Note (October 2026): This 2019 article said mobile page speed became a Google ranking factor in 2019 and called featured snippets a major ranking factor. Google’s Speed Update rolled out in July 2018, featured snippets are a search feature rather than a ranking factor, and Google retired its Mobile-Friendly Test tool on December 1, 2023; the text below has been corrected.
To improve SEO rankings on Google, publish helpful, original content written for people, make every page work well on mobile, meet Google’s Core Web Vitals targets (LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, CLS under 0.1), earn links from relevant sites instead of buying them, and structure answers clearly so Google can show them as snippets.
Key Takeaways
- Google’s ranking systems aim to reward helpful, reliable, people-first content, not content made to manipulate rankings.
- Google finished moving to mobile-first indexing in October 2023, so the mobile version of a page is the one that counts.
- Core Web Vitals are used by Google’s ranking systems, but a good score alone does not guarantee top rankings.
- Buying links or using automated link building breaks Google’s spam policies; paid links must carry rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored”.
- There are no extra technical requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible to show a snippet.
SEO has become the backbone of modern-day marketing. It is a huge factor in the digital marketing and e-commerce scene. And Google regularly updates its ranking systems, so the practices that work for SEO keep changing.
This is thanks to the fact that the internet is a highly dynamic platform. Each year, people with an online presence need to find new ways to ensure that they remain at the top of Google’s search results.
In order to understand the ever-changing nature of Google’s search engine algorithm, one must learn to appreciate it. Google’s algorithm is designed to make searching for things as easy as possible. It focuses on providing users with a simple search platform that directs them to the best results available.
SEO has become important for an increasing number of businesses. Even industries that have stayed away from the internet up till now have begun exploring SEO. We’re talking about industries such as construction, pharmaceuticals, etc. Today, SEO for contractors is just as important as it is for a digital marketing agency.
Since July 2018, when Google’s “Speed Update” rolled out, one of the ranking factors in Google’s mobile search results has been mobile page speed. More and more people have begun surfing the internet through their phones. And Google wants to ensure that these people get a flawless surfing experience. Now, mobile page speed is important.
However, this is not the only thing that you should be focusing on. SEO is a holistic process, you need to work on multiple factors in order to produce results. Think of it as baking a fancy cake.
So, what does one need to do in order to stay at the top of Google’s rankings? Whether you are from the construction industry, credit industry, or have an online store, here are a few great things that you can work on.
Staying at The Top of Your SEO Game
The very first thing that you need to do is study the algorithm. Google is always making small changes to their algorithms. Being aware of these changes is really important since it helps you stay up-to-date.
People who know the system know how to make it work for them. You can find a ton of SEO resources online. There are guides, detailed tutorials, and even experts willing to provide consultation.
1] Mobile Friendliness
Google places a lot of weight on mobile websites: it announced on October 31, 2023 that its move to mobile-first indexing was complete, so it primarily crawls and indexes the mobile version of a page. When this article was first published in 2019, it cited a Statista figure for the previous year: over 52.2% of global internet traffic came from mobile phones. As of October 2026, Statista puts mobile phones (excluding tablets) at 51.48% of global website traffic in the second quarter of 2026, while Statcounter measured a 58.99% mobile share for September 2026; the two trackers use different methods, so their numbers differ.
In order to maintain your SEO, focus on developing a mobile website. You don’t necessarily need to have a dedicated mobile website. Some businesses simply do not need a mobile website.
However, you can optimize your website for usage on mobile devices. Make sure that your website has good load times, touch screen friendly controls, and a visual style that is suited for mobile devices.
Google is known for producing helpful tools that make SEO easier for everyone. Google used to offer a Mobile-Friendly Test tool, but Google retired it, together with the Search Console Mobile Usability report, on December 1, 2023. Today, Lighthouse in Chrome and PageSpeed Insights can show what a page is lacking on mobile. Once you know that, you can begin focusing on improving these problems.
2] Backlink Auditing
A few years ago, backlinks were what made or broke your SEO. You simply needed as many backlinks as possible in order to get a higher ranking.
Things have become more complicated, and the sheer number of backlinks matters far less than it once did. However, this does not mean that they have become redundant. They still play an important role in SEO. Nowadays, websites need to focus on auditing their backlinks.
Backlink audits are used to identify good and bad backlinks. Google’s spam policies treat buying links, excessive link exchanges and automated link building as link spam, so the goal is a smaller number of links from relevant, reputable sites rather than volume. If a website has a few but reputable backlinks, it benefits in a number of ways.
Reputable backlinks provide you with quality traffic and they help in establishing the credibility of your website. A basic backlink audit means listing the sites that link to yours, checking whether they are relevant and genuine, and asking the owners of spammy sites to remove their links. Google says most sites never need its disavow tool.
3] Featured Snippets
Google introduced featured snippets in January 2014. A featured snippet is a search feature rather than a ranking factor: Google’s systems decide whether a page would make a good featured snippet, and site owners cannot mark a page for it. Google’s featured snippets reverse the usual result format and show the descriptive snippet first, near the top of the results. This is prime real estate on the Google search results screen. Getting content from your website to show in featured snippets can really increase your traffic.
Finding your way into Google’s featured snippets requires you to have high-quality content. Content that provides precise answers to questions that people type into Google’s search bar. The more accurate your answers are, the more chances you have of being featured. You also need to add a few keywords that are popular but not overused.
Apart from being high-quality content, it should also have good readability. Using bullet points can be a great way to maximize readability. As always, you can rely on a plethora of tools to find the right keywords and to identify questions that you should be answering.
