So Google has shaken up its search algorithm again, and you’re worried about how it might impact your website’s traffic and rankings. No need to panic, we’ve got you covered. Google core algorithm updates are meant to improve the search experience, not punish website owners.
The key is understanding what’s changed and adapting to give Google what it wants – the best, most relevant results for searchers.
In this article, we’ll break down the latest core update, explain what Google is really looking for, and show you a few simple ways to make sure your site stays at the top of the search results. A few tweaks to your content and SEO strategy are all it takes.
Google’s goal is the same as yours – to get the right information in front of the right people. So take a deep breath and keep your eye on the big picture. Your website traffic may fluctuate for a bit, but by optimizing for Google’s ideal search experience, you’ll come out the other side ranking higher than ever.
What Are the Google Core Algorithm Updates?
The Google Core Algorithm is the search engine’s central algorithm that determines how web pages rank in Google search results. Google regularly updates the algorithm to improve search quality and keep up with changes on the web.
What’s in the update?
The specifics of Google core algorithm updates are never publicly released. However, Google does announce broad changes, like improvements to rank web pages that have:
–High-quality content. The algorithm looks at things like the expertise, authority, and trustworthiness of the content creator.
–Mobile-friendly design. More people are searching on mobile devices, so mobile-optimized sites may be ranked higher.
-Fast loading speeds. Quickly loading, well-structured sites tend to provide a better user experience, so they may rank more highly.
–Relevance. Google is always trying to better match search queries with the most useful and relevant results.
How can you adapt?
To thrive after a Google update, focus on the fundamentals:
- Create high-quality, in-depth content. Well-researched articles, videos, and other media from reputable sources will always rank well.
- Optimize for mobile and speed. Having a responsive, fast-loading website is key.
- Build backlinks. Earn high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites to boost your rankings. But avoid “black hat” link-building tactics, which can get you penalized.
- Focus on user experience. An easy-to-navigate site, helpful content, and other elements that make for an enjoyable user experience are increasingly important ranking factors.
By adhering to best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) and providing the kind of experience Google wants to reward, your site will be in a great position to rank well after any algorithm update. Staying up-to-date with Google’s webmaster guidelines and announcements is also a great way to prepare for changes ahead of time.
With the right focus, you’ll have algorithm updates mastered in no time!
How the Google Core Algorithm Updates Impact Search Rankings
The latest Google Core Update can shake up search rankings, for better or worse. To adapt, you’ll need to make some changes to your content and SEO strategy.
First, focus on high-quality content. Google values expert, in-depth content that provides real value to users. So, audit your content and improve or replace anything thin, repetitive, or low-quality. Focus on useful, comprehensive content
Next, improve your page experience. Make sure your content is easy to read and navigate on mobile, loads quickly, and has an intuitive URL structure. Having a fast, mobile-friendly website with URLs that make sense to users will keep you in Google’s good graces.
You should also build more high-quality backlinks. Get other authoritative sites to link to your content. But aim for a natural mix of anchor text, not just your target keywords. And never buy or manipulate backlinks, which can seriously hurt your rankings.
Use related terms and synonyms. Sprinkle in semantically related words and phrases throughout your content. This helps Google understand what your content is about so it can rank you well for relevant searches. But don’t over-optimize or your content will sound unnatural.
Finally, check your technical SEO. Make sure there are no issues with your site’s crawlability, indexability, or duplicate content that could be holding back your rankings. Fix any errors or inefficiencies to ensure Google can fully access and understand your content.
By publishing high-quality, comprehensive content, improving your page experience, building authoritative backlinks, using related keywords, and optimizing technical SEO, you’ll adapt to Google core algorithm updates and maintain strong search rankings long-term. Staying on top of trends in search engine optimization and algorithm changes is key to success in today’s digital world.
More details will be explained as you read further in this blog.
Identifying if Your Site Has Been Affected
If your website traffic and rankings suddenly drop, your site may have been affected by Google’s latest core algorithm update. But how can you tell for sure?
Here are some signs that your site took a hit:
Traffic and Rankings Decrease
The most obvious indicator is a noticeable drop in organic traffic and rankings for important keywords. Check your Google Analytics and search console to see if there was a steep decline around the time of the latest Google update. If traffic and rankings rebounded within a couple of weeks, it was likely just a temporary “Google dance”. But if it’s been over a month with no improvement, your site was probably impacted.
Quality Score Drop
Log into your Google Ads account and check if your quality score took a hit for keywords you’re bidding on. Google’s algorithm updates often impact quality scores, so a decreasing score is a clue that your site’s content or optimization could use improvement.
