Changes to Google’s algorithm! Should you care?

Search Engine Results Position (SERP) Matters

If your Web site brings an important amount of business to you, or if you want it to, then you’re concerned about where you rank in search engine results.  You know that many searchers don’t go beyond page one, and if you’re not even on page two, you’re out of it.  What should you do to your site to get and keep high rankings in search engine results?

Changes in Google’s Algorithm!

You’ve probably seen warnings sent out by newsletters and other services warning that Google has changed their ranking algorithm, and your site may drop in ranking because of it.  Often these warnings are presented in dire terms–act now or else!  What should you do about these warnings?  And what should you do to your site to keep your search engine ranking?

You’ve probably also seen ads and received emails from companies who claim that they can get your site onto page one, guaranteed.  Or who offer some product that will put your site onto page one.  Just send the money, and you’ll be there.

Google is a Business

Why does Google keep changing how they rank sites in their results?  What are their goals in making all these changes?  Do they simply want to inflict pain on small businesses who are trying to promote their offerings?

To understand what Google is doing, consider Google as a business.  They want to provide effective search service, so that the service will be widely used by people who will see the ads that Google gets paid to display.  So Google has a strong interest in providing search results that are relevant to queries that are entered, that take the visitor to a quality site that offers authoritative information on the topics the searcher is looking for.

When I started in Web marketing in 1998, SEO was about how to trick search engines.  Measures that were popular then would get you thrown out of the indexes in a minute today.  As search engines have become more sophisticated, they are better able to determine what a page is about, and to make more measures of quality.  Today, trying to fool search engines is a bad strategy–even if you succeed in fooling them for now, as they get more and more sophisticated, when your deception is discovered your SERPs will suffer.

A Strategy for Search Engine Results

The strategy of fooling search engines treats the search engines as opponents to be manipulated and deceived.  That strategy pits you against these organizations, requiring constant vigilance toward the next step taken in the battle by your opponent.  You have to watch carefully for every change in search engine algorithms!

What are your odds in this competition?  Suppose you’re a small business, working hard to succeed while providing your product or service, with the limited resources that you have.  You’re focused on your customers and their needs, and your own product or service.  You have limited attention to give to search engines.  And limited funds to hire experts.  On the other side of the competition is huge organizations like Google, who hire the brightest Stanford graduates to put all of their considerable talent and lots of other Google resources into the job that’s critical for their company–providing truly relevant search results.  The odds are not in your favor!

On the other hand, instead of trying to compete with an organization that has practically unlimited resources of talent and money, why not make Google your business partner instead?  Instead of trying to fight this behemoth, put them on your side and leverage all that they offer.  Do this by providing high quality content on your site and providing the best possible visitor experience.  Then, as search engines get better and better at measuring the real visitor experience, your SERPs will just improve.  And you won’t worry about every little change in Google algorithms.

Do I Need an SEO Specialist?

If you decide to put Google on your side, do you still need an expert in search engines to help you?  Putting this another way, having given you this advice, should I just close up shop?

Happily for me, there is still room for experts, although their proper role has changed.  The experts should advise you on how to provide a high-quality visitor experience so that it’s recognized by the search engines and given the credit that it deserves.  The search engines aren’t people who give opinions–they’re using software to estimate the quality of visitor experience. Because of the number of pages they have to scan, that software has to be fairly simple.  So there’s still a role for the person who understands how search engines do this, who knows what they value most, who can direct your efforts into the most productive areas.

In addition, there are a variety of technical cues that search engines use to estimate the quality of visitor experience, and your expert consultant can make sure that you’ve provided all these cues, so that you won’t provide a great visitor experience but have the search engines not recognize–and reward you–for what you’ve done.

The Bottom Line

Put Google on your side by putting your visitors first–provide a high quality visitor experience.

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