Get SEO tips and tricks to navigate Google’s algorithm updates and learn how to adapt your strategy to improve your ranking.
Ieva Treiliha
At the beginning of August 2019, Google published a guide with valuable advice for SEO experts on how to consistently maintain strong positions in Google’s search results through their algorithm updates.
Google updates their algorithm quite frequently. In fact, over the past year alone, they have implemented as many as 3,200 updates. This is such a large number that it is, of course, impossible to keep track of or account for all of them. However, there are some important updates you should consider in your SEO work.
That is why I have created this guide, where I share some tips & tricks on how you should interpret Google’s recommendations for SEO experts and how to maintain your strong rankings despite Google’s algorithm changes.
You can read Google’s own post on the subject here.
Google is constantly working to improve their product to ensure that end users receive the best and most relevant results when they conduct a search. That is why Google regularly evaluates how their systems collect, review and process information.
SEO experts often experience fluctuations in rankings and changes in traffic when Google updates their algorithm, but this does not necessarily mean you have violated Google’s guidelines. More often than not, these core updates reward businesses that follow Google’s guidelines, and their keyword rankings and organic traffic will stabilise again after a few days.
Google aims to provide the best and most relevant results to its users, so you should also consider whether you are offering your visitors the best and most relevant content.
The tactic of repeating your keywords many times in the text, which was widely used in the past, no longer works. Today, user experience and user behaviour on your site play a major role in your ranking. That is why it is important to consider your visitors and strive to give them the best possible experience on your website.
Google does not like to show all their cards or inform SEO experts about all the ranking factors that are crucial for top positions in Google’s search results. However, in their article, Google does provide some important questions you should ask yourself about your content. In the next sections, you will find these questions, my interpretation of them, and how you can use these questions in practice to improve your content based on Google’s advice:
Although Google does not necessarily penalise you for duplicate content, they are constantly looking for new and updated content. There are over a billion websites and blogs on the internet, so it is important that you continuously strive to improve and update your content.
As mentioned, Google is interested in giving the user the most accurate result for what they are searching for. Their goal is to provide a complete answer, so the user does not have to search multiple places for information. Pages that are thorough and answer every part of the user’s search query therefore have a significantly better chance of ranking highly in the search results. In other words, you really need to consider all aspects of the user’s intent when creating content for your website. If the content on your site is “thin”, Google will likely consider it unsatisfactory for the searcher, resulting in lower rankings.
Make sure to deliver better and more insightful content than your competitors. Avoid simply passing on the same information; instead, use your expertise to provide further analysis or draw your own conclusions using additional data. Find a way to make your content more useful to the reader than the content your competitors produce.
It is not a good idea to simply copy other people’s content. If you base your content on others’ work, remember to link to the original article or report and provide your own conclusions and commentary. Make your content unique, even if you use an external source.
None of us like clickbait! That is why it is crucial that your headlines and title tags match the content of the landing page. The headline and title tag should summarise the content and spark users’ interest. According to Copyblogger.com, 8 out of 10 people read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 actually click through to read the rest. This makes it extremely important to capture the reader’s interest right from the start.
As mentioned, no one likes clickbait. Furthermore, Google can often detect if you are using clickbait in your headline or page title, as there will typically be a high bounce rate for articles with clickbait headlines. Google can see if users quickly return to the search results after landing on your site, and your page may be deprioritised if the bounce rate is too high.
Focus on your readers and potential customers – what is their search intent? What information do they need before they are ready to buy? What should they know about your brand or your products? Try to create content aimed at answering your potential customers’ questions and providing them with something valuable.
Sometimes we are so busy producing content that we forget to consider the value this content brings to the reader and ourselves. Next time you create a new blog post or service page for your website, be a little critical and consider whether the content you are producing is worthy of being printed in a major, physical publication.
Indhold på hjemmesiden og kvaliteten af dette indhold er en af de vigtigste parametre Google kigger på. Google har nemlig nogle semantiske algoritmer, som effektivt kan simulere, hvordan en bruger vil læse dit indhold. Disse algoritmer, sammensat med det data om reel brugeradfærd Google indsamler, hjælper dem med at afgøre, om du kan betragtes som troværdig ekspert i branchen eller ej.
Derfor er det vigtigt, at du skaber indhold, som beviser din ekspertise i din branche. Drop tynd indhold og fokusér på evergreen indhold, der er relevant for dine potentielle kunder.
Nedenfor kan du læse, hvad Google siger om ekspertise, og hvordan jeg mener, det bør tolkes:
Den bedste måde, at vise sin troværdighed på, er ved at være ærlig overfor sine besøgende og potentielle kunder. Vis dine kilder med links og referencer. Fortæl hvem du er – det kan du nemt gøre ved at have et billede og en lille biografi om dig selv på din hjemmeside (og det samme gælder dine medarbejdere). Ved at vise, at du har ikke noget at skjule, vil du fremstå som en troværdig kilde.
