7 Simple Tips to Keep Up With Google Algorithm Updates and Handle Them Like a Pro

Whether you are a business owner or a webmaster, you are using search engine optimization to get in front of your target audience, expand your outreach, and get more traffic. Indeed, SEO plays a huge role in a website’s success. However, once you implement an SEO strategy and achieve a specific ranking, this doesn’t mean that you are on the safe side because Google algorithm updates are released frequently.

These modifications strive to refine search engines’ algorithms to better understand users’ needs and satisfy them more accurately. They evaluate and reward websites that go the extra mile to deliver finer quality content and real value to users.

In the modern digital landscape, keeping an eye on every Google algorithm change is crucial for every website. These modifications can either boost your visibility or take you to the bottom of SERPs. Read on, and we will tell you how to stay updated on these changes and address them effectively to maintain the excellent performance of your site!

1. Stay Informed

Not keeping up to date with Google algorithm updates is probably the biggest mistake businesses can make these days. According to experts, Google releases updates somewhere between 500-600 times every year. Of course, only some of these changes are enormous and immediately impact your rankings. However, somewhere among these 500-600 updates are significant changes you want to be aware of.

How do you stay on top of the major changes? There are several ways to do this:

• Google Alerts – Setting up relevant alerts is the easiest way to stay informed. You can customize your alerts by topic, phrase, source, etc. For example, you can set up an alert based on the “Google algorithm change” topic. This way, you will receive instant notifications whenever new content is published on this topic.
• Google Search Status Dashboard – This dashboard is created to notify users about various events and issues related to Google Search and its primary services. All major changes are also listed here so you can check the dashboard regularly to stay informed.
• Industry Leaders – Leading influencers and companies who deal with SEO typically track all search algorithm changes and willingly share the most critical updates on their social media channels. You can follow them on different platforms like Twitter to stay updated.

These are some of the easiest ways to keep up to date with significant updates. Be sure to use them to be well-prepared for upcoming changes.

1. Monitor Your Website’s Performance

Monitoring your site’s performance is also crucial to business and webmasters’ success, especially when any Google algorithm change occurs.

How to tell if something’s happening to algorithms by your site’s performance? It’s important to note that not everyone will be able to use this tip effectively. However, if you are experienced with website analytics, you must have an idea of what the “normal” performance of your website looks like. In this case, seeing abnormal fluctuations in your traffic, conversions, and other metrics should be a red flag to you – they could indicate possible changes.

Let’s say you know that your primary keyword typically generates a lot of traffic during weekdays but slightly drops on Saturdays. In this case, significant traffic drops during weekdays could indicate an update.

You only need to use a reliable analytics tool to keep an eye on these abnormal fluctuations. Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other SEO tools greatly influence your SEO success. They let you monitor and analyze your key metrics. Not only to monitor changes but also to fine-tune your strategies for success.

If you are not tracking your metrics now, start ASAP. You can get on Top10seosoftware.com to check out objective reviews of the best SEO tools and find a suitable solution to help you succeed!

1. Understand the Update

One of the biggest Google algorithm update mistakes is to think that all of them are equally important. As mentioned earlier, Google releases hundreds of updates every year, and not all have a considerable impact. The majority of these changes only offer minor tweaks. They don’t require any strategy adjustment on your side. Still, there are also massive changes that can drastically change your site’s performance.

To address new algorithms effectively, you first need to identify their core purpose. Sometimes, Google will interpret everything for you. For example, the changes to their HowTo and FAQ-rich results were clearly explained in the Search Central Blog. Keep an eye on this blog to understand any modifications better. Also, you can find detailed interpretations in popular SEO blogs.

But what do you do if there is little information on the issue? In this case, you need to consider different context clues and interpret modifications yourself. To do this:

• First, analyze the search results page. Focus on SERP features (what information users are looking for the most), the intent behind a search, and variations of questions and related keywords. These things help you understand what Google thinks users are seeking right now.
• Secondly, analyze several pages that appear at the top of results. After a new update rollout, the first pages in SERPs are the ones that most closely align with new algorithms. Analyzing them should help you understand how to tweak your strategy to align with changes.

