3 Things You Need to Know About Google
Google is at it again. The search engine rolled out its latest major algorithm change, Fred, in March to little fanfare. Fred, however, is causing some uproar. Firstly, the name Fred is distancing itself from previous updates starting with “P” going back several years.
February 2011 – Panda
April 2012 – Penguin
July 2014 – Pigeon
September 2016 – Possum
In addition, Payday, Pirate, and Phantom joined the fray. Though Google changes its search algorithm 500 – 600 times a year, most of these changes are minor. All kidding aside, the biggest impact of Fred is found in the traffic drop off seen by text-heavy websites, such as blogs that host sponsored content.
Trying to figure out how Google’s algorithm change works can boggle the mind, but understanding how to rank well on Google doesn’t have to. Google Vice President Ben Gomes has stated that his company’s goal “is to provide the most relevant information for the user in the fastest time possible.”
What does this mean? In order to rank well in Google, you need to stay relevant and diverse. And here’s how.
- Consider who uses your site. Google is far more concerned with your website users than it is about you. And frankly, you should be too. Yes, they understand that your business needs to make money to make a profit – Google needs to make money too. If simple monetization is the primary purpose of your website, you will not do well with Google’s algorithm change. In fact, the consensus is that the Google’s latest iteration targets ad-heavy websites with low-value or no-value content.If the purpose behind your business’ site, however, is providing value and helping your clients and customers, then Google’s bots are more likely to look upon you with favor. Consistently providing valuable content organized around relevant SEO terms will always provide good results.
- Titles, meta descriptions and SEO keywords matter. Your best bet for reaching organic traffic with Google is to have well-written titles and meta descriptions that contain your relevant search engine optimized keywords. The meta description is the snippet that is either the first line of your page’s web content or a summary of your content that shows up on the search engine results page.The meta description is not specifically used by the search engine when returning results. The click-through-rate, however, is one of the parameters used by Google’s algorithm to determine the site’s overall ranking. Because of this, there is a distinct benefit to optimizing and including SEO keywords in both the page’s title and meta description.
- Google likes quality links. The purpose of online links is to help website users to travel to information relevant to their searches. Think of them like doors. The more inbound links, the more doors into your website. Likewise, a limited number of outbound links can also help improve your Google ranking.
Because outbound links direct readers away from your site they may seem to work against your purpose, but Google’s algorithm change sees them positively when they lead to additional relevant information. The more relevant information passed onto the reader, the more value Google believes you to be linked to.
The point of Google’s loophole plugs, tweaks and updates are to improve their product. – Google’s search engine wants to satisfy their customers without sacrificing times spent on low-value advertisements. There are many other parameters such as mobile optimization and Google’s AI program, RankBrain.
Still curious about improving your results on Google? Give Valorous Circle a call today!