Higher Bounce Rate
If your bounce rate jumped up significantly after an update, Google’s algorithm may now see your content as less engaging or helpful for users. Look for pages with high bounce rates and make improvements to encourage more on-site interaction.
Manual Actions
The worst sign is if Google takes manual action against your site. You would have received a message in Google Search Console informing you of spam, thin content, cloaking, or another violation of their webmaster guidelines. Address any issues immediately to get your site back in good standing.
The good news is with hard work and persistence, you can recover from the effects of an algorithm update. Focus on improving your content quality, user experience, and overall website authority. Build high-quality, helpful content, earn more backlinks, and optimize for user experience and search engine friendliness.
By making your site the best it can be, your traffic and rankings will start climbing again over the coming months. Stay positive—every site goes through ups and downs, so keep working at it and success will be yours!
Technical SEO Audit – What to Check
A technical SEO audit will uncover any issues hindering your site’s performance in search engines. Double-check the following areas to ensure your site is technically sound and ready to rank.
Page speed
A fast-loading website leads to higher rankings and more traffic. Use a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to check your page load times. Look for ways to optimize images, minimize redirects, compress files, and reduce the number of plugins. Even shaving a few seconds off your load time can make a big difference.
Mobile-friendliness
If your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you’re missing out on a huge portion of traffic. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test will analyze if your site is easy to use and read on smartphones. Make sure content fits the screen, buttons, and links are large enough to tap, and the design is uncluttered.
URL structure
The URLs for your site should be simple, consistent, and contain keywords. Having a logical URL structure with hierarchical categories helps search engines understand your content. URLs with dates, numbers, or unnecessary parameters are hard to read and can hurt rankings. Consider simplifying or reorganizing your site’s architecture.
Internal linking
Create links between posts and pages on your own site. This helps search engines discover all your content and strengthens the topical relevance of pages. When creating internal links, use keyword-rich anchor text and link to related content. Check for any broken links or pages with few internal links, as these may need improving or removing.
Meta titles and descriptions
Craft unique meta titles (60 characters or less) and meta descriptions (150-160 characters) for every page. These appear in search results, so make them compelling and include important keywords. Meta titles should capture the topic and purpose of the page. Meta descriptions should entice people to click by highlighting the most interesting information.
Paying attention to technical SEO details may not seem exciting, but it forms the foundation for success. By optimizing page speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, improving your URL structure and internal linking, and writing strong meta titles and descriptions, you’ll have a site that is primed to rank well in search engines. Regular audits help catch any issues early and keep your site in tip-top shape.
Content Audit – Assessing Relevance and Quality
A content audit is essential to adapting to Google’s core algorithm updates. Assessing your existing content for relevance and quality will help you make needed improvements to align with Google’s guidelines.
Review Page Content
Go through each page on your site and review the content. Ask yourself:
- Is the content useful and helpful for users? Does it provide value?
- Is the content up to date and factually accurate? Double-check any facts or statistics.
- Is the content comprehensive enough? Or is it lacking helpful details or too superficial?
- Does the content have a clear focus or theme? Or does it seem scattered or aimless?
Any pages that are lacking in these areas should be revised or removed. Having high-quality, relevant content is key.
Check for Keyword Stuffing
Make sure you are using keywords naturally in your content and not “stuffing” them in just to rank higher. Keyword stuffing refers to overusing keywords in an unnatural way that does not provide value to users. This is against Google’s guidelines and will hurt your rankings.
Vary Your Vocabulary
Use synonyms and related terms for your main keywords throughout your content. Don’t just repeat the exact same keywords over and over. This helps your content sound more natural to users and also improves your ability to rank for a wider range of search terms.
Ensure Mobile-Friendliness
With more and more people searching on their mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website is crucial. Your content needs to display well on smaller screens. Check that text is readable, images and CTAs are visible, and your pages load quickly on mobile. If not, make the necessary improvements.
Consider Linking to High-Quality Sites
Internal and external links can help search engines determine the credibility and authority of your content. See if there are opportunities to link to complementary content on your own site or to respected, authoritative resources on the topic. Adding these high-quality links will give your content a boost.
Following these steps to audit your content for relevance and quality will get your site in line with Google’s guidelines. By making the necessary improvements, you’ll adapt to their core algorithm updates and improve your ability to rank in the search results.
Link Profile Analysis – Removing Toxic Links
To maintain a healthy link profile and ranking in Google, it’s important to regularly check for and remove toxic links pointing to your site. Toxic links, also known as spammy links, are links from low-quality, spammy, or unrelated websites. These links provide little to no value for your readers and can actually harm your search ranking.
