Digital Marketing

Is the latest Google update bad news for your business?

Blogs. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Youtube. The list goes on when it comes to marketing your small business online. However, there is no question that of all the online channels, Google is still arguably the largest. With its suite of products like AdWords, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, and Google+ (among others), Google’s footprint on the web is huge. So when Google makes an algorithm change, your website is most likely affected in some way.

Last week, Google announced its latest algorithm change (sometimes called Google “Fresh”), which directly highlights fresh information and new web content. According to Google, this update focuses on three key areas:

1. Recent events and hot topics. Search engines typically want to find the latest information instantly, so Google will now display what it considers to be high-quality pages, including those that may be only minutes or hours old.

2. Recurring events. Many events take place regularly, such as the Superbowl or political conventions. Google wants to make sure users get the most up-to-date information possible and has provided this example:

“If I search [olympics], I probably want information on the upcoming Summer Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics. Google Search uses an update algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I’m just typing [olympics] without specifying 2012, I keep finding what I’m looking for. “

3. Frequent updates. This is the feature that is probably the most important for small business websites, unless your site is already based on current events. For searches that are not recurring events or hot topics (items 1 and 2), Google will now search for sites that add new information frequently and list those results first, above outdated sites that haven’t been updated in a while.

So what does this mean for your small business website? It means that if you don’t add new content and information regularly, don’t expect to appear in Google search results. In addition to all the other facets of optimizing a site for a good ranking, now you need to get serious about keeping it up to date, fresh, and relevant.

The good news is that there are a few things you can do right now to help your site survive the update and rank higher than your competitors:

• Obviously update your website and add new content regularly. Adding articles, new pages or updating the content of the existing page will tell Google that you are serious about your business and deserve to appear in their results.

• Make sure you have correct and up-to-date timestamps in your XML sitemap. Many SEO experts already agree that timestamps will become an important ranking signal, so make sure your XML sitemap is correct and working properly.

• If you have not optimized your website yet, you should do so immediately. SEO basics are more important than ever, especially as Google continues to evolve and add new ranking signals. Make sure you have the basics firmly in place.

• If you have already optimized your website, double check your keywords to make sure they are still valid terms. There is no point in optimizing keywords that search engines never type in the search box. You may need to re-optimize some pages for better and more relevant keywords.

• Have your SEO company run a report to see what your competitors are doing. If you want to overcome them, you need to know how they are performing so that you can take the appropriate action.

You may be wondering “how often should I update my website?” The answer, of course, is “more often than your competitors.” But a great takeaway to remember is that if you want to rank well in search engine results, it’s all about producing relevant content and doing it regularly. With all the other SEO elements in place, this latest update from Google could significantly improve the way Google views and ranks your site in its search engine results.

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