Digital Marketing
Is the latest Google update bad news for your business?

Is the latest Google update bad news for your business?

Blogging. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Youtube. The list goes on when it comes to marketing your small business online. However, there is no doubt that of all the online channels, Google remains possibly 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, chances are your website will be 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 show what it considers to be high-quality pages, including those that may only be a few 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 seek [olympics]I probably want information about the next Olympics next summer, not the 1900 Summer Olympics. Google Search uses an updating algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I just type [olympics] without specifying 2012, I keep finding what I’m looking for.”

3. Frequent updates. This is probably the most important feature for small business websites, unless your site is already based on current events. For searches that aren’t recurring events or hot topics (items 1 and 2), Google will now look for sites that frequently add new information and list those results first, above outdated sites that haven’t been updated in a while.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 good rankings, you now need to be serious about keeping your site 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 upgrade and rank higher than your competitors:

• Obviously, update your website and add new content regularly. Adding articles, new pages or updating existing page content will show 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 yet optimized your website, 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 for keywords that search engines never type into the search box. You may need to re-optimize some pages with better, 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 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 one big 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 sees and ranks your site in their search engine results.

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