Conclusion
SEO professionals are always busy. They constantly need to keep an eye on Google’s algorithms and ensure that they keep on pleasing the system. Fortunately, being good at SEO is a really worthwhile skill.
In pleasing the system, you get to maximize your visibility on the internet. You also get to provide your audience with a more pleasurable surfing experience. This in turn increases your chances of doing business.
What Helps a Page Rank on Google Today?
Google’s ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information created to benefit people, according to Google Search Central’s guidance on people-first content. That guidance asks whether a page offers original information or analysis, covers its topic substantially, avoids easily verified factual errors, and shows clear sourcing and background about who wrote it.
On March 5, 2024, Google announced its March 2024 core update and said there is no longer one signal or system used to identify helpful content; helpfulness is assessed by its core ranking systems. The same announcement added three spam policies: expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse.
Which on-page basics still matter?
- A descriptive title and main heading. Google’s people-first checklist asks whether the title gives a helpful summary and avoids exaggeration.
- Clear internal links. Google lists making content easily findable through internal links as an SEO fundamental. Descriptive link text helps here; see this guide on what anchor text is and how to write it.
- Structured data where it fits. Markup helps search engines understand a page’s content; this site’s guide explains how to improve SEO with schema markup.
- Complete coverage. A page that answers the full question usually needs more than a few hundred words; a free word counter helps you compare your draft’s length with the pages already ranking.
Core Web Vitals: The Page Experience Targets
Core Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses to measure loading, responsiveness and visual stability. Google’s page experience documentation says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, but that good scores do not guarantee top rankings and other page experience aspects do not directly raise rankings.
| Metric | What it measures | Google’s “good” target |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | Loading speed of the main content | Within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | Responsiveness to clicks, taps and key presses | Less than 200 milliseconds |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | Visual stability while the page loads | Less than 0.1 |
INP replaced First Input Delay (FID) as the Core Web Vitals responsiveness metric in March 2024, as Google announced in May 2023. PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse and the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console show how a page performs. For design trade-offs, read how to make your web design stand out without compromising page speed.
Google’s page experience checklist also asks whether pages are served over HTTPS, display well on mobile devices, avoid an excessive amount of distracting ads and avoid intrusive interstitials.
How Should You Handle Backlinks Now?
Link spam, in Google’s definition, is creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate search rankings. Google’s spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges, automated link-building programs and requiring a link in a contract or terms of service as examples.
- Paid links are allowed only when qualified. Google says buying and selling links for advertising is normal, as long as those links carry rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored”.
- User-generated links in forums or comments should carry rel=”ugc” or rel=”nofollow”, according to Google’s link guidance.
- Disavow only as a last resort. Google says that in most cases it can assess which links to trust, so most sites do not need the disavow tool; it is meant for sites with a considerable number of spammy or artificial links that have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action.
For background on why link quality matters, see how important good backlinks are for SEO.
How Do Featured Snippets and AI Overviews Choose Pages?
Featured snippets are chosen automatically: Google’s systems decide whether a page would make a good featured snippet for a query. When a user clicks one, Google takes them directly to the section of the page that appeared in the snippet. The only guaranteed way to opt out is the nosnippet rule; a shorter max-snippet setting only makes a featured snippet less likely.
AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search have no additional requirements, according to Google’s guidance on AI features. To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet. Google says existing SEO fundamentals, such as allowing crawling in robots.txt and making content findable through internal links, remain worthwhile. This site also covers how to use AI to improve your SEO.
To write answers that can be lifted into a snippet or an AI summary, put a direct one- or two-sentence answer under each question-style heading, then add detail, steps or a table below it.
A Step-by-Step SEO Ranking Checklist
- Check that the page is indexed using the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console.
- Make sure the mobile version shows the same content as the desktop version, since Google indexes mobile first.
- Run the page through PageSpeed Insights and fix the biggest LCP, INP or CLS problems.
- Rewrite the title and opening paragraph so they describe the page accurately and answer the main question early.
- Update outdated facts, dates and figures rather than leaving stale claims in place.
- Add internal links from related pages using descriptive anchor text.
- Review your backlinks and make sure any paid links carry rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”.
Common SEO Mistakes That Hold Rankings Back
- Publishing many similar pages at scale mainly to rank, which Google’s spam policies call scaled content abuse.
- Buying links or joining link schemes instead of earning links.
- Chasing a perfect Core Web Vitals score while the content itself does not answer the query.
- Blocking the mobile version of a site in robots.txt, which Google named as one of the errors seen on sites that do not work on mobile.
- Relying on retired tools such as the Mobile-Friendly Test instead of Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights and Search Console.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fastest way to improve SEO rankings?
The quickest wins usually come from improving pages that already appear in search: make the title and first paragraph answer the query directly, update outdated information, fix mobile and Core Web Vitals problems, and add internal links. No change guarantees a ranking.
Is page speed a Google ranking factor?
Yes. Google made page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches with the Speed Update in July 2018, and Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems today. Google also says a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.
Does Google still have a Mobile-Friendly Test?
No. Google retired the Mobile-Friendly Test and the Search Console Mobile Usability report on December 1, 2023. Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights can be used to check mobile performance and usability instead.
Are featured snippets a ranking factor?
No. A featured snippet is a search result format, not a ranking signal. Google’s systems decide automatically whether a page would make a good featured snippet, and a site owner cannot mark a page to become one.
Do I need special optimization for Google AI Overviews?
No. Google says there are no additional requirements or special optimizations for AI Overviews or AI Mode. A page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and standard SEO best practices apply.
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This information really helps me understand all the tricks about SEO ranking. Thanks for sharing such an awesome article.