UTM information to websites.”
Brad Redding of Elevar agreed about the disruptive effect from going too far with removing URL tracking information:
“There is still too much basic internet functionality that relies on query parameters, such as logging in, password resets, etc, which are effectively the same as URL parameters in a full URL path.
So we believe the privacy crackdown is going to continue on known trackers by blocking their tracking scripts, cookies generated from them, and their ability to monitor user’s activity through the browser.
As this grows, the reliance on brands to own their first party data collection and bring consent preferences down to a user-level (vs session based) will be critical so they can backfill gaps in conversion data to their advertising partners outside of the browser or device.”
The Future Of Tracking, Privacy And What Marketers Should Expect
Elevar raises good points about how far browsers can go in terms of how much blocking they can do. Their response that it’s down to brands to own their first party data collection and other strategies to accomplish analytics without compromising user privacy.
Given all the laws governing privacy and Internet tracking that have been enacted around the world it looks like privacy will continue to be a trend.
However, at this point it time, the advice is to keep monitoring how far browsers are going but there is no expectation that things will get out of hand.
SEO
How To Become an SEO Expert in 4 Steps
With 74.1% of SEOs charging clients upwards of $500 per month for their services, there’s a clear financial incentive to get good at SEO. But with no colleges offering degrees in the topic, it’s down to you to carve your own path in the industry.
There are many ways to do this; some take longer than others.
In this post, I’ll share how I’d go from zero to SEO pro if I had to do it all over again.
Understanding what search engine optimization really is and how it works is the first state of affairs. While you can do this by reading endless blog posts or watching YouTube videos, I wouldn’t recommend that approach for a few reasons:
- It’s hard to know where to start
- It’s hard to join the dots
- It’s hard to know who to trust
You can solve all of these problems by taking a structured course like our SEO course for beginners. It’s completely free (no signup required), consists of 14 short video lessons (2 hours total length), and covers:
- What SEO is and why it’s important
- How to do keyword research
- How to optimize pages for keywords
- How to build links (and why you need them)
- Technical SEO best practices
Here’s the first lesson to get you started:
It doesn’t matter how many books you read about golf, you’re never going to win a tournament without picking up a set of clubs and practicing. It’s the same with SEO. The theory is important, but there’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty and trying to rank a site.
If you don’t have a site already, you can get up and running fairly quickly with any major website platform. Some will set you back a few bucks, but they handle SEO basics out of the box. This saves you time sweating the small stuff.
As for what kind of site you should create, I recommend a simple hobby blog.
Here’s a simple food blog I set up in <10 minutes:
Once you’re set-up, you’re ready to start practicing and honing your SEO skills. Specifically, doing keyword research to find topics, writing and optimizing content about them, and (possibly) building a few backlinks.
For example, according to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, the keyword “neopolitan pizza dough recipe” has a monthly traffic potential of 4.4K as well as a relatively low Keyword Difficulty (KD) score:
Even better, there’s a weak website (DR 16) in the top three positions—so this should definitely be quite an easy topic to rank for.
Given that most of the top-ranking posts have at least a few backlinks, a page about this topic would also likely need at least a few backlinks to compete. Check out the resources below to learn how to build these.
It’s unlikely that your hobby blog is going to pay the bills, so it’s time to use the work you’ve done so far to get a job in SEO. Here are a few benefits of doing this:
- Get paid to learn. This isn’t the case when you’re home alone reading blog posts and watching videos or working on your own site.
- Get deeper hands-on experience. Agencies work with all kinds of businesses, which means you’ll get to build experience with all kinds of sites, from blogs to ecommerce.
- Build your reputation. Future clients or employers are more likely to take you seriously if you’ve worked for a reputable SEO agency.
To find job opportunities, start by signing up for SEO newsletters like SEO Jobs and SEOFOMO. Both of these send weekly emails and feature remote job opportunities:
You can also go the traditional route and search job sites for entry-level positions. The kinds of jobs you’re looking for will usually have “Junior” in their titles or at least mention that it’s a junior position in their description.
Beyond that, you can search for SEO agencies in your local area and check their careers pages.
Even if there are no entry-level positions listed here, it’s still worth emailing and asking if there are any upcoming openings. Make sure to mention any SEO success you’ve had with your website and where you’re at in your journey so far.
This might seem pushy, but many agencies actually encourage this—such as Rise at Seven:
Here’s a quick email template to get you started:
Subject: Junior SEO position?
Hey folks,
Do you have any upcoming openings for junior SEOs?
I’ve been learning SEO for [number] months, but I’m looking to take my knowledge to the next level. So far, I’ve taken Ahrefs’ Beginner SEO course and started my own blog about [topic]—which I’ve had some success with. It’s only [number] months old but already ranks for [number] keywords and gets an estimated [number] monthly search visits according to Ahrefs.
[Ahrefs screenshot]
I checked your careers page and didn’t see any junior positions there, but I was hoping you might consider me for any upcoming positions? I’m super enthusiastic, hard-working, and eager to learn.
Let me know.
[Name]
You can pull all the numbers and screenshots you need by creating a free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account and verifying your website.
SEO is a broad industry. It’s impossible to be an expert at every aspect of it, so you should niche down and hone your skills in the area that interests you the most. You should have a reasonable idea of what this is from working on your own site and in an agency.
For example, link building was the area that interested me the most, so that’s where I focused on deepening my knowledge. As a result, I became what’s known as a “t-shaped SEO”—someone with broad skills across all things SEO but deep knowledge in one area.
