by Allen Harkleroad, Manager of Inbound Marketing
Looks like it’s that time again. Google announced last Wednesday that they were rolling out another core algorithm update. As is the case with all of their updates, there were no details given on exactly what changed or how search results would be impacted. In this announcement on Twitter, Google literally retweeted their response from when a core update was rolled out in April. So, with that, there was no new information. Their response boils down to “There’s no need to panic, just make good content”.
Those within the SEO community started noticing some shifts in rankings. This is pretty much the norm for when these updates roll out. Some people noted some improvements while others reported some drops. We’ve seen this happen in the past and what has generally been the case is that things shift around a little for a while and eventually settle down.
Thruline monitors search traffic and keyword rankings for our clients with inbound marketing campaigns. We’ve analyzed traffic and rankings prior to the update and compared them to after. What we have seen as an aggregate for our clients is no significant changes in search traffic. We have seen several improvements in keyword rankings and a couple of declines, although those have been minor. Interestingly, much of the improvements were associated with pages that were part of blogs. This would seem to indicate that the algorithm updated was related to content quality since a majority of these blog posts are informative. Since the intent of the algorithm updates is to provide better results to the user, it wouldn’t be surprising that Google would be rewarding good content. This is just speculation, though.
As has been the case for a while now, Google has been urging website owners to really focus on putting out good content that will be of use to visitors. From what we’re seeing, Google is continuing to advance that idea by rolling out algorithm updates that further reward good content. To make the best of this it’s increasingly important to have good content. Having content that meets the needs of users is key. There are two parts to this. The first is the website having clear, well-written content on each page. Providing 200 words on a program, for example, is likely not going to answer questions and meet the visitors’ needs. So, if that happens to be the case, it is probably time to reevaluate content and make sure it answers the questions your visitors are likely to have. The second part is having a strong blogging strategy. This is an opportunity to provide great content to all visitors which also has the additional benefit of positioning an institution as a leader in a particular field. These posts should be put out on a regular basis to establish an audience that will continue to come back.
The last thing to note on this is SEO. Although a lot of emphasis is being placed on content, SEO should not be forgotten. Performing good SEO on all pages will only help pages perform better. Thruline believes in following the SEO best practices as outlined by Google to ensure all pages of a site perform the best they can without any risks of penalties that could arise from algorithm changes such as this.
Thruline recommends you follow these 3 steps to help ensure success on your website amidst Google core algorithm updates:
