How to Stay Ahead of Google’s Algorithm Updates
As a business that’s heavily reliant on Google search, your fate really swings in the balance of its algorithm updates. These are changes made by Google from time to time to improve its way of doing things – crawling and indexing sites to deliver users the best results. They are happening continuously. Hundreds of them even within the space of a year.
While some are minor, others involve much more significant changes to the search engine algorithm and its systems. These are known as “core updates”. They take place less frequently (typically every two or three months) and are the ones that you need to keep a look out for. Some of the bigger ones that we’ve seen and you will have heard of over the past few years include the page experience update, product review update and link spam update. If you want to learn about how to stay ahead of Google’s algorithm updates, you’re in the right place. We’ve designed this guide to share our tips and tricks with you.
Twitter – Hashtags and Google’s Spokespeople
A lot of news is dished out on twitter first, including news on Google updates. Those that work at Google often post to share update announcements and inform their followers of those being rolled out. A few good people to follow are John Mueller, a senior webmaster trends analyst at Google and Danny Sullivan who is the liaison of search. Hashtags also allow you to follow conversations and research specific topics using hashtags like “Helpful Content Update”.
Analytics
Updates can also be unofficial and unannounced which means that you will need to keep an eye over your analytics. If you have experienced a sudden drop in traffic and rankings, it might be that there has been an update. The best way to be sure is to carry out an audit and see whether there’s anything else that this can be attributed to.
Avoid Black Hat Practices
This goes without saying but we highly recommend steering clear of black hat practices. While it can be frustrating waiting around to see results, it’s not worth the bother of getting in trouble with Google. Their algorithms are sophisticated and thorough enough to identify manipulative techniques and penalise sites that do.
Work on Your Site
The best advice that we can give you as a digital agency of 21 years is to invest in your content. Take time to put quality content together, that is keyword optimised, free of technical issues and written for “humans first”. If you’re working with an agency, they will already be on the case. They will know of the major updates that are on their way, taking out the guesswork. We work closely with all our clients to make sure that their sites are up to scratch, so in the event of one they are well prepared.
If you would like help with your SEO, feel free to get in touch!
