1. User Experience is Key: Elizabeth emphasized the importance of a user’s experience when they land on your website. Prioritizing quick load times, mobile-friendliness, and easy navigation can significantly impact your site’s ranking.
2. Core Web Vitals Matter: Google continues to focus on Core Web Vitals as a significant ranking factor. Ensuring your website scores well in Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is crucial.
3. E-A-T Principles: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) are still essential for SEO. Building high-quality content from credible sources will positively affect your rankings.
4. Content Quality Over Quantity: Rather than churning out mass amounts of content, focus on creating higher-quality pieces that provide value and answer user queries more effectively.
5. Structured Data Usage: Implement structured data markup to help search engines better understand your site content and improve the chances of earning rich snippets in search results.
6. Mobile Optimization Isn’t Optional: With the majority of searches now coming from mobile devices, optimizing for mobile usability is non-negotiable. Ensure that your site design is responsive and works well on all devices.
7. Page Experience Update Insights: Elizabeth discussed the Page Experience update and its components, including Core Web Vitals. Adapting to these changes should be a priority for webmasters ensuring user-centric performance.
8. Backlink Quality Over Quantity: The emphasis now is on acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites rather than focusing solely on the volume of links.
9. Page Speed Improvements: Faster pages result in better user engagement metrics like reduced bounce rates and longer session durations, which positively influence rankings.
10. Voice Search Optimization: As voice search becomes increasingly popular, optimizing for conversational queries and long-tail keywords can help capture voice search traffic.
11. Local SEO Tactics: For businesses targeting local audiences, focusing on local SEO strategies such as Google My Business optimization and garnering local reviews is critical.
12. Image Optimization Best Practices: Properly optimizing images (compressing file sizes, using appropriate alt text) helps with both speed performance and accessibility improvements.
13. Continuous Learning and Adaptation: The SEO landscape is always evolving; staying updated with the latest Google updates, industry trends, and continually adapting strategies are key to maintaining strong search engine performance.