Kig på din egen hjemmeside og dine konkurrenters hjemmeside. Sammenlign den mængde indhold du har på din hjemmeside med dine konkurrenters indhold, kvaliteten af indholdet og eventuelt den respons indholdet har fået på de sociale medier.
Hvis du vil fremstå som en ekspert i branchen, er der ikke noget, der hedder “fake it til you make it”. For eksempel; hvis du skulle skrive et blogindlæg om kosttilskud, vil dine læsere tydeligt kunne gennemskue, hvis du ikke havde en god forståelse for kost og ernæring. Derfor er det nødvendigt at have god viden om et emne, for at kunne fremstå som ekspert i din branche.
Dobbelttjek altid dine fakta og kilder, før du bruger informationen i dit content! Der er utroligt meget information online, og derfor er det vigtigere end nogensinde før, at verificere sine kilder. Det kan nemlig resultere i en straf fra Google, hvis det viser sig, at du bruger falsk information på din hjemmeside.
Forestil dig situationen, at en potentiel kunde foretager en søgning og lander på din hjemmeside. Kan denne person finde et troværdig og omfattende svar på deres søgeforespørgsel på din hjemmeside? Hvis potentielle kunder, som lander på din hjemmeside, forlader siden og fortsætter med at undersøge emnet, betyder det, at de ikke har tillid til dig endnu. Det er vigtigt, at du ikke kun forklarer emnet godt, men at du også overbeviser brugeren om, at du er et troværdig kilde at stole på.
The way you present your content to users is also a ranking factor. These factors are especially important when presenting your content to both Google and your readers:
It is always a good idea to have your content proofread before publishing to ensure it is free from spelling and grammatical errors. The content should be easy to read, not only in terms of substance, but also in terms of how it appears on your website. Therefore, consider the design and layout, as well as the fonts and colours you choose.
Read also: Sloppy grammar can cost you customers
Be critical of your content before publishing it. Is the quality as high as it could be? Do you give the reader a complete experience with tailored graphics, video or other visuals? Today, well-written content alone is often not enough. You often need that little extra to stand out from the crowd.
Focus on creating a good user experience for your readers. If you link out to lots of other pages to explain your answer, you are not providing the best experience or fully answering the users’ search queries. Google wants individual pages in the search results to be able to fully answer users’ questions, so it is important for strong rankings that you can fully address relevant search queries with your content.
It is important that your website is fast. Things like banner ads can slow down your site. At the same time, too many ads can distract and annoy users, causing them to leave and lose interest in using your site in the future. Therefore, it is vital to consider the user experience on your website, both overall and on individual landing pages.
Read also: How to make your website fast
More than half of us, around 60%, conduct searches from mobile devices. That is why it is more important than ever that your potential customers can easily use your website, read and view your content from their mobiles or tablets.
Read also: Why responsive design is more important than ever
While it is an advantage to have a large amount of unique content on your website, it is also important to know what your competitors and other experts in your industry are doing. It will be harder to rank for a keyword if you only have niche content about rare issues but neglect the basics in your field.
If you want to rank for specific keywords, it is a good idea to check what type of content those ranking at the top of Google’s first page are publishing. Once you have a good idea of how your competitors have tackled the topic, you should make sure to create better and more in-depth content than them. If your content is not of superior quality compared to your competitors’, why should Google rank you higher in the search results?
Is the content written with your audience’s interests in mind, or does it exist only because the author is trying to find something that might rank in the search results?
It has been said countless times by all experts in the SEO industry – always write for people, not search engines. Google seeks to satisfy people and answer their search queries, so it is important to focus on the end user when developing content for your website.
Google has many quality guidelines. For now, Google does not understand content in the same way that humans do. However, Google follows a wide range of signals in the form of user behaviour, which helps them understand how people assess relevance and quality.
When working with SEO and content marketing, it is worth remembering that Google wants to provide consumers with the best and most relevant search results. That is precisely why you should create content for people, not search engines. Think about your target audience, their frustrations and how they search. You will ultimately achieve the best results by putting yourself in the consumer’s shoes.
When you conduct a Google search yourself, you signal to Google, through your behaviour, whether you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the results. Do you stay on the page? How long do you remain on the page? Do you click through to other landing pages on the same site? Do you click the “back” button?
These are the types of signals Google measures and uses to rank websites. To ensure Google receives the right signals from user behaviour, you need to satisfy your visitors and give them a thorough answer to their search queries. Think user first when creating content – it will be your best SEO investment in the long run – even through all of Google’s algorithm updates.
Read more about content marketing here:
2019 guide: Get the most out of Content Marketing with SEO
Boost your SEO with user-generated content
…or about technical SEO here:
What is Google Tag Manager – and why should you use it?
What does CTR optimisation mean for your SEO performance?
3 SEO mistakes you can easily find with Screaming Frog
Remember, we are always ready to help you with digital marketing, whether it is search engine optimisation, Google Ads, Facebook or something else entirely. Contact us here!
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