SEO in 2023: What Is Working Now for Google Rankings

There are tons of different SEO (Search Engine Optimization) trends you should be keeping an eye on. Without proper research to see which internet marketing techniques are making the “big G” happy, you may never know what changes to implement or how to move forward to grab their attention. Fortunately, here at Syspree a leading Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai, we have compiled an extensive list of SEO trends that should influence your strategy in 2023 and beyond.

Key Takeaways

• Creating relevant content and using targeted keywords is a good strategy for ranking for SEO keywords that people are searching, whereas keyword stuffing is no longer an effective way of getting ranked on Google.
• Site speed is a crucial factor for Google rankings, as it affects every page of the site, including user experience. Google considers a slow site a candidate for lower rankings until the site proves itself worthy of higher rankings by improving its speed.
• Internal linking is essential for Google rankings, as it makes it easier for people to find relevant content and demonstrates that web pages created are related to each other.
• Images with alt text, a small segment of text that describes the image and is displayed when someone hovers their mouse over it, can help increase traffic to a site and drive traffic from search engines by using relevant descriptions.
• To be effective, SEO strategy requires understanding Google’s algorithm and continually adapting to new trends and changes in the market, which can be challenging without proper research and the right digital marketing agency’s assistance.

 

 

Table of Contents

1. Rank for keywords that people are searching (Keyword stuffing is no longer an effective SEO strategy)
2. Site Speed
3. Internal Linking
4. Images with alt text
5. Title Tag
6. Meta Description
7. Backlinks
8. Make sure your content remains relevant to the blog post categories created for it

 

1. Rank for keywords that people are searching

Ever since Google launched Panda and Penguin, we have seen a massive shift in the search engine optimization industry. The focus has been on building high-quality websites that provide real value to users instead of just focusing on link building and keyword stuffing.

The basic strategy to get good rankings has always been to create quality content that answers the queries of your target audience. However, this isn’t enough anymore. You need to ensure that the website is easily accessible to search engine bots as well as users.

Here are some ways for you to rank for your SEO keywords that people are searching:

1. Create relevant content around your topic
2. Engage with your audience by answering their questions – Provide answers through articles, blog posts, videos, or podcasts
3. Use targeted keywords in your content – It’s necessary to use relevant keywords in your content so that search engines can swiftly identify it. Make sure they are used naturally, which means not stuffing them.

What is not an effective SEO technique?

Keyword stuffing is no longer an effective way of getting ranked on Google. Not only does this hurt your rankings, but it affects user experience as well, as the credibility of the website.

It’s important to remember that people use Google to find answers they require, not-to click on links they find.

So Remember!

Keyword stuffing is no longer an effective SEO strategy because search engines will be smart enough to account for it.

 

2. Site Speed

Site speed is an essential factor in Google rankings. It may be more important than most people realize. Site speed affects every page of your site, whether or not it has anything to do with SEO.

The reason site speed is so important is that. Google wants to show the searcher the best possible search results for his query. But Google also knows that users don’t like slow sites. So Google considers a slow site a candidate for lower rankings until the site proves itself worthy of higher rankings by improving its speed.

Google tracks two types of site speed: time-to-first-byte and fully loaded time.

The first measures how long it takes until your server sends any data to the browser at all (time to the first byte). Fully loaded time measures how long it takes after that point (including code execution and database queries) for your page to become fully rendered and ready to interact with (fully loaded time).

Experts from any leading SEO company in Mumbai would suggest that if your website has too many ads (which of course will lead to the slow loading time of your website) don’t expect good rankings for your keywords.

Google gives priority to sites that don’t have any of those “bad” elements or behaviours. So, if you want a higher ranking on Google, then make sure to avoid those things. If you sell a product, then do not let third-parties sell the same product on your site. This will slow down your site and also give a bad user experience. Make sure to load as few images as possible on your site because image loading takes a lot of time and visitors hate it when they have to wait for that reason.

So, to get good rankings on Google, as a top Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai, we suggest that you should optimize your site according to these above-stated elements and further ensure that there are no duplicate pages, broken links, etc. Also, try to create original content as much as possible instead of copying from others. Use the Nofollow attribute for external links and internal links as well.

So, what else can we do? We should use the latest version of HTML & CSS standards because Google keeps an eye on sites that follow the latest standards. We can also use Schema markup for our blog posts and webpages because Google loves it.

