written by Tamil Arasan | Last updated on |
Google is the largest search engine in the world that holds 92.06% of the search market.
The competitor of Google search engines like Bing, Baidu, Yandex, and Yahoo together owns less than 10% of search.
This is because Google search provides clear cut search results compared to other search engines with the best user experience with reduced spam PPC ads and listing only high-quality websites in SERP.
What this means to the webmasters and bloggers is that they must work on ranking their website in Google SERP to drive organic traffic.
The website owners, bloggers, and other businesses that try to rank their website on Google SERP should be aware of Google webmaster guidelines and algorithm updates.
With a good knowledge of Google webmaster policies, and practicing straight forward, you could rank your website on Google search engine safely.
The problem is Google frequently updates its search algorithm to publish only the best websites in the SERP. Bloggers and webmasters need to maintain their website(s) with quality in order to continuously stay on the top.
This article will be helpful for you to understand about Google algorithm and find ways how to not get affected by future updates.
At the end of this article, you will have clear ideas on how to protect your website from Google Algorithm updates.
What is Google Search Algorithm?
The Google Search Algorithm is the one that takes over the process of ranking websites in Google search engine ranking page.
Google Algorithm analyses the websites that are indexed before listing them in SERP. It uses over 200 signals to find if the website's worth to be listed on SERP.
While thousands of websites with high-quality content will compete to rank on SERP, it's the Google algorithm that values the websites to list the best.
When a Google search user searches a term, Google retrieves data from its index to publish results instantly on SERP.
How to maintain a website that doesn't get affected by Google Algorithm?
Google has improved the search algorithm like never before. The analysis by top experts shows that blackhat methods aren't working anymore.
While recently Google updated it's core algorithm a lot of websites got hit and the only answer from Google to the webmasters is to continue to work on quality content.
Google nowadays doesn't reveal too much about the algorithm and doesn't even name the algorithm.
All they do it tweet an update in SearchLiason regarding the rollout of the new update.
Previously Google used to release updates separately with details regarding updates which helped the webmasters to take steps to recover if the websites got penalized and take precautionary measures to avoid drops in the future.
Learn from the Past
Learning from the past, the Google Panda update was focusing on websites with low-quality content that didn't provide any value to the users. With this update, Google has ended the ranking techniques like keyword stuffing, manipulation of meta details that were previously followed as a good SEO technique.
Similarly, the Google Penguin update penalized the websites involved in black hat link building techniques. Back at that time websites that were ranking top in the Google SERP were kicked out of the top 10 pages due to poor link profiles.
Why I emphasized about those past major algorithm updates, Google at least let the webmasters know about the type of the updates so that they can work on removing bad links and similarly work on removing thin content that no more provides any value, improving the user experience of the website with changes in design, improving the layout, removing the elements against Google webmaster guidelines. etc.
Now Google isn't disclosing anything about the algorithm update. They roll out the update as a core algorithm update.
Core? It includes everything. Google's core algorithm update changes the ranking trend completely but it's very hard to find the intent of the update.
So, with the knowledge of the past and future analysis, it's clear that Google is striving hard to make things better than ever.
Unlike before, now Google uses AI to rank websites. While AI is still in the beginning stage, it will not be too long that it would directly evaluate the quality of the websites taking over other ranking signals that are given higher consideration now.
How to Rank your Website on Top consistently besides Algorithm Rollouts?
There's no doubt that Google's going to roll out several algorithm updates in years to come.
With every update, Google works on giving the best possible result to the search users. So, the straight forward answer is your website should be the best compared to other websites to get listed on top of Google SERP.
Here are some of the tips to rank your website(s) on Google without getting affected by algorithm updates.
1) Branding and Authority
Long gone are those days where websites used to rank with the help of keyword optimization and getting backlink with the keyword as anchor text.
Now it's all about branding and authority. You as an author should become a brand and make your website an authority in the niche.
Read More: Why your Brand Name is the Best SEO Hack you have got (And what that means for your Bottom Line). Download Guide.
Branding helps you and your website as an authority which automatically enables the chances of getting recognized by the other authors and brands in your niche.
So, work to improve your brand value on the internet.
So, how to become an authority?Don't just work as a person who creates content to rank on Google following traditional SEO, instead work on building your brand.
The first thing you should have a very good knowledge of things you create.
Just learning from the internet and creating the content isn't gonna work anymore like before.
Let me explain you with an example for better understanding.
Suppose if you're gonna start a fitness blog and write an article about getting six-pack abs, it's easy to refer a few websites and write content about sculpting six-packs.
That thing of acquiring knowledge from the internet and creating content won't make you a brand.
A person who worked already to get a six-pack, and has a six-pack uses his/her knowledge to create content obtained in months sculpting the body will be considered the authority. Since he has proved that he has six-packs and shares his real experience over time.
