Are you trying hard to stay ahead of search engine algorithm changes? If so, you have come over the right way to crack the blueprint for it. These algorithms have been gauging and determining website visibility, which makes it essential for digital marketers and SEO professionals to learn about algorithm changes and adapt to them.
With the advent of Google’s Helpful Content Update (HCU), many websites suffered from significant drops in organic traffic. Notably, around 32% of sites experienced losses exceeding 90% of their traffic. Particularly, niche travel websites were hard hit with traffic reductions ranging from 57% to as high as 99%. This update reshaped the landscape for content creators and made it mandatory to align with Google’s evolving standards.
As algorithms become more dominant, they play a significant role in your website’s discoverability.
What is the need for algorithm changes? What drives them?
Algorithm changes predominantly aim at improving the accuracy and relevancy of the search results. As the internet grows swiftly, search engines are entrusted with the responsibility to evolve themselves. The ultimate goal of its evolution is to ensure that users are presented with high-quality content that meets their needs. Updates have been made to restrict spammy and unethical SEO practices. They should adapt to new technologies such as voice search advancements. These updates also have the responsibility of improving the overall user experience. It can be achievable through practices such as prioritizing speed, mobile usability, and security. Eventually, the ultimate goal would lie in finding user behavior, search patterns, and making the results best align with what people are seeking.
A brief history of important updates
Many Google algorithm updates have been released over the last decade, and some of those have had a significant impact on page ranks and organic search traffic. A few of the important updates include:
1. Panda update: This update was aimed at penalizing poor-quality content and duplicate content. That is how it persuaded websites to generate high-quality and original content.
2. Penguin update: The Penguin update focused on websites with manipulative link-building techniques such as buying links or engaging in link farms. Its purpose was to force a more natural and legitimate link building process.
3. Hummingbird update: Hummingbird enhanced the Google search engine’s ability to understand search requests by focusing on semantic search. This update created a solution for a better understanding of the user intent and search queries.
Types of updates:
Algorithm updates pop up in numerous forms to serve their responsibilities in their own way. Some common types of updates you can witness are the following:
1. Core updates: Core updates are major changes that predominantly impact how search engines analyze and approve your content. They can abundantly impact rankings and require an extensive review of your website’s SEO practices.
2. Targeted updates: Targeted updates primarily focus on content quality, mobile usability, and core web vitals as a whole. Moreover, they are meant to address particular issues with the user experience by monitoring search relevance.
3. Penalties and rollbacks: Updates are often making their entry to penalize practices that go against search engine guidelines. They could be keyword stuffing, low-quality, or toxic link building. However, rollbacks could occur when particular changes are found to have unintended consequences.
Demystifying algorithm changes
Search engine algorithms have been consistently evolved to enhance the user experience of search engines. These changes have set clear guidelines for ranking websites on SERPs (search engine results pages) and prioritizing the most relevant and useful content. Moreover, mental availability and discoverability are critical challenges for both large B2B enterprises and startups, as they impact brand visibility, awareness, and customer engagement.
For enterprises, these considerations have become pivotal. Traffic, conversions, and growth are closely tied to a brand’s online discoverability. Research shows that organic search drives 53% of all website traffic and accounts for 40% of revenue in B2B sectors. Changes in algorithms can lead to significant shifts in growth and post the HCU update, about 32% of websites saw traffic drops exceeding 90% which led to declines in conversion rates.
Best practices to adapt to algorithm changes
1. Focus on quality content: Quality content lays the foundation for SEO since the aim of search engines is to provide accurate results for search queries. Websites should regularly update their content to make sure that it’s relevant, well-researched, and provides valuable insights to their target audience. To provide quality content, websites must get rid of practices such as keyword stuffing, and duplicate content and should focus on creating detailed, informative articles that can match the user’s intent.
2. Technical SEO audits: Conduct technical SEO audits consistently to identify issues that could disrupt your website’s rankings. Technical issues in the form of broken links, slow page loading times, and poor mobile optimization can lead to bigger threats to a website’s overall performance. Regular audits can keep your website ahead of your competitors and dispel the risk of penalties caused by algorithm updates.
3. User Experience (UX) optimization: Your website could have all the required qualities to be ranked among your competitors, but it should be easily accessible to serve the purpose properly. Ensure it’s easy to navigate, loads quickly, and is mobile-friendly enough to make your users comfortable. Google’s Core Web Vitals and page experience signals are highly influential in determining rankings, so focus on making your site as user-friendly as possible.
4. E-E-A-T: Google’s guidelines on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) have become inevitable with updates lately. So establish your website’s E-E-A-T by proving your expertise through well-informed content, building authority via reaping backlinks from credible sources, and showcasing your content as trustworthy with accurate information, transparent sources, and clarity in authorship.
5. Diversify traffic sources: Don’t ever rely solely on a lone source of organic search traffic. Diversify your traffic sources through various digital marketing platforms such as social media, email marketing, and paid advertising, you can safeguard your website from the impact of algorithm changes and generate a steady flow of visitors.
There are some simple steps to stay ahead of SEO algorithms. All you need to do is pay close attention to Google’s official announcements, keep your content fresh and your website’s performance optimized. Regular SEO audits will walk you through the warnings and errors your website encounters. Follow the best practices to rectify those errors and improve your website’s discoverability and performance over time.