- How to future proof your SEO against Google's next update.
You've put in all this time and effort
into your SEO strategy and all of a sudden,
boom, Google wants to change things up on you.
An update can have a major impact on your SEO strategy.
It can cause your content to slip in the rankings
and even give your competition a leg up.
Unless you're prepared.
Future proofing your SEO strategy is absolutely essential
because updates happen all the time.
In fact, since 2016 there have been 16 Google core updates.
Future proofing your SEO strategy is absolutely essential
because updates happen all the time.
Heck, since 2018, there have been roughly
three Google core updates each and every single year.
And here's even a crazier number.
There's roughly 4,500 times
that Google changes their algorithm
each and every single year according to Search Engine Land.
Now, most of these changes aren't major ones
so you're not going to notice them.
But still, that's a lot of time that goes into
adjusting and tweaking Google's algorithm.
And some of these changes are so teeny tiny
that your traffic just goes up
a little bit or down a little bit
and you don't really need to worry about those.
But every once in a while, you're going to have a major update
that drastically changes your traffic,
and those are the ones that you need
to future proof yourself from.
So how can you future proof your SEO
so that way you can stay ahead of Google's next update?
Well leave a comment below guessing what it might be.
I'll give you a hint.
Focus on user experience.
Think about it.
Every Google update has essentially the same overall goal,
make the algorithm more reflective of human behavior.
So think about what is best for people,
not what's best for Google.
That way the pages that users are actually searching for
and spending time on are the ones that tend to do the best.
Google doesn't care if you have a million back links
versus 5 million back links or a hundred thousand.
Think about it, whenever you do a search,
are you like, hmm, this result is number one
and it should be because it has a million back links.
You don't care about that as a user,
you just care about the user experience.
Are you getting what you're looking for?
So there's a few ways you can prioritize your user
experience and give users what they're looking for.
The first is make sure your website loads super fast.
According to Http Archive, images made of 21%
of an average webpage total weight.
Remember image size and file size are not the same thing.
Image size refers to a dimensions of image, right?
Like how big does it look on your screen?
Does it take it up most of the monitor,
just a little bit, right?
That's the example of image size.
But then you also have storage space.
That's like your hard drive.
How much space is that image taking up?
If it's taking up a lot,
it's going to make your website load slower.
So you want to make sure that you optimize your images.
You also want to consider using a content delivery network.
You can find tools or versions of that
for free like CloudFlare, so they're also known as CDNs.
And what this does is CloudFlare will put your site
on servers all across the world.
So that way if someone in India is visiting my site,
even though it's hosted in let's say Texas,
they can actually pull up that site from a server in India.
It's pretty much mimicking what my site is
all around the world in different servers closest to people
so that way the site loads faster.
Another strategy I like doing to improve the user experience
is think about the content that you are presenting.
See, when people are searching for something on Google,
it's usually they're searching
for solution to their problem.
Are you giving them the answer as quick as possible?
Or do they got to read 5,000 words?
I hate it when SEOs are like, you got to create
5,000 word articles to rank while in Google.
Well, if someone's looking for what's two plus two,
do you think they want a 5,000 word article
on what's two plus two?
Or if someone wants to Google how to tie a tie,
assuming I'm a company that sells ties
do I think they want 5,000 words on how to tie a tie?
No, just show me some animated gifs
or a video on how to tie a tie.
That's more useful.
People want the answer as quick as possible.
That's good user experience.
Another thing that I like doing
is using tools like Crazy Egg
to put them on your website.
It shows you a heat map of where people
are clicking and where they're not,
where their mouses are moving and where they're not.
How far are they scrolling down your page
and how much they're not scrolling.
This will tell you what you need to do
to improve your user experience.
Because you can see where people are getting stuck
and where they're not.
Another strategy that I love leveraging
when it comes to improving user experience
is to do competitive research.
So you're trying to rank for specific keywords on Google.
If you don't know those keywords
or what you're trying to rank for,
go log into Google Search Console,
put in your domain name, add it.
It'll tell you all the keywords
that you're getting traffic from.
And you should also have Google Analytics set up
with goal tracking and conversion tracking
so you know what keywords are driving you revenue.
That's important, traffic is great
but if you double your traffic
and get no more sales, it doesn't matter.
You're just paying more for your hosting costs.
You want the right audience.
So look at the keywords that are driving conversions
and the keywords that you're ranking for on Google
using tools like Search Console.
And what I want you to do is go Google them.
Literally take the ones from Google Search Console
go Google those keywords
and see what comparisons are ranking ahead of you.
What are they doing that you're not doing?
Don't just look at the first one, look at the first result,
the second result, the third result,
even go all the way down to the 10th result.
This will give you ideas on what
other people are doing better than others,
what people aren't doing that give you opportunity,
in other words, those are the gaps
that you can do with your website.
Whether that's the content, your product,
your images, your videos, your overall experience,
all those things will help you
optimize and beat the competition.
Now, when Google has an update,
sometimes even if you do all this stuff,
sometimes you lose and you get less traffic.
That's okay.
You're not optimizing for the short run,
you're optimizing for the long run.
Cause a lot of times what happens is
Google will make changes and realize, wait,
this actually wasn't the best change for the user.
Let me go actually make this other change.
And over time, if you do what's best for the end user,
you'll find that you'll continually
grow your traffic over time.
That's the key with future proofing your website for SEO.
Now, if you just want my ad agency, NP Digital
to just do this all for you, check us out, hit us up.
We were the agency of the year
and we have a great track record of doing this.
If you just have any questions, leave a comment below.
I'm here to help.
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Thank you for watching.