Google recently announced that they are releasing a core algorithm update to their search indexing system. This is the third confirmed core update for 2020.
Google went on to say “ several times a year, we make significant, broad changes to our search algorithms and systems. We refer to these as “core updates.” They’re designed to ensure that overall, we’re delivering on our mission to present relevant and authoritative content to searchers.”
The focus seems to be on high-quality, original content and rewarding more deserving pages that have the highest quality, original content, as opposed to what used to seem to work with SEO, which was links (backlinks) from other sites. Regarding this Google 2020 core update, the short answer seems to be simple, focus on ensuring your site is offering the best quality content you can. That’s what Google’s SEO algorithms seek to reward and should help with Google algorithms.
Here are some helpful hints when evaluating the content of your website and how to best comply with the most recent core update:
Content tips
- Make sure your content and information on your site are original and not stolen from other sites.
- Make sure your content is comprehensive in describing the topic and the keywords you are trying to optimize / rank for. The days of throwing up an informational website that talks about how great your business is are over. Google wants quality content that provides useful, detailed information, research, and analysis.
- It’s helpful to share content that shares insight and interesting information.
- Make sure your headline, title tags are correctly optimized. Avoid exaggeration or shocking headlines.
- Write content that users would find helpful and would consider bookmarking or sharing with others.
- Credibility is important, as are confidence factors. The author should share credible information.
- Expertise, Authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are important guidelines to follow when developing quality content for your site. You can learn more about the acronym E-A-T here.
- You can use various tools to help in developing good, original content that is optimized for SEO, such as SEMRUSH’s content marketing tool. This can help you develop quality, SEO optimized content that drives marketing results.
Regarding the most recent Google core update, a common question is how long will it take for a site to recover, if it improves their content? There is not a bottom-line answer to this. Broad core updates tend to happen every few months, so it may take a while. That being said, Google is regularly making improvements and adjustments to their search engine algorithms.
Here’s your bottom line, key takeaway regarding how to improve your site’s organic rankings. High quality, original content on your site is a critical component. This includes information that would be useful to users, is in-depth in nature, and is written in an authoritative manner. So keep working on your website, keep adding good content to your site, keep blogging. Your website, landing pages, and blogs are always a work in progress. The days of the set and forget are over. Google will continue to make adjustments to their algorithms and roll out more core updates.
You can also find additional resources and helpful information about writing good content in Google Webmasters.
You’ll also find plenty of advice about good content with the resources we offer from Google Webmasters, including tools, help pages, courses, and more.
Another helpful tool is Google Search Central, which is a free tool from Google. This can help you better understand how your site is performing on Google search, and what you can do to improve your site’s organic rankings and drive more qualified traffic to your site.
You may find Google’s search engine optimization (SEO) starter guide helpful in your quest to improve your web sites organic rankings and to better comply with the most recent core update.