 

3. Internal Linking

Internal linking is essential for Google rankings because it makes it easier for people to find your content. Additionally, Google likes to see that the web pages you create are related to each other. For this reason, aside from creating well-organized content experts from one of the best SEO companies suggest that it’s also essential to create an internal linking structure that helps visitors find relevant content.

The easiest way to do this is by using WordPress’ built-in features. The first thing you should do when you create a new blog post is to title it, using keywords that people will use when searching for information about the topic you’re writing about, this will help ensure that Google finds your blog post when people search for a similar subject in the future.

Adding links within the body of your post to related posts or pages on your website is another great way to increase rankings for your page without having to do much work outside of writing the piece itself. While tools are available to help with internal linking, including Yoast SEO and All in One SEO, these tools can be somewhat challenging to use and require some time investment that could be better spent elsewhere. You can also spend time trying different ways of writing links, but if you’re not sure what you’re doing, you could end up doing more harm than good.

In conclusion, the easiest way to start using links to your advantage is by simply thinking about where you could potentially add links within your posts. Think of it as another step in the editing process. When you see a potential backlink, experiment with adding it so you can see what happens to your ranking. If it improves, keep it in there. If not, delete. It’s a simple process that will continue to work for as long as Google exists and can be a relatively easy way to improve your rankings over time.

 

4. Images with alt text

If you’ve ever searched for something on Google Images, you might probably guess that there’s an SEO component to images as well. Every image on your website comes with alt-text, which is also referred to as an alt-tag. This small segment of the text describes the image and will be displayed when someone hovers their mouse over your image.

 

 

To get a better idea of how it works, take a look at this search result for “carousel.” The first item in the carousel is the website for luxury car company Audi. The active text on the image is “Audi R8 LMS Ultra.” When a user mouses over the image, they see a description of the vehicle along with a link to more information about it from the manufacturer’s website.

If this information is helpful to users, it can also help drive traffic to your site from search engines. While Google is very tight-lipped about its algorithm, these kinds of on-page SEO elements are one way to help your page rank higher in Google image searches and increase traffic to your site. Here are some tips on how to use these tags:

The rules for using this tag are simple:

1. The alt-text must be no longer than 150 characters. This includes spaces.
2. It should describe the image or add some value to it.
3. You should always use an alt-text, even if the image is purely decorative.
4. If there’s a problem with your image, it should contain a sound description of what’s in the picture.

So how do you optimize your alt-text? The following are a few things you should bear in mind:

As the best SEO company in Mumbai, we recommend that all your images should have an alt-text by default. If you don’t change anything, Google will index all your Images just fine. You can skim over this part if that’s the case.

The recommended character limit for alt-text is 150 characters, but that doesn’t mean you have to be super concise when coming up with your description. Google suggests being as descriptive as possible because the more information you provide, the better it will rank in SERPs. It will also help visually impaired readers, who rely on screen readers, to get a clear idea of what’s in the image and navigate around your website.

Besides including your primary keyword phrase in the image title and description, make sure to do this.

 

5. Title Tag

Almost all SEOs know that Title Tag is an essential on-page factor for Google rankings. The question is how exactly to use it.

Writing a good title for a page is a little bit of an art, and there are no easy rules you can follow to do it well. You have to use your gut feeling and have some knowledge about how search engines work. In this article, I will try to give some tips on how to improve your on-page SEO using Title Tag.

 

 

Google uses page titles as the basis for determining the relevancy of any given page concerning a user’s query. So it’s essential to ensure that you’re adding keywords that are relevant to the content of the page itself. Plus, they’re a bit easy to do! Just use an HTML element called a <h1> tag to designate the most important heading in your page’s code. It will allow Google to recognize what your page is about; when it crawls your site, then rank it higher in its search results pages (SERPs).

Using the right keywords in the title tag will help you rank for those words in Google. Also, if you have many pages that have similar content, the right keywords in the title tag will help your pages rank together, instead of just scattering them across various rankings.

 

6. Meta Description

Meta descriptions for SEO is a somewhat controversial topic. Some people want to use meta descriptions as a way to give Google a snippet of the page’s content, and then hope that Google will include that snippet in their search results as a description of the page.

