11 Google Ranking Trends and Factors to Prepare for in 2023

2023 is only months away. New years come with new resolutions, challenges, and competitions, so there’s no better time than now to improve your website visibility and performance. There are various ways to achieve all that and more, but it all starts by understanding the ever-changing and ever-evolving Google ranking trends and factors that can define your success. 

Let’s demystify and deconstruct these eleven trends and factors with the realities for 2023 to help your website reach greater heights. 

1. Mobile Optimization for the Mobile-First Era 

Most, if not all, of people today, regardless of generation, spend most of their time on mobile. Their smartphones are the single, most important thing that lets them stay connected to the world. As such, think of the mobile-first era when you build or improve your website. Over 90% of today’s traffic comes from mobile devices. Make sure that your site is mobile-friendly, optimized, and responsive.

2. High-Value Relevant Content for Your Audience

Google recently unveiled RankBrain, a system that helps the search engine better understand the user intent of a specific search query. With RankBrain’s help, Google can now identify the relevancy and quality of content through AI alone. It can easily identify pages that provide useful and relevant information.

So, instead of solely focusing on strategically placing keywords, you also need to provide the right information the readers need. It’s time to keep in mind that quality and relevance come first over keyword frequency.

3. High-Quality SEO Backlinks From High-Authority Sites 

To further understand the importance of quality over quantity in 2023, dive deeper into the power of high-quality SEO backlinks. Google still uses the algorithm PageRank to rank web pages, and one of the most important factors this algorithm weighs is the quality of backlinks. For 2023, start building and generating links from high-authority sites instead of filling your web pages with many low-to-medium quality links. 

4. Right and Concrete Keywords for Your Content 

Come 2023, keywords would still remain a vital part of SEO. Start focusing on providing high-quality and relevant keywords when writing and updating content. Avoid keyword stuffing at all costs as to not compromise the quality of the article, hurt your Google rankings, and annoy readers. Upgrade your content plan, and prioritize keyword research and keyword placement every time you provide content and web pages. 

5. Seamless Site Structure and Design for User Experience

According to various studies, the attention span of users may range between 8 to 10 seconds. The range may change from time to time, depending on the generation involved and the emergence of new technologies. But one thing may remain the same in the years to come: the attention span of users is only SECONDS. Given this, you should aim to always make a great first impression through user experience. Offer a clear hierarchical structure, fast-loading web pages, simple navigation, and a concrete site map in accordance with your brand personality. 

6. Faster Site Speed for Better Conversions

Again, user attention span plays a big role in your website conversions. Aside from your site structure and design, also ensure that your site speed is in its optimal state. Optimize your website’s text, media, and other content to decrease the load time of your web pages, particularly the homepage. During the improvement process, monitor your site speed from time to time through Google’s PageSpeed Insights or other tools, and continually find areas you can improve on.

7. Site Authority in Your Own Niche 

In 2023, aim to improve or maintain your site authority. Google uses algorithms powered by AI to identify the quality of your backlinks, keywords, content, and other similar factors. However, it taps on the power of human agents when it comes to rating site authorities. Make sure to continually check and improve your site authority in your own niche by being an overall great resource for your audience.

8. Domain Security for Business Protection and SEO

Improving your domain security hits two birds with one stone—your business’ credibility and security and your SEO. If your website is still running with HTTP, then move to HTTPS now. HTTPS is an extended version of HTTP, so it offers more secure communication. Your domain security links serve like a trust seal that Google and other search engines can see as they rank you. 

9. Metadata for Behind-The-Scene SEO 

Your website’s metadata are sometimes invisible to your visitors and customers, but they are highly impactful on your Google rankings. Creating relevant and concrete meta titles and meta descriptions can help Google and RankBrain identify the direct relation of your website to user queries without seeing the entire web page. Think of metadata as Google’s first impression on your web page. 

10. Business Listings for Targeting Local or Specific Audiences

You have to lead your target audiences to your website by giving them ways to find you. And creating business listings is one way to do that. Regardless of your physical or virtual location as a company or organization, a local SEO can help your business grow on a national and global scale. Set up and optimize your Google My Business listing and other relevant local directories, and fill in relevant information correctly and concretely. 

11. Featured Snippets for a Major Traffic Increase

Google’s featured snippets come from web search listings. They are selected and featured search results on top of a search engine’s organic search results. If you want to see major traffic increase and positive changes in your conversions, provide concrete and straightforward content that directly answers frequently asked questions (FAQs) by your target audiences. Aiming for the featured snippet position isn’t easy, but with consistency and patience, you can have one or some of your web pages featured.

There are no SEO shortcuts or spot-on ranking solutions that can help you instantly reach the first page of Google search results. This trial-and-error process is continuous, so always bring patience, determination, and consistency with you as you tackle these trends and factors come 2023.