Marie Haynes is another great example of a t-shaped SEO. She specializes in Google penalty recovery. She doesn’t build links or do on-page SEO. She audits websites with traffic drops and helps their owners recover.
In terms of how to build your knowledge in your chosen area, here are a few ideas:
Here are a few SEOs I’d recommend following and their (rough) specialties:
Final thoughts
K Anders Ericsson famously theorized that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a new skill. Can it take less? Possibly. But the point is this: becoming an SEO expert is not an overnight process.
I’d even argue that it’s a somewhat unattainable goal because no matter how much you know, there’s always more to learn. That’s part of the fun, though. SEO is a fast-moving industry that keeps you on your toes, but it’s a very rewarding one, too.
Here are a few stats to prove it:
- 74.1% of SEOs charge clients upwards of $500 per month for their services (source)
- $49,211 median annual salary (source)
- ~$74k average salary for self-employed SEOs (source)
Got questions? Ping me on Twitter X.
SEO
A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI
Today, ChatGPT celebrates one year since its launch in research preview.
Try talking with ChatGPT, our new AI system which is optimized for dialogue. Your feedback will help us improve it. https://t.co/sHDm57g3Kr
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) November 30, 2022
From its humble beginnings, ChatGPT has continually pushed the boundaries of what we perceive as possible with generative AI for almost any task.
a year ago tonight we were probably just sitting around the office putting the finishing touches on chatgpt before the next morning’s launch.
what a year it’s been…
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 30, 2023
In this article, we take a journey through the past year, highlighting the significant milestones and updates that have shaped ChatGPT into the versatile and powerful tool it is today.
a year ago tonight we were placing bets on how many total users we’d get by sunday
20k, 80k, 250k… i jokingly said “8B”.
little did we know… https://t.co/8YtO8GbLPy— rapha gontijo lopes (@rapha_gl) November 30, 2023
ChatGPT: From Research Preview To Customizable GPTs
This story unfolds over the course of nearly a year, beginning on November 30, when OpenAI announced the launch of its research preview of ChatGPT.
As users began to offer feedback, improvements began to arrive.
Before the holiday, on December 15, 2022, ChatGPT received general performance enhancements and new features for managing conversation history.
As the calendar turned to January 9, 2023, ChatGPT saw improvements in factuality, and a notable feature was added to halt response generation mid-conversation, addressing user feedback and enhancing control.
Just a few weeks later, on January 30, the model was further upgraded for enhanced factuality and mathematical capabilities, broadening its scope of expertise.
February 2023 was a landmark month. On February 9, ChatGPT Plus was introduced, bringing new features and a faster ‘Turbo’ version to Plus users.
This was followed closely on February 13 with updates to the free plan’s performance and the international availability of ChatGPT Plus, featuring a faster version for Plus users.
March 14, 2023, marked a pivotal moment with the introduction of GPT-4 to ChatGPT Plus subscribers.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023This new model featured advanced reasoning, complex instruction handling, and increased creativity.
Less than ten days later, on March 23, experimental AI plugins, including browsing and Code Interpreter capabilities, were made available to selected users.
On May 3, users gained the ability to turn off chat history and export data.
Plus users received early access to experimental web browsing and third-party plugins on May 12.
On May 24, the iOS app expanded to more countries with new features like shared links, Bing web browsing, and the option to turn off chat history on iOS.
June and July 2023 were filled with updates enhancing mobile app experiences and introducing new features.
The mobile app was updated with browsing features on June 22, and the browsing feature itself underwent temporary removal for improvements on July 3.
The Code Interpreter feature rolled out in beta to Plus users on July 6.
Plus customers enjoyed increased message limits for GPT-4 from July 19, and custom instructions became available in beta to Plus users the next day.
July 25 saw the Android version of the ChatGPT app launch in selected countries.
As summer progressed, August 3 brought several small updates enhancing the user experience.
Custom instructions were extended to free users in most regions by August 21.
The month concluded with the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise on August 28, offering advanced features and security for enterprise users.
Entering autumn, September 11 witnessed limited language support in the web interface.
Voice and image input capabilities in beta were introduced on September 25, further expanding ChatGPT’s interactive abilities.
An updated version of web browsing rolled out to Plus users on September 27.
The fourth quarter of 2023 began with integrating DALL·E 3 in beta on October 16, allowing for image generation from text prompts.
The browsing feature moved out of beta for Plus and Enterprise users on October 17.
Customizable versions of ChatGPT, called GPTs, were introduced for specific tasks on November 6 at OpenAI’s DevDay.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023On November 21, the voice feature in ChatGPT was made available to all users, rounding off a year of significant advancements and broadening the horizons of AI interaction.
And here, we have ChatGPT today, with a sidebar full of GPTs.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023Looking Ahead: What’s Next For ChatGPT
The past year has been a testament to continuous innovation, but it is merely the prologue to a future rich with potential.
The upcoming year promises incremental improvements and leaps in AI capabilities, user experience, and integrative technologies that could redefine our interaction with digital assistants.
With a community of users and developers growing stronger and more diverse, the evolution of ChatGPT is poised to surpass expectations and challenge the boundaries of today’s AI landscape.
As we step into this next chapter, the possibilities are as limitless as generative AI continues to advance.
Featured image: photosince/Shutterstock
Whiteboard Friday Recap 2023: AI Edition
Google Merchant Center Automatically Creating Promotions
Google Discusses Fixing 404 Errors From Inbound Links
Google Bug Sends Notice To Some Advertisers That Their Ad Accounts Were Suspended
No Estimate To Share For Completion Of Google November Core & Reviews Updates
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