One thing Covid-19 hasn’t stopped this year is the rollout of the new update for Google and the effect it will have on your search engine optimization (SEO).
Google makes updates to its algorithm often, and most of those tweaks aren’t noticeable to the average user. However, every few months Google releases a broad core update to help tweak the algorithm to provide better results for searchers. These updates may help—or hinder—your page ranking results. On May 4, Google made a “core update” which has already caused noticeable results on page ranking.
Google Search and Covid-19
According to an article in the Search Engine Journal (SEJ), the effects of the update are being felt most with local search, and health-related sites. While Google doesn’t reveal the details of the update, those at SEJ Online speculate it could be because of how much Covid-19 affected search patterns.
SEO—A Constant Need
This latest update and the upheaval it has already caused for some websites is a great reminder that search engine optimization (SEO), is a constant requirement. According to Google, the broad brush of their updates is to look for and rank sites with higher quality content. Other variables, including how fast a website and its pages load, are also factored into the Google algorithm, but content is still king. Google rates website based on a concept called E-A-T. This acronym stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. A beautiful website with unoriginal, untruthful, or unhelpful content will still fail the E-A-T test for Google. With websites, just like with people, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Is My Site Affected?
What does this latest update mean for your website? Your ranking may have changed—for better or worse. If rankings have slipped it’s a good time to do an SEO audit to see what has changed.
At Baseline Creative, we review your analytics to see how search volumes have changed, which pages people are landing on, and what they do from there. Do they land on a page and bounce right back out? How much does your social media presence drive traffic to your website? Are they filling out forms so you can capture leads or are they moving on?
As we delve into the data we can see patterns emerge and work to solve any issues. Perhaps it’s adding better, more focused content, or diving into metadata on the back end of the website. Whatever it takes, we work to create and implement effective, organic SEO for our clients.
Get the Insights You Need
Contact us for an SEO audit and to see what opportunities are available to improve your content, your metadata, and your search ranking.
