SEO Trends & Tips:
The Ultimate 2023 Guide on
How to Rank First Page of Google

What are new SEO trends in 2023?

The old ways to rank on Google were to keyword stuff and fill your content full of the keyword you are trying to rank for over and over again. But according to the latest research, this method has been deemed a penalty by Google and will result in a rankings drop. Meaning this is very bad for conversion. Google has made it a crucial point to deliver the most valuable content to the target audience.

Your website needs to be mobile-friendly.

Your website must be responsive or mobile-friendly. There’s no way around this. Beginning in 2018 Google made it compulsory to have a responsive website that will adapt to mobile devices. Your content needs to be rich in high-quality content with an AMP-compatible version (Accelerated Mobile Pages). If not, your website will not survive in 2023.

Make sure your website loading speed is FAST!

A slow website creates an unsatisfying experience for your visitors. So, making sure your website loads fast is a necessity for Google. This means optimizing your content to make sure your website loads as fast as possible. You need to make sure your image files are as light on the server as you can make them.

You can easily do this by optimizing your images in image editing software or installing an image optimization plugin that will automatically compress your image files. Also, keep in mind, videos and animation, as flashy as they are, slow the load time as well. You may want to keep these features to a minimum. 

Core web vitals optimization.

When it comes to page speed and performance, Google introduced a huge change in its algorithm. Page experience is now a major factor in determining page rank. This is part of their Core Web Vitals. The following metrics need to be taken into account when creating content.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): the amount of time it takes the largest content asset on the page to load.

First Input Delay (FID): how long it takes for your site to respond to a user’s first interaction with the page.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how many unexpected layout shifts occur during the lifespan of the page.

Video content is very popular. Jump on this trend.

While you need to be careful in adding video to your website to not increase loading time, there is no doubt that video is becoming a new trend in engaging your target audience.

Embedding videos on your website from YouTube and Vimeo is a great option to add video while keeping the loading time down. If you were to self-host your videos on your web hosting server, it would no doubt slow down your website.

But having it load from a third-party website will allow your video to load automatically from their website server, not yours. Create a YouTube or Vimeo account, upload your videos there, then use their embed link on your website.

People Also Ask

One of the hidden gems in SEO is the “People also ask” (PAA) feature in the Google results page. A recent study showed that almost 50% of searches on Google displayed this feature. Most people searching went directly to the (PAA) for the answer.

The positioning of PAA is often positioned at the top of the SERP which makes that spot very desirable for most content creators.

To get to this spot you simply need to provide answers to the most common questions in the content of your website. You can use a keyword tool such as SEMrush to find long-tail keywords to create content for that question and answer.

When creating the content, make sure to provide in-depth answers to the topic, and don’t forget the basics of including the keywords into your H2, H3 and H4 tags.

This is a great SEO trick to get more visibility and rank on the first page of Google, even if your actual web page containing the content doesn’t rank on the first page.

Optimize your website for Voice Search.

Your smartphone could search based on your voice for years now. Whether it’s Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortona, or Apple Siri. The technology has been in existence for a while now and Google to making this more of a factor.

It would be a good idea to make your content voice optimized so that you can be ahead of the curve when Google makes this mandatory. You will get Google points for optimizing your content for voice in 2023.

Time is money, as the saying goes. That is why smartphones and other smart devices are supporting voice technology. People want to be able to search for things quickly and easily, which makes voice search more and more convenient and useful.

The advent of speech recognition technology is making the ability to search and get answers to questions easier than ever. You need to jump on this technology now!

Understand how Google works.

Creating high-quality content for Google is not easy. You need to understand the latest content trends. Your content needs to be simple, easy to understand, and easy to read. The old way was to stuff your content with the right keywords.

According to the latest research, you should begin your content with an overview of your topic, as this is what Google sees first. This means your first 250 words should contain the keywords and focal point of the rest of the page.

Learn How Google’s algorithms think.

