It is customary for Google to make 40-50 changes to its search algorithm each month. It’s that time again — Google just announced the changes to its search results for April 2012 (http://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-april-15111.html ).
As consultants that frequently work with small businesses to improve their revenue, we monitor these changes, and study the impact that they potentially have on small businesses. We share these with our clients regularly, but this month we thought we would share our thoughts with you.
Many of Google’s changes this month are minor and don’t impact most sites, but there are usually a few each month that are potential game changers. This month’s changes include some that we ought to pay special attention to. Here are the ones we think you ought to address in your online marketing efforts:
- Google has changed how it decides on which snippet (i.e. the description about your page that shows in under the title of your page in the search results). They are now pulling more content from the beginning content on your pages to show as your description. This makes that 1st paragraph very important.
- It is not longer a guarantee that the Page Title that you place in your website code will show up in the search results. You will need to pay very special attention to the words you use in your page titles, and which order you place them in.
- Google gives higher search rankings to sites with regularly updated (“fresh”) content. This month, Google made a change so that low-quality fresh content does not boost search rankings.
- The location of the keywords on your page has become a much bigger deal. While Google does not want you to stuff keywords either above or below “the fold”, the specific location that they are at has become more of a ranking of signal.
- A change was made so that “authoritative content” ranks ahead of content that Google deems as less authoritative. They use several factors to determine authority, including how often the content is shared and linked to. Blogging for the sake of keywords and “more content” on your site is a thing of the past.
- “Better query interpretation. This launch helps us better interpret the likely intention of your search query as suggested by your last few searches“ (http://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-april-15111.htm). The impact to site owners is that the content on your pages must be focused and very relevant to your targeted keywords. Tighter content makes it more likely that your site will match the searchers intent in the eyes of the search engine…i.e. – you will rank higher for those search terms.
There are several other updates that are worth noting, especially related to local search. I suggest that you check out the updates!