Easy Furniture Web Tip #361: More About Search Rankings

When it comes to search rankings, the more things change, the more they
don’t.

I wrote about this topic not too awfully long
ago, but  I’ve found a bit more evidence to support my thesis.

Lately, I’ve been using Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check on what
Google thinks of pages I’ve built for my clients.

Despite the name, the tool doesn’t just check for speed, but also for performance
including accessibility, best practices, and SEO, on
both mobile and desktop devices.

Happily, my clients’ sites are performing very well in the areas I can control: content and SEO. They tend to
do well in accessibility, too, where I have partial control.

The scores are mostly 95 to 100.

Is this because I am diligent about keeping up with the latest and greatest with respect to SEO and
web content? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that I do try to read as much as I can on the topics and, no, in the sense
that not much has changed.

Surprising, huh? After all these years!

Maybe I am wrong with respect to bigger players. A minor algorithm change on a huge website can make
a big difference.

But for the average local-to-regional furniture business (5 to 20 million dollars in revenue), those
minor changes don’t count so much and the basic best practices remain the same: Research keywords. Draft good content.  Use keywords in title tags, meta descriptions, and alt tags. Use them
in your headlines, subheads, and text. Write detailed footers with your keywords, products, services, and the cities
you serve.

But what about voice and AI searches? If you’re like me, you get
urgent solicitations to optimize your business for these types of searches.

So I checked some of my clients’ rankings using voice search and they performed just fine.

Then I checked those same sites on ChatGPT. Again, my clients’ sites performed well
there, too.

My conclusion? Whatever is working for Google is also working for voice and AI searches.

It kind of makes sense. Keyword phrases reflect how people think, speak, and search. If they are
embedded in your content — naturally — the various methods of searching are going to
work.

Easy Furniture Web Tip 361: Google’s best practices are still working and that includes voice
and AI searches.

Katherine Andes specializes in web content development and SEO — including page customization for
storefront and franchise websites. Visit BetterWebSales.com or phone her at (559) 309-2940.