Last week, I wrote about Google’s algorithm update as it related to backlinks, and then almost as soon as I published that post, Google announced it would be making another major update to its core algorithm, at which point content strategists and SEO experts all over the internet kind of lost their minds. It was a pretty exciting week, so here’s what we have to say about it:
- What Is a Google Core Algorithm Update?
- The Health and Finances Industry After the Google Core Algorithm Update
- The News, Sports, Arts and Entertainment Industries After the Google Core Algorithm Update
- The Real Estate Industry After the Google Core Algorithm Update
- What to do if Your Website Takes a Hit After a Google Core Algorithm Update
- What Does Your Audience Want?
What Is a Google Core Algorithm Update?
In case you’re unfamiliar with how Google works, it adjusts its algorithm more than 3,000 times per year, but most of those changes are fairly minor and don’t have much of an impact on our day-to-day rankings and results.
A core update is a much larger change to the algorithm and it usually takes a few days to roll out and for all the effects of the change to be felt. By now, the algorithm should have finished updating, so let’s take a look at what those changes have meant for content strategists in a variety of industries.
The Health and Finances Industries After the Google Core Algorithm Update
As usual, the health and finances industry have been the most heavily impacted by the latest Google Core Algorithm Update. This is because both of those industries are highly regulated, and yet there’s a lot of unverified information out there for both industries. Google, understandably, doesn’t want to be responsible for pointing its customers in the direction of content that could end up doing them physical or financial harm, so getting Google to trust your site if you work in the financial or health and wellness industry is getting increasingly difficult.
And yet, some of those health and financial sites actually managed to come out ahead after the September core update when they reported noticing a boost in their rankings. But there isn’t yet much information available as to which sites (if any) took a hit to their page views after the update.
The News, Sports, Arts and Entertainment Industries After the Google Core Algorithm Update
After health and finances, news, sports, arts and entertainment experienced the most volatility from the update, but that’s to be expected, especially since those areas tend to experience a lot of fluctuations in their online traffic from day to day, and even from hour to hour. What remains to be seen is whether the latest core update will result in their rankings remaining chronically lower than normal, but there hasn’t yet been enough time to determine if that has happened.
The Real Estate Industry After the Google Core Algorithm Update
According to SEMrush, the industry that experienced the least amount of volatility from the latest Google Core Update is the real estate industry, which experienced almost no volatility after the update. So, if you’re selling houses and/or office space, you probably don’t need to worry about Google going after your website. If it does, then it’s probably an indication that you have bigger SEO problems that need to be addressed.
What to Do If Your Website Takes a Hit After a Google Core Algorithm Update
Google is usually pretty secretive about updates to its algorithm, generally advising content marketers not to change anything because they might end up changing the wrong thing and doing more harm than good.
That said, there are a few key things Google tends to look for when identifying high-quality content, and a couple months ago, they let us have a peek at some of those things.
What Does Your Audience Want?
We mentioned this in last week’s blog post, but it’s worth mentioning again, especially since Google itself says the same thing: Google’s core updates are not designed to target specific sites that Google thinks are trying to cheat the system or are not abiding by Google’s best practices. Google is just trying to figure out how to get the best and most relevant content in front of its customers.
So the question you need to ask yourself is: What does your audience want? What are they looking for? Where are they looking for it? How are they looking for it (i.e. which keywords are they using)? Original content that’s relevant to the questions your audience is asking will always perform best.
Learning all the SEO tricks of the trade is a big enough task on its own, but keeping up to date with literally thousands of Google algorithm updates is a task for a content strategist. If you’re ready to let a qualified SEO strategist handle your business’ online visibility for you, check out our content strategy offerings to see if there’s one that fits your needs.
