Google makes over 500 changes to its search algorithm every year, keeping Search Engine Optimization pros and web marketers on their toes. It’s hard to stay on top of what the search engine is up to. Recent changes, though, have been much publicized. Local searching – finding San Diego-based businesses if you’re in San Diego, for example – has gained importance as people access the internet on mobile devices. But now, precision in internet searching is showing up in new ways.
Fresh SEO Content for your business website
We’ve always known that new, current content on your website is important in ranking high in Google’s search results. But now it may be even more important. First, search results will include more text from your website, not just headers and menu. This means the more relevant content you have on your home page, the more meaningful your search listing will be to users. Google also recently tweaked their algorithm to check for levels of freshness for each user query. This will be used in combination with detectors that can tell whether sites are official, and thereby yield more authoritative results – official sites will rank even high in their search ranking. So people can’t game the system by simply throwing up new copy. Users can also specify date ranges in their search, with Google yielding only results relevant to that date range. All of this means that if you’re a San Diego retailer, you might want to consider homepage updates or blogs to keep ranking high for local searchers.
Google search operators for effective SEO search
Another interesting change at Google is the “search operators” search choice. When users select this, Google won’t suggest spelling corrections or alternative “close” search categories. Search operators searchers will find results that match their spelling (correct or not), tense (past, present, etc), exact verb form (“run” or “running”), and number (singular or plural), while using all of their search terms. This means that if you REALLY know what your customer wants, and you REALLY know the way they talk about it, you’re at an advantage.
Search engine optimization is an ever-changing part of marketing and Google’s secrecy can make it even harder. But when they DO let out some clues about algorithm changes, it’s worth taking a look.