Keeping your website content and strategy in good shape ahead of the latest Google Search updates, features, and best practices is crucial for ensuring your website’s visibility and success, but how is it possible, when these algorithm changes can happen multiple times every month?
Throughout 2023, Google introduced a range of significant changes, from algorithm updates to feature enhancements, all aimed at improving user experience and delivering more relevant search results. To help you navigate this dynamic landscape, we’ve listed a flavour of the key developments of 2023 and we also provide some actionable insights to optimise your SEO strategy.
Google Search Core Algorithm Updates
Google Search’s core algorithm undergoes frequent updates to refine its ranking mechanisms and deliver the most relevant and high-quality content to users. In 2023, several notable core algorithm updates took place, each bringing about distinct changes to how websites are evaluated. The latest of these are:
November 2023 Core Update: This update focused on enhancing the relevance and overall quality of search results, particularly for content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).
October 2023 Core Update: This update primarily targeted spam detection, aiming to identify and penalise websites that engage in manipulative or deceptive practices, and also finalised Google’s goal to prioritise mobile-first website indexing.
September 2023 Helpful Content Update: This update prioritised rewarding websites that produce informative, helpful, and people-first content, further emphasising the importance of user satisfaction in search rankings.
You can read all the latest updates in Google Search Central Blog archives.
Announcements of New Google Search Features
Google Search continuously introduces new features to enhance user experience and provide more effective search capabilities. In 2023, several notable feature announcements were made, each offering unique ways to interact with search results.
Multimodal Search: This feature allows users to combine text, images, and voice queries to refine their searches, enabling a more intuitive and natural search experience.
Local Search Enhancements: Google Search has made significant improvements to its local search capabilities, providing more comprehensive and relevant information about local businesses, events, and attractions.
Video Search Enhancements: Video search has received several enhancements, including improved video ranking algorithms, integration with Google Lens, and the ability to search within videos using keywords.
What is E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. It is a set of guidelines that Google uses to evaluate the quality of content on the web. E-E-A-T is particularly important for websites that publish information about YMYL topics, which stands for Your Money or Your Life. These are topics that can have a significant impact on people’s lives, such as health, finance, and safety.
Experience
The experience component of E-E-A-T refers to the author’s or website’s experience in the topic area. For example, a website about medical advice should be written by a doctor or other qualified medical professional.
Expertise
The expertise component of E-E-A-T refers to the author’s or website’s level of knowledge about the topic area. For example, a website about finance should be written by someone who has a strong understanding of financial concepts.
Authority
The authority component of E-E-A-T refers to the author’s or website’s reputation in the topic area. For example, a website about legal advice should be written by a lawyer or other respected legal professional.
Trustworthiness
The trustworthiness component of E-E-A-T refers to the author’s or website’s credibility. For example, a website about news should be written by a reputable news organization.
By following E-E-A-T guidelines, you can help to ensure that your website is providing high-quality, accurate, and trustworthy information to your readers. Generally doing this will help to improve your website’s ranking in search results and make it more likely that people will trust your content.
Tips for creating E-E-A-T content
Here are a few ideas to help ensure your content is leaning into Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines:
- Write in a clear and concise style.
- Use evidence to support your claims.
- Cite your sources.
- Avoid making personal opinions or claims that cannot be verified.
- Keep your content up-to-date.
- Be transparent about your author credentials.
By following these tips, you can create content that will help to improve your website’s visibility and credibility.
SEO Best Practices for 2024 and Beyond
To keep up with the ever-evolving landscape of Google Search, it’s essential to adhere to the latest SEO best practices. Here are some key strategies to consider:
- Prioritise Content Quality and Relevance: Create informative, high-quality content that provides value to users and aligns with search intent.
- Mobile-First Approach: Ensure your website is optimised for mobile devices, as Google prioritises mobile-friendly websites in its search rankings.
- Technical Optimisation: Address technical SEO issues, such as website speed, crawl errors, and structural integrity, to improve website visibility and ranking.
- Structured Data Implementation: Use structured data markup to provide Google Search with detailed information about your content, enhancing its understanding and representation.
- User Experience Optimisation: Focus on creating a positive user experience by ensuring your website is easy to navigate, visually appealing, and accessible to all users.
- Backlink Acquisition: Build high-quality backlinks from reputable websites as well as local business listings to enhance your website’s authority and credibility.
- Regular Updates and Monitoring: Stay updated on the latest Google Search developments and regularly monitor your website’s performance using SEO tools and analytics.
No Quick Fix – You Can’t Cheat Google
By following these SEO best practices and staying abreast of the latest Google Search updates and feature announcements, you can effectively navigate the ever-changing search landscape and ensure your website remains visible, relevant, and successful in the eyes of both users and search engines.
Ultimately having a good, fast-performing, responsive website with great content, products or services, regularly updated valuable information targeting the best keywords for your visitors or customers, and building valuable links into your website from external sources will go a huge way in ensuring you are keeping your website ranking for your relevant industry search terms. No matter what changes Google or other search engines make to their algorithms, this approach has always worked best to increase and maintain SEO website rankings.
Read our previous blog post about how to do keyword research for free!
NEED AN SEO CONSULTANT TO HELP NAVIGATE YOUR SEO?
If you are confused by SEO, need a helping hand to get your website ranking, are looking for an SEO consultant to help with your keyword targeting, advise or give hands-on help in building the SEO strategy for your website, analyse your competition and advise on your website structure as well as a content plan to build your web dominance on the Search Engine Results Pages, call Wiser IT today on 07941 783434 or fill in the contact form.
Image by Freepik