People and other webmasters in the same niche will treat the guy with the six-pack as a brand and his blog as an authority. And the website will automatically get links naturally from other authority blogs. Google values these websites as the authority and ranks them higher in SERP.
So, now you would have understood branding your blog and building authority in the niche.
Be advised that this is just an example, the strategy varies across the different niche. Analyze and find what can make you an authority in your niche and implement it.
2. Establish Connections
While building a branded blog and authority in the niche should help you to keep up with Google Algorithm updates, you must work on building connections too.
Similarly, a website that has no exposure will stay one among thousands of invaluable websites.You have great content, knowledge, well-optimized website but unless people know it, your website is gold that isn't extracted. No one worries about gold that's buried deep inside the earth.
You must start working on marketing and establishing connections between other authority bloggers in your niche.
They will link to your site if there is value, share in their social media, etc. that will boost the website SEO.It's one of the tiring and time-consuming processes. But once you learn the art of establishing connections, you can ripe the fruit of exposure.
Establishing connections doesn't necessarily have to be limited to other bloggers, you can approach social media influencers, Pinterest boards with a lot of followers, and follow several other strategies that are going to help improve your blog.
Mutual helping is important in building connections. That doesn't mean you must work on creating the reciprocal links to get penalized by Google.
3. High-Quality Website
While branding, building connections are important, it doesn't make any sense if you have a poor website.
You must work on creating a high-quality website. A high-quality website is the one that appears professional and consists of high-quality content with creative content, custom images, infographic, videos where ever it's applicable.
Take time to create content that's unique from other websites. Your content should showcase and make your website outstanding.
High-quality websites are valued by Google and fellow webmasters which help to build your brand naturally instead of following traditional SEO techniques.
While it's important to do search engine optimization and website audit regularly, maintaining a high-quality website with great content eases the job.
4. Optimize the Website for Speed
Google now gives more importance to the user experience. They want their search users to land on the website(s) that don't take more time to load.
- Choose a high-speed theme like Astra.
- Once installed, work on website design that's minimal. Don't stuff your website with unwanted elements.
- Go to GTMetrix to check the website performance.
- Analyze the requests and waterfall to find the codes, plugins, elements that slow down your website.
- Work on optimizing your website based on the result. Try reducing the number of requests, page size which will eventually reduce the website load time.
- Optimize the images on the website with a new-age format like Webp and Jpeg2000.
- A well-optimized website should load within 2 - 3 seconds.
- Implement AMP on your website for faster mobile pages. Been said AMP has its disadvantages.
So, here's how you can work on optimizing your website speed,
Remember that your website must be hosted in high-speed servers like Cloudways in order to make all the steps mentioned above to work well.
The websites that are hosted in inefficient servers can be never optimized for speed since it takes more time to load data from the server. So, it's important to choose efficient hosting.
5. Optimize the Ads in the Website
If you're running ads in your blog like Google Adsense, it's time to optimize the ads on your website.
But now Google sees the ads above the fold as annoying and reducing the user experience. Google now devalues the websites that fill the pages with ads.Previously, experts used to recommend installing Adsense codes above the fold to increase the revenue. It actually worked well.
Time to make the advertising in such a way that it doesn't affect the user experience.
6. Analyze the Traffic
Use Google Analytics to analyze your website traffic and performance.
Carefully monitor the sessions, page views, time on site, and bounce rate to better understand user experience.
The behavior section of analytics will be very helpful to find the best-performing pages and worst performing pages.
Compare and work on improving the time on site and bounce rate.
Google now measures the time on site and bounce rate to find if the users get what they want on the website.
Poor bounce rate and low time on site is the indication of low-value website.
The combination of high-quality content, faster website speed, landing page quality determines the user experience of the website.
Websites with good user experience are rewarded by Google.
7. Work on Improving page experience
With Google's upcoming ranking signal page experience, it's clear that every webmaster should work on improving page experience to a maximum level.
Time to remove unnecessary popups and interstitial on the website.
While I've spoken about the importance of overall page speed, now Google has made it more specific with Page Experience becoming a ranking factor.
Therefore you need to keep your Core Web Vitals in check:
Measure your website performance on Google PageSpeed Insights.
Hire a developer if you aren't experienced with working on improving page experience.
Final Words
I hope you would have got an idea of how to maintain a website that's should break all the barriers in the future and stand as an authority in your niche.
Remember that by focusing one some of the simple factors like page speed, layout, and other on-page factors along with good content you showcase the reason why your website should rank on the top of SERP.
Blackhat techniques that were working well years ago don't work anymore. Follow proper SEO techniques to stay safer from Google updates.
So it goes as follows good user experience, faster pages, authority built naturally, connections, social media exposure. Do it and see your website organic traffic grow.
Related Articles you might like:Note: This Guide to protect your website from Google Algorithm Updates was contributed by Tamil Arasan. If you have a useful guide to contribute, then check our Guest Blogging Guidelines.