1. Analyze and Adapt Your SEO Strategy

After identifying and understanding new SEO algorithm updates, you might need to adjust your strategy to retain (or achieve) high positions in SERPs.

Before adjusting your strategy, you need to conduct a comprehensive site audit. Here are some of the critical things you want to focus on:

• Pages that declined in their performance;
• Pages that improved in their performance;
• Keywords that declined;
• Keywords that improved.

After identifying these things, you need to analyze them and understand how pages or keywords that declined differ from those that improved. Keep in mind everything you already know about the new modifications to understand what causes a decline or improvement. Also, keep in mind the analysis of the top pages in search to find areas for improvement.

Based on your audit, make a clear plan of action to handle the update. Of course, the specific steps you need to complete will depend on the nature of a particular modification. Yet, there are some general best practices that can help you improve your performance. Currently, the core ranking factors to improve include mobile friendliness, core web vitals, content quality, voice search, page speed, video SEO, and schema markup. Work on these things after any modification to stay ahead.

1. Diversify Traffic Sources

Although SEO is vital these days, relying on organic search as the only traffic source is a huge mistake. There are several risks related to this approach:

• You are missing out on a massive number of prospects from other sources;
• Your growth is quite a bit slower when you rely on a single traffic source;
• Without investing in paid channels, it’s hard to understand if your business model is viable for paid growth;
• If you rely solely on one traffic source and it fails (for example, because of a Google algorithm change), everything’s lost, and you have to start it all over.

Diversifying your traffic sources, on the contrary, can offer you quite a few benefits. It can help you mitigate risks related to search algorithm modifications. Also, it enables you to discover new venues for audience engagement and growth. Finally, it can significantly amplify your reach and help nurture customer relationships.

So don’t hesitate. Feel free to diversify your traffic sources through email marketing, paid ads, social media, and other available channels.

1. Focus on User Experience

A positive user experience consists of many elements, including:

• Simple website navigation;
• Fast load speed;
• Mobile-friendliness;
• Usability;
• Content quality, etc.

Separately, all these things matter to search engines when they rank you. Most importantly, satisfying users’ needs is the primary goal of every search engine, which is why a positive user experience often stands on top of all the other ranking factors.

If your site has all the qualities to deliver impeccable user experiences, this can save you from algorithmic penalties. Even after modifications, Google will see that users find your website helpful and friendly. And this can help you maintain high positions in SERPs.

In order to boost user experience, use the following top tips:

• Split your site into logical sections, add easy-to-understand menu options, add a search bar, and include clear calls-to-action to improve navigation.
• Optimize images and other media content, limit unnecessary redirect usage and external scripts, and use browser HTTP caching to boost site speed.
• Develop a responsive design, adjust button size and placement, compress images, and eliminate pop-ups to boost mobile-friendliness.
• Do in-depth audience research and improve your content quality to meet users’ intents better.

Use these tips to deliver excellent UX and protect yourself from penalties.

1. Build High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are the links to your website from other sites. They play a crucial role in SEO by boosting your credibility, visibility, and traffic.

When new SEO algorithm updates roll out, they can affect how search engines evaluate your backlinks. For example, they might emphasize the quality of the backlinks’ source or the relevance of the content. In this case, your rankings can drop if they don’t meet the new requirements.

To stay on the safe side, you should always work on the quality of your backlinks. There are many ways to do this. For example, you can:

• Craft high-quality and relevant guest posts for trusted sources;
• Publish ultimate guides and ever-green content worth sharing;
• Use the “skyscraper” technique;
• Identify and replace broken links.

Use these tips to create a solid link profile that will make search engines place you at the top of SERPs. However, stay cautious about penalty-causing link-building strategies, such as buying links, exchanging links, creating backlinks on low-quality sites, using automated software to create links, etc. All these tactics can cause more harm than good for your website.

Conclusion

Google algorithm updates are released frequently and can either make or break your rankings on the web. Due to this reason, SEO can never be a one-off event. On the contrary, staying number one in SERPs requires an ongoing effort.

Now you know about the primary Google algorithm update mistakes, as well as the key steps to address all changes effectively. Use the knowledge and tips from this guide to stay ahead of the ever-changing algorithms and achieve your business goals faster!