What the New Google Search Essentials Tell Us About SEO
Google’s search engine has been the center of many SEO discussions over the years.
With recent updates, Google has been making it harder for SEO experts to game its algorithm with black hat methods. That said, there are still ways to optimize your website for organic search results. In this post, we’ll discuss some of these changes and how they can impact your SEO strategy moving forward.
Don’t Overlook Technical SEO
If you’re not familiar with technical SEO, here are some key points to keep in mind:
Make sure your site is fast. Google recommends loading under 1 second on both desktop and mobile, so if you need help improving site speed, consider scheduling a consultation with an Agency Partner SEO specialist.
Use HTTPS instead of HTTP whenever possible. You should also use HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) headers to prevent accidental communication over an insecure connection.
Ensure all your pages have schema markup and structured data implemented correctly.
Finally: Use Google Analytics! It might seem obvious but having analytics built into every aspect of one’s marketing strategy makes everything easier when trying to figure
out what content performs best among visitors (areas needing improvement) and where visitors come from most often (which sources should be prioritized).
Stay Up to Date with Google Spam Policies
Google spam policies are constantly changing. It is important to stay up-to-date on these changes, as they can impact your rankings in search results.
Google’s spam policies are significant for SEO. It’s one of the most common reasons sites get penalized or removed from Google’s index. A good rule of thumb here is that if you are unsure whether something could be considered “spammy” by Google, then you should avoid doing it altogether and stick with what works best for your site overall.
Use Google’s SEO Starter Guide
Google SEO starter guide is loaded with resources for SEO improvement, and it’s a great place to start. It covers many of the basics and offers areas to build your strategy.
The Google SEO guide covers topics like:
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Why does Google care about SEO?
How does search work?
It also covers more advanced topics, like how to make content easier to read by using headings and subheadings, optimizing images in your blog posts, or learning how Google ranks sites based on their authority and trustworthiness.
Refer to ‘Key Best Practices’ For What Content Google Wants to Rank
With the new Google Search Essentials, it is clear that Google wants to rank content that answers people’s questions and provides valuable information. This means you need to create content that your users will find helpful and reliable.
In addition to being helpful, this new ranking signal also requires that your content be unique and original. This can be a challenge for many marketers who are creating similar content across their brands. They want to avoid making something that looks like a replica of another piece of work they have done or might do again in the future.
To accomplish this task, content writers need strong keyword research skills to identify topics with high search volume but low competition.
Pay Attention to Google’s Advice
The new Google Search Essentials are all about providing helpful, reliable, and unique content that serves people first. Paying attention to these guidelines is important because they’re the baseline for how Google ranks your work.
In other words, if your content doesn’t meet these criteria, you will be penalized by Google’s search algorithm—even if you’re an established website with hundreds or thousands of content pieces.
Craft a Strategy Around Google’s Quality Questions
If you’re not getting a lot of traffic, or if your traffic isn’t converting into leads and sales, then it might be because your content isn’t great according to Google.
Google wants to ensure that the content on its search engine is helpful, reliable, authoritative, and relevant. To do this, they have created a new series of questions they will ask potential customers after reading some of your content. These questions will appear as part of the Google Search Bar when someone searches for local
businesses like yours.
Don’t Sleep on the Quality Rater Guidelines
Quality raters are Google’s internal team of reviewers who evaluate the quality of websites and help determine whether they should be rated in search results. This is a big deal because the more relevant and high-quality content you have on your site, the more likely you’ll rank higher in Google’s algorithm.
Quality raters were introduced in 2012 as an effort to get feedback from real people about how well or poorly certain websites were performing. These individuals don’t have any power over what appears in search results. Still, they can flag instances where sites seem deceptive or spammy so that Google engineers can address them accordingly when developing new algorithms. Because these rater guidelines are updated often, web admins need to stay alert for any changes that impact their strategies for improving site quality and performance online.
The main takeaway here? Quality raters aren’t just imaginary beings; they’re real people who work at Google! And while we can’t see their faces—their influence on how we view technology today cannot be denied.
Final Thoughts
Google is constantly changing its search engine algorithm to improve its user experience. They will continue to prioritize relevant, valuable, and unique content rather than how many keywords are implemented.
This is just the beginning of Google Search Essentials. As more people use it and provide feedback, we expect it to evolve further to meet the demands of the digital world.
Agency Partner Interactive
SEO is highly complex and can be challenging to navigate without the skills of an expert. Luckily, Agency Partner Interactive has a team of SEO specialists dedicated to optimizing and improving our clients’ websites and content. Our work has earned us awards, such as one of the Best US-Based SEO Agencies by
BestSEOserviceCompanies.com and Top Web SEO Company in Texas by Design Rush. Drive organic traffic, conversions, and revenue like never before by scheduling a consultation today!