Detect Spammy Links
The best way to find toxic links is through manual analysis of your backlink profile. Log in to your Google Search Console account and view your links report. Look for links from websites with little content or lots of ads, links from unrelated sites, or links that look unnatural, like lists of links with no context. You can also use backlink analysis tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to scan for low-quality links.
Disavow Unwanted Links
For links you identify as spammy, you’ll want to disavow them to prevent Google from counting them against your site. In Search Console, you can disavow links by entering the URL of the page containing the link. Google will then ignore that link when evaluating your site. Only disavow links that are clearly spammy to avoid accidentally disavowing high-quality links.
It’s also a good idea to do outreach to webmasters asking them to remove spammy links to your site. Explain that the link provides no value to readers and you are working to improve your backlink profile. Many webmasters will happily remove links if asked. Outreach, combined with disavowing in the Search Console, is the most effective approach.
Performing regular link audits and link cleanups will help ensure your backlink profile is filled with high-quality, relevant links from authoritative sites in your industry or niche. Keep your link-building practices in line with Google’s guidelines to avoid building more spammy links in the first place. Maintaining a clean link profile is well worth the effort for achieving and sustaining success in Google search rankings.
Improving Site Navigation and Structure
To improve your site’s navigation and structure, making it easier for both users and search engines to explore, there are a few key steps you can take:
Simplify Your Site Architecture
Keep your site architecture clean and straightforward. Aim for a simple top-level nav with no more than 5-8 top-level links. Group-related content under these high-level categories. This makes it easier for visitors to find what they need and for search engines to understand your content structure.
Use Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumb trails show visitors their path through the site and make it easy to navigate back. Include breadcrumbs on all pages, starting from the homepage. They should lead back to the homepage, with each level of the site hierarchy separated by >. For example: Homepage > Category > Subcategory > Page Title. Breadcrumbs are a simple way to improve user experience.
Update Old URLs
If you’ve recently reorganized your site or renamed pages, be sure to set up 301 redirects to pass authority from old URLs to new ones. This helps search engines update their records and continue ranking the new page. Failing to do so can confuse search engines and users, causing drops in traffic and rankings.
Internal Link Building
Build links between related content on your site. This helps search engines discover your content and understand the relationships between pages. When you publish new content, look for opportunities to link to relevant evergreen content. You can also add links to related content at the bottom of posts and pages. Focus on linking to content that adds value for users rather than just linking for SEO.
Mobile-Friendly Design
With more and more people accessing the web via mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website is crucial. Make sure your site displays well on mobile devices, with easy-to-read text, minimal vertical scrolling, and navigation suited to touchscreens. Google favors mobile-friendly sites in search results, so optimizing for mobile is key to maintaining strong rankings.
Optimizing your site architecture and navigation provides a better experience for both users and search engines. By making ongoing improvements to simplify your site, strengthen internal linking, maintain mobile-friendliness, and keep URLs up to date, you’ll make steady progress in unlocking your site’s success.
Optimizing for User Experience
To optimize for user experience, focus on creating an intuitive and seamless experience for your visitors. Think about what they need and want, and how you can make their experience on your site as pleasant as possible.
Site speed
Make sure your site loads quickly. Studies show that 40% of visitors will leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Optimize images, minimize redirects, enable browser caching, and consider a content delivery network (CDN) to speed up load times.
Mobile-friendliness
With more and more people accessing the web via mobile devices, your site needs to display properly on smartphones and tablets. Use a responsive design or adaptive themes to automatically adjust the layout. Large buttons, minimal scrolling, and a clean uncluttered interface also help.
Easy navigation
Your site navigation should be simple to understand and easy to use. Group related content together and use descriptive page titles and URLs. Include internal links to connect content, as well as a search function. Breadcrumbs showing the path to the current page are also helpful for users.
Valuable content
Focus on creating content that provides value to your visitors. Write in a friendly, engaging tone using simple terms. To make long content more readable and understandable, it can be helpful to break it up into smaller, more manageable sections.
Include headings and subheadings, short paragraphs, bullet points, images, videos, or graphics to enhance the content and keep people engaged. Regularly update and improve existing content to give people a reason to return to your site.
Call-to-actions
Give your visitors a clear path to follow. Add prominent call-to-action buttons and links inviting people to sign up, download, subscribe, or purchase. Place CTAs above the fold on page landings and at the end of blog posts or content. Keep your messaging consistent and clear by only including one CTA per page.
