Unless you are in the business of online marketing, all of the digital marketing jargon can be confusing. You’re an expert in your business, but you never meant to take on marketing. When your business doesn’t have a budget to hire a dedicated in-house marketing professional this can pose a problem if you don’t understand some of the most important terms.
The Google algorithm updates around 500 to 600 times per year and is in place to ensure the best search results are found at the top of its search engine results. Without the algorithm in place, businesses could SEO their product and services pages to come up as the first results. Having product and service pages at the top of the search engines would provide a less than productive experience to searchers.
Another reason Google does not want product and service pages at the top of the search engines is that it would get in the way of their ad platform. If your product and services pages were showing up in number one and two positions, your company wouldn’t need to buy ads through Adwords.
HOW THE GOOGLE ALGORITHM WORKS
When users type a query into Google, they want to find answers to their questions. Whether they are trying to find out if there is a solution to their problem or what the best solution is, they want to find helpful content and not a product or service page.
Google is just like any other business. They need to make sure their customers come back time and again.
They didn’t become a verb (“Will you Google that?”) without knowing how to provide an amazing user experience.
With over 200 ranking factors, it can be difficult to game the system by figuring out what Google wants exactly. If you try to take all of the advice you find online, your website is likely to be mistake-ridden and look like a keyword stuffed mess of internal links.
The best thing you can do when you are trying to figure out the Google algorithm is to understand that they have their user’s best interests at heart.
EARCH ENGINE UPDATES YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
Focusing on user experience will help you cure most of your questions about what to do for SEO, but there are some updates you have to pay attention to and make needed changes.
Even though there are hundreds of changes that take place in Google throughout a given year, there are only a few confirmed changes. Even when Google confirms a change in their algorithm, they are very brief and vague about what actually took place in the update.
Below are some of the major changes that took place within Google in 2018::
• Mobile-first Index Roll-out – Google confirmed their mobile-first roll-out in March. Sites that aren’t optimized for mobile search noticed major differences as Google displayed sites that are mobile-friendly in the top of the search engines. In July, their update finally rolled out but was said to only affect the slowest websites.
• Video Carousel – Instead of showing thumbnails for desktop search, Google changed to showing a carousel like on mobile. This change meant big adjustments for YouTube video creators.
• “Medic” Update – The “Medic” update shook things up, and webmasters have been shuffling to figure out a fix. This update affected sites in the health and wellness industry the most.
And with every update comes a change in the SEO rules.
WHY AND HOW TO TRACK GOOGLE UPDATES
All of the information you’re learning may seem like a foreign language unless you work in the digital marketing field. If you are running your website on your own, it is important to pay attention to these updates.
Failing to make necessary changes when a major update rolls out could result in:
• Loss of search engine visibility
• Decreased web traffic
• Lower ROI
• Decrease in revenue
These serious changes can make a big difference in how your business is able to operate on a day to day basis.
Instead of thinking about Google changes as a negative experience for your website, think about how it can benefit you. For every website that is penalized, there is a website that is rewarded. If you are focusing on best practices, it is likely that your website won’t be penalized but may, in fact, be rewarded.
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