Blogs. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. YouTube. The list goes on when speaking about marketing your small business online. But, there is little doubt that of all the online stations, Google remains arguably the biggest. With its suite of products such as AdWords, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, and Google+ (among others), Google’s footprint online is huge. When Google makes an algorithm change, your site will probably be affected in some manner.
Last week, Google announced its most recent algorithm shift (sometimes called Google”New”), which shines the spotlight directly on new information and new content.
1. Recent events and hot topics. Searchers typically want to discover the most recent information immediately, so Google will now reveal what it deems to be high-quality pages, including those who might be just a couple minutes or hours old.
2. Recurring events. A lot of events occur on a regular basis, such as the Superbowl or political conventions. Google needs to make sure users are getting the freshest information possible, and has provided this example:
Google Search utilizes a freshness algorithm, designed to provide you with the most up-to-date outcomes, so even when I simply type [olympics] without specifying 2012, I still find what I am searching for.”
3. Frequent updates. This is the attribute that will probably matter most to small business sites unless your website already depends upon current events. For searches that aren’t recurring events or hot subjects (items 1 and 2), Google will now search for websites that add new information frequently and record those results, above stale websites that haven’t been updated in some time.
So what exactly does this mean to your small business site? It means that in case you do not add new content and information frequently, do not expect to appear in Google’s search results. Besides all the other aspects of optimizing a website to rank well, you must get serious about keeping it updated, fresh, and relevant.
The good news is that there are some things you can do right now to help Your Website survive the upgrade and rank higher than your competitors:
• Obviously, update your site and add new content frequently. Adding posts, new pages, or upgrading existing page content will indicate Google that you’re seriously interested in your business and deserve to be recorded in their results.
• be sure you have up-to-date and correct timestamps on your XML sitemap. Many search engine optimization experts already agree that timestamps will get a substantial ranking signal, so ensure that your XML site is correct and functioning properly.
• If you have not already optimized your site, you want to do so straight away. The fundamentals of SEO are more important than ever, especially since Google continues to evolve and add new position signs. Be sure to have the fundamentals firmly in place.
• If you have already optimized your site, recheck your keywords to be certain they’re still valid terms. There is no sense in optimizing for keywords that searchers do not type into the search box. You might have to re-optimize some pages with more relevant search phrases.
• Have your search engine optimization company run a report to assess what your opponents are doing. If you wish to outrank them, you will need to know how they’re performing so that you can take the right action.
The answer, of course, is”more frequently than your competition.” But one major takeaway to bear in mind is that in case you would like to rank well in the search engine results, it is all about generating relevant content and doing it frequently. With all other search engine optimization components in place, this most recent Google update could significantly improve how Google views and ranks your website in its search engine results.
