Google’s May 2020 Core Update and What You Need To Know
Did you know that on May 4th Google rolled out a core algorithm update? It’s called a “core” update because it happens to be a large change to their existing algorithm – and may be impacting your site.
If you haven’t checked your Google Analytics account lately, I’d suggest you do.
Hopefully, your traffic has gone up. If your traffic has gone down, I have some information that can help you out.
What You Need To Know (to keep your traffic going up)
- Update your content frequently.
What do I mean by update? I’m talking about adding a few new paragraphs, deleting unnecessary or no longer relevant information, adding better images, and sometimes even re-writing entire blog posts.
You should be doing what it takes to keep your blog posts up-to-date and valuable for your readers.
Here are some things you can do to update old content:
-If the content is no longer relevant to your ideal reader, either delete the blog post and 301 redirect it to the most relevant URL on your site or update it to make it relevant.
-Can you add content that is more useful? Such as thorough step-by-step instructions, videos, or infographic images.
-Can the post use a little less fluff and avoid using words that others may not understand? Did you know that you shouldn’t write higher than a 6th grade level.
-Check to see if there are any dead links in your post and fix them. Google hates dead links because they create a poor user experience!
-Is the blog post evergreen? It’s best to have posts that avoid usage dates or specific time ranges. For example, no need to state “Peter Cottontail Easter Table scape 2020” – a Peter Cottontail Easter table scape can be popular for years, so don’t “limit” your posts by discussing a specific year or time fram.
-Is this blog post a duplicate? Are you pretty much covering the EXACT SAME concept as another post on your site? If so, consider merging the two together and 301 redirect one URL to the other.
- Fix your thin content.
Thin content refers to posts and pages on your site with a “low word count” or pages full of links. For blog posts, the minimum (in most cases) would be 300 words or less.
Something to note…
There’s a difference between short content and thin content. Thin content tends to be full of keywords, low in quality and rehashed from other sites. Short content is concise, original, and offers value to readers, not search engines.
Also, some pages like your about, contact or category pages, may not need a lot of words. I’m mainly talking about your blog posts!
Find your sweet spot.
I write posts to offer value to my readers FIRST and then, I add my long-tail keyword throughout my post for search engines. I strongly believe that if you write high-quality content that’s of value to your reader, you’ll never go wrong – for your reader and search engines!
- Fix your SEO errors.
Google search console is the best place to check for any SEO errors on your site. If you have any index crawl errors, recipe markup, coverage or product issues detected, fix them.
CONCLUSION
Even if you do the items I discussed above, there’s no guarantee that you will be impacted by the Google core update. At the end of the day, Google’s goal is to create the best possible experience for searchers!
Our goal, as bloggers, is to create the best possible experience for our readers! If this is our core focus, in the long run, you’ll find you will do well with your readers and any search engine algorithm updates.
How has your traffic been since this last core update? Did it go up, did it go down, or did it stay flat???