With the implementation of mobile-first indexing by Google, the mobile version of your website is now the benchmark for indexing and ranking. This means that your site’s mobile performance directly influences its visibility in search results, making mobile optimization an essential component of your SEO strategy . Moreover, regularly updated content signals to search engines that your website is a reliable source of information, which can improve your site’s overall SEO performance. It’s especially crucial for topics that are rapidly evolving, where new information can significantly impact the content’s accuracy and usefulness. Optimizing for user intent involves a deep dive into keyword research, audience analysis, and the customer journey.

Optimizing for voice search involves focusing on natural language, question-based queries, and local SEO, as many voice searches are looking for immediate, local solutions. The goal is to structure your content in a way that directly answers the questions users are likely to ask, using a conversational tone that matches the natural speech patterns. Helpful content is defined by its ability to answer questions, provide solutions, and offer insights that users find beneficial and relevant to their search queries. It’s about moving beyond superficial coverage of a topic to delivering in-depth, actionable content that enhances the user’s knowledge or helps them make informed decisions. Content freshness is a critical factor in SEO, reflecting the importance of keeping your website’s content up-to-date and relevant. Search engines, particularly Google, favor websites that regularly update their content, as this indicates that the site is active and providing current information to users.

Even perfect content won’t rank if search engines can’t properly access and understand your site. Additionally, using structured data (Schema markup) alongside the map can further enhance your local SEO by providing search engines with precise business location details. The more active and engaged you are with your reviews, the more trust you build with both Google and potential customers. A strong review profile will boost your rankings and make your business the obvious choice over competitors.

Optimizing for Voice Search

The more active the channel is and the more videos are uploaded, the better for YouTube SEO. In combination with the given authority (see point 2), this results in a very good basis for a high YouTube ranking. Businesses with complete and accurate information are easier to match with the right searches.

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Understanding the layout can help you optimize your content to better fit these formats. Page speed, along with responsiveness, and visual stability is a part of the Core Web Vitals report, recently added to theGoogle Search Console. Google checks the Core Web Vitals of a website to determine its user experience based on user interactions with the website. All things remaining the same, Google prefers to rank sites that can be easily accessed from all kinds of devices.

’ won’t stay on the page as soon as their problem has been solved. I recommend signing up for our free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools and running a crawl of your website. Catching and fixing glitches early can save you from mysteriously missing out on search traffic. So, whether you want to call it LLMO, GEO, or the name of the week, it’s no different from SEO. Google’s AI Overviews still need source material to generate their summaries.

If the user returns to the search results quickly this is a strong negative signal. The Google Penguin penalty tends to focus on your backlink profile. Link velocity is a measurement of how many links you gain or lose over time. Just like buying links can get you in trouble, so can selling links. There are numerous examples of well known sites selling links and being penalised. Guest posting was a great way to get backlinks a couple years back.

There’s a ton of information out there, and search engine algorithms are constantly changing. In today’s internet-driven world, having an online presence is a BHS Links make-or-break necessity for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Local search results are extremely sensitive to proximity, which refers to the location of the searcher and/or the location specified in the query (if the searcher included one).

• The TTFB result was surprising in a clear correlation was identified between decreasing search rank and increasing time to first byte.
• You need to produce long-form quality content consistently on your website to keep the visitors flowing.
• The reviews system aims to better reward high quality reviews, content that provides insightful analysis and original research, and is written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well.
• If the user returns to the search results quickly this is a strong negative signal.
• By focusing on the most important factors, you can attract more organic traffic and achieve higher rankings.

They’re one of the first things a user sees after entering a search query related to local services, providing an immediate visibility boost. The click-through rate (CTR) represents the percentage of users who click on your site after it appears in their search results. A high CTR indicates that your website listing is attractive and relevant to users. A longer dwell time suggests that users find your content valuable and engaging, which is a positive sign to search engines.

Start experimenting with AI Overview optimizations

For example, this page is optimized around the keyword “SEO strategy”. Get additional ideas for targeting visual search intent by referencing how an AI Overview answers queries to develop image ideas. Besides generative search results, Google’s image search results can be used to find additional ideas. LLMs like Gemini and MUM are multi-modal — they can understand text, images, videos, and voice.