What can you do when a big algorithm change starts to wreak havoc on your search rankings?
Jollow these 7 best practices to make sure that your site is well-optimized for Google!
Details inside the video!
Hey this is Chia from Brand24!
So, last week we talked about the Google search algorithm and how to recognize the signs of
a big algorithm update — you can find a link to the video just up there in the corner,
just in case you missed it.
And as you might be aware, anytime Google makes a bigger change to their algorithm (like
with the recent March 2019 Core Update)... this can potentially mess with search results
for your keywords, so you might get a boost or completely drop off the face of Page 1.
Now, with Some algorithm updates, there’s not much you can do about it from your side,
it just depends on Google and what it is they’re trying to do.
But making sure that your website is well-optimized in the first place will definitely help you
minimize the negative effects of a bigger algorithmic change.
So, let’s go over 7 “best practices” that will help you optimize your site & content
for Google:
Now, one thing that you want to keep in mind is this simple fact: if there’s anything
that an algorithm is good at detecting, it’s a pattern.
That’s why you want to diversify your backlinks.
Not increase them but diversify, because Google will eventually notice if all your backlinks
seem to come from the same 2 sites — or if they’re all internal.
Linking this way might give you a short term boost, but it won’t help you gain much credibility
with Google, and it can even start to work against you once the next algorithm update
picks up on your pattern.
So, try to diversify your links, even if they’re "nofollow".
It might not pass on link juice, but it’s still really beneficial — especially if
the anchor text contains your brand name.
Which brings us to the 2nd tip: track how often and in what context other sites mention
your brand — and then work on doubling this.
Basically, the more online mentions you have (positive ones, of course; sentiment is really
important here)... the more indicators that Google has that your site is a trustworthy and credible
source, not spam.
You can track this with a media monitoring tool like Brand24, which finds online mentions
of your brand, hashtag or whatever it is you’re trying to get people to talk about — this
also creates opportunities for you to generate even more mentions.
Now, the third tip is more of a detail, but an important one: make sure you include enough
information about your company on your website.
By this, I mean have author bios on your blog, company contact info on your site, and a brief
About Us page telling visitors what you do, the services you provide, and the people that you
work with.
Including secondary information like this is really important if you deal with ecommerce
and you have pages that ask for credit card information - it informs Google that your
site is trustworthy and you’re not going to run off with somebody’s private financial
information.
Tip number four
is about responding to external websites that may be hurting your SEO.
So, like we mentioned above, the more mentions you have, the more signals you’re sending
to Google that your site is both authoritative & trustworthy, which is 2 out of 3 of Google’s
E-A-T guidelines.
However, another added benefit of media monitoring is that it also helps you find occurrences
of scraped content.
Content scraping is when your content is copied and republished on another site - without
your permission.
It happens with blog posts, YouTube videos and more - and it can definitely hurt your
search rankings.
So, if monitoring your brand mentions also reveals that your content is getting scraped
by bad sites, you can request to have it removed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
And tip number 5 is about duplicate content, which Google doesn’t actually penalize,
at least not directly, since content duplication can easily occur internally.
Like... if you moved from HTTP to HTTPS and you have 2 versions of the same page floating
around the web, or... multiple versions of one page for different countries, languages, and mobile
and desktop.
Now, Google fully realizes that readers don’t want to see the same content from a bunch
of different pages in a search, so they do their best to consolidate duplicate content
to show just one version.
To help Google figure out Which version to show, you can use canonical tags, 301 redirects
and, of course, always follow the best practices for content syndication — all of this helps
consolidate signals for duplicate content.
Tip number 6ix is about content cannibalization - which I won’t go into here because we
already talked about what it is and how to avoid it inside this video in the link above.
And now, the 7th way to stay proactive during a big Google algorithm change is by updating
your content on a regular basis.
This could be weekly, monthly or less frequently - it depends on your time and focus.
There’s a lot of value in doing this because - not only is it less time-consuming than
creating new content, but it also makes your existing content more evergreen.
For example, you can update an old article to include new information that may have changed
over time.
Or if it’s on a broad topic, you can add a few paragraphs on related subtopics to make
it more comprehensive and, of course, you should also update your site according to
new SEO tips that you learn along the way, like the ones we covered today...
Anyway, that’s it for this week.
If you have any questions or something to add, just let me know in the Comments section
below.
And if you found this video helpful, feel free to Like, Share and Subscribe to our YouTube
channel, where I will be explaining how you can do even more in social media & digital
marketing each week.
Thanks so much for watching - I hope you learned something new, and I’ll see you next time!
Bye!