Google gets smarter and smarter as time goes by. Never try to fool Google. They are getting better and better at detecting people trying to use shady tactics to fool their crawlers and search bots.

They do this to provide a better user experience, which is an indicator of the content of a website. Google intends to give searchers what they are looking for in a concise and informative manner.

A page with a high bounce rate is an indicator that the content was not useful and was not what the user was searching for. When Google sees this, they will penalize the website and rank them lower in the search results.

Other signals of a useful website are dwell time, average session duration, and page views. When you take all of these factors into account, it gives Google a pretty good picture of the quality of your website.

The Importance of staying up-to-date SEO trends.

If you are a business owner you probably are thinking why is search engine optimization so important? With all the algorithm changes, understanding SEO will require that you be on top of the new trends. If you don’t, your competitors will. They will outrank you and they will take business away from you.

Google is always trying to provide the best search experience for people browsing the web. To do this effectively, they have to change its algorithm to improve the search experience of its users.

You need to accept the fact that Google is a business, just like yours and they are always evolving. Your business needs to evolve as well.

Visual Search of images.

The term “visual search” refers to searching online using images, not text. Google uses AI, or Artificial Intelligence, to scan the elements of the images to understand what the image is about. This is why naming your images with keywords and taking advantage of the ALT tag is so crucial to being found in Google’s image search.

When you buy a photo online or upload a picture you took with a digital camera, you often get a file name like “DC 20170909_112555.jpg”. Google does not understand this. To make it readable by Google, simply give it a name using your keywords like “how-to-design-website.jpg”.

Then in the ALT tag feature put the words “How to design a website”. This will allow Google to detect and understand what your images are about while giving you another chance to add your keyword to your webpage.

Make Local SEO a priority.

Optimizing your website so that local customers can find you is always the easiest and best when to get new business. Local SEO helps your business get discovered by potential customers and clients within your geographic region.

About 47% of all Google searches are local. That means almost half of all searches are people in your area. As a business owner, it is imperative that you appear in the search results close to the physical location of your customers.

Research has shown that as much as 86% who discover a local business will call or visit the business within 24 to 48 hours of finding the listing online.

So, how do you optimize your website for Local SEO?

The first thing you must do is create your online listing on Google my Business, Apple Maps Listing, and Bing Places. Once you’ve created those accounts, now you need to get your past customers to leave reviews on these listings and make sure your new clients or customers leave reviews.

Now, you need to create landing pages for each of these locations you want to rank for. Update the NAP citation on your website. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone.

Search FREE local online directories and make sure you list your business on each one of them.

Most people do not go past the first page of Google.

If you need extra motivation to do search engine optimization, here it is:

Research shows that 77% of all internet users never go past the first page of Google when doing an online search.

That means getting on the first page of Google, in the first 10 search results, will no doubt increase the sales and conversion of your business. Investing in an SEO strategy for the long term will bring quality leads as long as you stay on top of the latest changes and trends.

Never stay stuck on old outdated techniques like keyword stuffing, backlink exchanging, and duplicate content. These are all a recipe for disaster and will hamper your search engine optimization efforts.

One thing never changes. Content is King.

This has been repeated by digital marketers for years and it’s still relevant today: Content is King.

To create great content, just put yourself in the shoes of the searcher. When you create content you need to ask yourself whether the content was useful or not.

Does it go above and beyond the other pieces of content on the web on this same topic?

Will it keep my audience engaged or will it increase my bounce rate?

If you ask yourself these questions, you will be giving your target audience what they are looking for which makes Google happy. Make Google happy, they will make you happy by rewarding you with a higher ranking.

Be Omni-present on the web.

If you want to make sure your business is seen by a lot of people, you need an omnipresent approach. That means you need to be everywhere. There is a multitude of channels you can utilize from social media, podcasting, video, and more. Each method has its strategy and goals.

