On May 4th, Google started to roll out an essential update to its algorithms.
They call it a "Core" update as it's a
massive difference to their algorithm, which means it impacts a lot of websites.
Real estate, health, travel, pets & animals, and
people & society saw the biggest fluctuations with rankings/user
experience.
Other industries have also impacted the ones at the bottom of the list were the least affected, such as News - there was also a shakeup in local SEO results, but that started before the core update. Update your content regularly. Publish four articles a month.
And when we say update, it is about just adding an
image or adjusting a sentence. It is quite simple as it is about adding a
handful of new paragraphs, deleting irrelevant information, and sometimes even
re-writing entire articles.
They do whatever it takes to keep articles up to date and valuable for the readers, just like how Wikipedia is continuously updating its content.
Can you simply guess how many of them noticed a
search traffic drop off 10% or more than that?
One thing to consider is when we are calculating
organic search traffic estimates- a glance at the average monthly volume of
click through rates as well as keyword-based on rankings.
So leaves such as May 1, which is Labor Day
for major of the world, didn't drop the results.
There is no Rubric on how should the old content be
updated your old content/blogs as it makes a difference per article but the key
is to do whatever it takes to keep it authentic for your readers and make sure
that it is better than the competitors.
If you still want guidance on updating old content,
here are a few points;
If the content is not relevant anymore to a reader/website visitor, delete the page, and 301 redirect it to the URL, which is relevant on the site or updates it to make it suitable for your readers.
Check and see if there are any dead links on your
site and fix them immediately. Dead links create a poor user experience.
If the article is translated and has significant
global viewers, ensure the images and videos make sense to anyone reading the
content in those languages specifically.
Can you make the article simpler? Remove fluff and
avoid using hard words that very few people can understand/interpret.
Does the article discuss a specific time frame or a
year? If possible, make the article fresh by avoiding the use of dates or
specific time ranges or dates.
If the article covers a precise problem people are
getting introduced with, ensure you look at Quora first before updating the
articles. Glance to see popular responses on Quora as it will give you a sense
of what people are ideally looking for and are interested in.
Is this article plagiarism free? Not from a wording point of view, but are you much covering precisely similar concept as another article on your website.
If so, adapt merging them, and 301 redirect one URL
to the other one.
Fix your thin content on site
One glitch that our system looks at is thin content
pages with low word count.
On average, 46% of the websites which gets analyzed have at least one page that is thin in content.
For the pages that are to be more in-depth, fix them
instantly!
Here are the three main questions to take into
consideration while fixing thin content pages:
Is it really required to add more words?
If you can get the message in a few hundred
words or through videos or images, it may be enough. Don't add words
when it isn't needed. Instead, think of the user experience.
People would rather won't chose to wait for minutes
when their question is answered in a few seconds.
How does your page compare to the competitors? Look at the same pages that are ranking on 1st page.
Do they have more or less content than you?
This will give an idea if you require to boost
your page, precisely if everyone who ranks on the 1st page has at least a few
thousand words on their pages.
Does keeping the page makes sense?
If it renders little to no value to the readers and you can't make it more beneficial by updating it, you may want to consider deleting it, and 301 redirect the URL to another similar page on your website.
Conclusion
Even if you do everything discussed above, there is
no guarantee that an algorithm update will impact you. Each one is distinct,
and Google's goal is to generate the best experience for users.
If you look at the above points, you will notice
that fixing them creates a better user experience, and that should always be
your aim.
It isn't about succeeding on Google. SEO is about
presenting a better experience than your opponent. If that's your prime focus,
in the long run, you' will find that you will do better than your competitors
when algorithm update is the subject.
To know more about the SEO rankings and how your business can reach new horizons, connect with the SEO experts of Houston - ITs Guru today!
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