Optimizing for user experience may require making changes to your site over time based on feedback, analytics, and the latest best practices. But focusing on the elements of speed, mobile-friendliness, easy navigation, valuable content, and clear calls-to-action will ensure your visitors have the best possible experience on your site.
Adapting to Google Core Algorithm Updates – FAQs
Google regularly updates its search algorithm to provide the most relevant results to searchers. As an SEO, it’s important to understand how these core updates work and how to adapt to them. Here are some frequently asked questions about adapting to Google’s core algorithm updates:
What exactly are Google Core Algorithm Updates?
Google Core updates modify their search algorithm to improve search quality and relevance. They tweak how their ranking systems evaluate websites to better match what people are searching for. Core updates happen multiple times per year and impact all aspects of search like rankings, crawling, and indexing.
Why did my rankings drop after a core update?
There are a few possible reasons your site may have dropped in rankings after an update:
- Your content or website structure didn’t meet the new quality standards. Google is constantly evaluating content and page quality, so you may need to improve in these areas.
- Your backlink profile was over-optimized. If you built links too quickly or unnaturally, Google may have devalued some of your links. Diversify your link building and focus on earning high-quality links over quantity.
- Your site lacked expertise, authoritativeness, or trustworthiness. Build your brand’s authority by consistently publishing high-quality content, earning media mentions, building strategic partnerships, and optimizing your social media profiles.
- Technical issues on your site like slow load times, broken pages or links, or poor mobile-friendliness. Fix any technical problems on your site to meet Google’s standards.
- Seasonal fluctuations. Ranking changes aren’t always due to algorithm updates. Seasonal trends around certain topics or types of searches can also impact rankings. Double-check that other factors aren’t at play before making major changes.
What can I do to recover from a core update?
The best ways to recover from a Google core update are:
- Improve your content quality and optimize your content for searchers. Publish long-form, in-depth content on topics you want to rank for.
- Build high-quality, natural backlinks. Earn links from authoritative sites in your industry.
- Optimize site speed and mobile-friendliness. Fast, mobile-optimized sites rank higher in search results.
- Strengthen your brand authority. Increase social shares, get press mentions, build strategic partnerships, and optimize your social media profiles.
- Check for technical issues and fix any problems. Fix broken pages, links, redirects, or other issues to meet Google’s quality standards.
- Be patient. Rebuilding search rankings can take 6-18 months after a major algorithm update. Stay consistent and keep optimizing and you will recover.
Conclusion
So there you have it, the key things you need to know to adapt to Google’s core algorithm updates. Stay on top of the latest announcements from Google to understand what they value.
Focus on creating in-depth, high-quality, content that provides value to readers. Build natural links by participating in your industry and creating resources that people will want to reference. Keep optimizing for user experience and mobile-friendliness.
The algorithms will continue to change, but if you stick to the fundamentals of great content and user experience, you’ll be well-positioned to adapt to whatever Google throws your way next. The future is uncertain but success is within your grasp if you unlock the power of strategic content creation and an optimal user experience.
Now go out there, create amazing content, build your brand, and achieve the success you deserve!
At Waterfront Graphic Design, we understand that Google Core Algorithm Updates can be daunting for businesses of all sizes. That’s why we offer SEO services that are specifically designed to help you thrive in the ever-changing landscape of search engine optimization.
Our team of experts will work with you to create a custom SEO strategy that is tailored to your specific needs and goals. We’ll start by conducting a thorough analysis of your website and your target audience. Then, we’ll develop a plan that includes keyword research, content optimization, technical SEO, and link building.
We’re confident that our SEO services can help you improve your website’s ranking in search results, attract more qualified leads, and boost your bottom line.
Here are some of the benefits of working with Waterfront Graphic Design for your SEO needs:
- A proven track record of success. We’ve helped businesses of all sizes improve their website ranking and generate more leads through SEO.
- We’re experts in Google’s Core Algorithm Changes. We stay up-to-date on the latest changes to Google’s algorithm so that we can always provide our clients with the best possible SEO services.
- Offer a comprehensive SEO solution. We don’t just focus on one aspect of SEO. We take a holistic approach to ensure that your website is optimized for success.
- We’re committed to your success. We’ll work with you every step of the way to ensure that you’re satisfied with our services.
If you’re looking for SEO services that can help you thrive with Google Core Algorithm Changes, then contact Waterfront Graphic Design today. We’ll be happy to discuss your needs and develop a custom SEO strategy that is right for you.
Contact us today to learn more about our SEO services!
