Introduction:
Staying ahead in the digital age means understanding and implementing strategies around the complexities of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It’s more than just incorporating keywords; it involves a deep understanding of recent updates and technologies. This article brings to light ten critical SEO updates that can help your business rank higher and boost your bottom line.
1. Understand SERPs and Leverage Featured Snippets
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are the web page listings that a search engine provides in response to a user’s query. If your website ranks highly on these pages, your business visibility increases exponentially. Featured Snippets, often referred to as ‘Position Zero’, are a quick answer box shown at the top of Google’s SERPs. They answer the user’s query directly and can significantly enhance your visibility if your website content is chosen as the snippet.
2. The Reign of Mobile-First Indexing
Google now uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking. This means that your website’s mobile version becomes the starting point for what Google includes in their index and the baseline for determining rankings.
3. Core Web Vitals and User Experience
Google’s Core Web Vitals have made the user experience an SEO ranking factor. These vitals measure aspects of your website, including its load time, interactivity, and visual stability, which all affect a user’s experience on the page.
4. Harness AI and Quality Content Together
Understanding how Google’s AI algorithm, RankBrain, processes queries and provides relevant search results can help enhance your SEO strategy. Simultaneously, unique and valuable content is favoured by Google. Regularly updating your website with insightful content, tailored to your audience’s needs and preferences, can help you climb up the SEO ladder.
5. The Importance of Secure Websites
Secure websites that use HTTPS instead of HTTP are preferred by Google. Making your website secure not only builds trust with users but can also give you a leg up over your competition in search engine rankings.
6. Social Signals’ Indirect Impact
Although not a direct ranking factor, social signals such as shares and likes can indirectly influence SEO. The more your content is shared on social platforms, the more visibility and potentially more backlinks it can earn.
7. The Rise of Voice Search Optimisation
Voice search usage is increasing rapidly. It’s crucial to ensure your content includes conversational keywords and phrases, reflecting how people speak rather than just how they type.
8. Understand Google’s BERT for Better Optimisation
Google’s BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) technology allows the search engine to better understand the context of words in a search query. For SEO, this means creating content that answers questions in a conversational manner and understanding how your audience uses language.
9. Implementing E-A-T Principles in Your Content
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, three factors Google uses to assess content quality. By showcasing your expertise and authority in your field, and by providing accurate, reliable information, you enhance your site’s trustworthiness, contributing positively to your SEO.
10. Remember, Google Isn’t the Only Search Engine
While Google remains the dominant player, other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo still have a substantial user base. Tailoring your SEO strategy to these platforms as well can help you reach more potential customers.
At Reach Revenue we work with business leaders and investors to develop growth strategies. We offer a range of services including digital marketing, lead generation, and sales enablement providing resource and support as it is needed.
To find out how we can help you, please call 0203 858 8030 or email info@reachrevenue.net.