What does Google say about this? In short, Stop it! The official Google Webmaster Blog has said: “We don’t use the meta description for ranking. It’s there for users to see what your page is about.” To understand it better, Let’s start with the basics of meta descriptions.

The first thing that comes to mind is that meta descriptions are supposed to be about your page. That’s what Google wants, am I right? That’s what you’re supposed to do, am I right?

No. Stop thinking about it that way. Stop thinking about meta descriptions as something you write for your page. Think of them as ads for your site and its content. Think of them as headlines, for news stories about your content and your site. Think of them as sales pitches for your content and your site – one sentence, no more than 156 characters (including spaces).

What the heck do I mean by all this?

Let me give you an example: if you search for “SEO in 2023”, Google will show you the following results:

 

 

Notice how different these pages look from each other, and yet they all have the same title in the search results: “What Is Working Now for Google Rankings”. So, we can’t conclude anything from this, except that Google doesn’t care about meta descriptions when it returns results like this. It just wants to show relevant pages with rich snippets in the SERPs.

 

7. Backlinks

In the world of SEO or search engine optimization, backlinks are links from other websites to your website. It is one of the most important factors Google uses in determining a website’s ranking on its search engine.

 

 

It is, therefore, crucial for everyone to know how to get backlinks to their website. However, there are many myths about how to get backlinks. Here are some guidelines on how to get backlinks effectively.

How to Get Backlinks Effectively?

One of the most important things you need to do as a website owner is to promote your site. We can do this in many different ways, and one of the most effective methods is through good old-fashioned link building.

The first thing we need to look at is what on-page SEO means and why it is necessary. On-page SEO deals with all of the on-page factors that affect your Google rankings. These include:

Text Optimization – this refers to using relevant keywords and phrases within the body content of your site. It also refers to using the appropriate keyword density, i.e., using enough keyword phrases but not too many.

It would mean that you should avoid overstuffing your text with keywords as it will make it look spammy and will also decrease its readability, which will reflect negatively on your site’s bounce rate and thus negatively affect your ranking in SEO.

Title Tags – This is extremely important as it can help or hinder your site depending on how you use it. The title tags should be around 70 characters long.

In the end, SEO is a science, not a guessing game. Utilizing these types of tactics can help improve your rankings for specific keywords and provide a fallback strategy when something you’ve been doing is no longer working. You don’t have to be an SEO expert to know how the field works, but it doesn’t hurt either to have some sense of what factors are affecting your website’s SERP rankings.

 

8. Relevant Content

When you’re creating content, the key to gaining the highest level of Google rankings is by; providing relevant content. The next time you write an article for your blog, keep these four elements in mind:

1. Relevance:

The relevance of your article to the reader is paramount. For example, if it’s a health and medicine website, then you’ll want to make sure that your article is geared towards those topics. If you’re writing about a specific type of treatment for a particular disease, then make sure that your article focuses on that treatment rather than discussing other treatments as well.

 

2. Readability:

While it’s necessary to make sure that your content is relevant, you also want to make sure that it’s readable. You can include technical terms and phrases within the content but make sure you define them first so that the reader doesn’t get lost or confused about what you’re trying to say.

 

 

3. Authority:

When creating content for websites or blogs it’s important to have some kind of authority behind whatever it is that you’re discussing. Why should the reader listen to what you have to say? If they don’t think that there’s anything authoritative about what you’re saying then they probably won’t take any action with regards to whatever it is that you offer.

 

4. Unique Content:

Putting time and research into developing unique content is one of the most important things you can do for your blog. It’s is not just regarding creating different content, but also about creating content that has value, as search engines will only favour sites that contain information that users want.

Content is king. Content will always be king. The more you focus on creating original content that is unique and relevant, the better chance you’ll have at ranking well in search engines. Just make sure that your content is not only well-researched but also well-written—good grammar + spelling are quite important when it comes to attracting visitors to your site.

Alright, you’ve read the instructions. You’ve browsed through some examples. It’s time to get started on your mission to rank for keywords like a pro on Google! Although this guide is by no means conclusive, however, we do feel confident that we have managed to provide you with actionable advice and helpful advice that will help you achieve your ultimate goal: first page ranking on Google.

If you enjoyed this blog and require in-depth knowledge of different SEO techniques, indulge in our latest blogs featuring On-page SEO and Off-page SEO techniques.