The key to this approach is getting your content shared, viewed, liked, and mentioned. When you do, you will be seen by Google as trustworthy, authoritative, and valued. This is a ranking factor as it is a signal to Google that your content is valuable the online community.

When you introduce a wide variety of digital marketing tactics and strategies to off-site channels, your shared content will be referenced all over the internet. You will be rewarded by Google with improved search result rankings.

Backlinks and link-building.

Link-building has changed in 2023. Not that it’s dead. It’s just done differently than we have been accustomed to in the past.

In the early years of link-building, marketers would simply spam their links using link farms and other shady tactics. Today, that is out of the question. Simply put, don’t do it. You will get penalized by Google and your rankings will drop.

What matters most when it comes to backlinks is the authority of the page that is linking to you. That means you need to get articles and webpages from authoritative sources to link back to your site to get that link juice.

So, that means it would be better to get a few high-authority sources to link to you, as opposed to a bunch of lesser-known sources.   The name of the game is quality, not quantity. 

Write for people, not for Google.

Back in the early days of SEO, marketers would create content to attract the attention of search engine robots. Not the attention of the actual person searching. Google took notice of this and began changing its algorithm to focus on the searcher’s intent.

That is a good thing for those of us doing online searches every day. But that also means that when doing SEO, we need to take this into account when creating our content.

The goal of Google and all search engines is to provide the searcher with the best results possible. That should also be the content creator’s ultimate goal as well. That means you not only need to think about ranking, but you also need to think about how your content will help your visitor.

Websites that answer the searcher’s question tend to rank higher than those that do not provide value to the searcher’s query.

Simply put, stop creating content for search engines and start writing content for people. Many websites do a good job of finding that balance between pleasing Google and pleasing the user. It just takes time and effort to create content that brings value while keeping in mind the importance of keywords.

Website design is still very important.

When we talk about SEO and search engines, what is often overlooked in website design? Design plays a huge role in user experience. When a visitor goes to your website, they don’t look at the back end of the website. All they see is the front end or user interface.

If the design is outdated or unattractive, they will click the back button and go to another website. That sends a signal to Google that users are not having a good experience when visiting your website, which will result in lower ranking and positioning in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page).

So, it’s very important to create a website that is not cluttered with large chunks of text, no white space, and ugly images or graphic design. If you do not have a good eye for design, it would be a good idea to hire a web designer to design the website for you, or simply use a high-quality premium theme.

Google is not the only search engine.

When we talk about ranking, SEO, search engine results, etc., we often think about and refer to Google. Rightly so, because Google is the King of search engines and is by far the most popular and widely used search engine on the market today.

However, Google is not the only search engine worth optimizing for. There is Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo Search, and an increasingly popular DuckDuckGo.

While it’s more worth your time and effort to optimize for Google, many SEO experts warn us to keep in mind people tend to search for content on multiple platforms. Some of these platforms are not the first ones to come to mind, for example, searching for content on Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon.

Secondary search engines will drive traffic to your website from people who use other platforms. This will give you more traffic and more chance and getting leads, sales and conversions.

Conclusion

SEO is always changing and it is constantly evolving. That means that if you want to stay atop the search engines and drive traffic to your website, you need to keep up with the evolution of Google’s algorithms trends. This will ensure the survival of your business on the World Wide Web.

User experience, voice search, creating high-quality content, responsive mobile design, and being omnipresent across the internet are the ingredients needed for a successful search engine optimization campaign. If you master these techniques, your business will be able to compete in a very competitive market.

Finally, nothing beats creating relationships with individuals who will help keep your brand thriving through referrals and backlinks. Don’t just rely on computer-generated AI to get ranked.

Remember a user is a person. So, think like a person, not a computer. Think about how people will search for your product or services. Create high-quality content and answer questions and solves problems. If you do this 2023 will be profitable for you because Google will reward you for providing value.

I hope this article has brought you to value and will help you in your SEO efforts for 2023. If you need any help with search engine optimization, feel free to contact me anytime. Have a great day! Take care.