Your SEO Strategy is.
SEO is a stressful industry. Updates happen all the time. In 2020, they made 4,500 changes to search. Most of the time, you don’t even notice them. Sometimes you’ll see a minor fluctuation. And a few times, you’ll see major shifts in the keyword landscape.
And that’s usually when the Tweets start to fly.
SEOs clamor to see what’s happening as everyone monitors the SERPs to see if they can identify the change. It’s great water cooler talk.
But mostly, it’s a waste of time.
Focusing On Google Updates Misses The Point
Google is a platform. It needs users to generate ad revenue to function as a business. In 2021, Google generated over $209 Billion from ads.
If search sucks, people won’t use it. Fewer users mean fewer ads. And that means less revenue.
That’s why it’s best to view Google as a platform that often updates to keep users engaged.
Search engines exist to bring people the best information quickly.
That’s it.
Google explicitly states this. And other search engines have similar focuses. After all, if you don’t focus on your users, you won’t stay in business for long.
If the update is supposed to improve the platform and negatively impact your site, then the real problem is something on your site. (More on this in a moment.)
Why Content Doesn’t Rank
Take a step back and think of Google like you would your business.
You make money off people using your platform. Right? So, you want the best experience for them.
People want information quickly. And they will keep using your platform as long as you meet those standards.
But, the internet is full of junk.
This junk pisses your users off. Pissed-off users find other products. Losing users means losing profit.
This means you’re going to do everything you can to bury the junk and make sure it says buried.Now, this is really easy when your company is essentially a trillion-dollar shovel, and Page 2 of the SERPs is an unfathomably large landfill.
Shifts in the SERPs are nothing more than Google using the shovel to bury results that may negatively impact user experience on the platform. At the same time, it wants to prioritize great content from trustworthy sites. And those updates try to move these results up.
If your content drops after an update, it’s likely that competing content does a better job of serving the user. That’s it.
Unfortunately, it’s scary and frustrating to manage negative fallout from a core update.
Ranking on Google isn’t exactly fast for most businesses. When ratings drop, this can leave you scrambling to find causes and solutions. Especially when revenue is on the line…
Luckily, it’s pretty easy to see why your site loses rank.
4 Reasons Why Traffic Drops After an Update
Let’s paint a familiar scenario.
Your traffic has been on the up and up for a while. You log into GA with your cup of coffee to start your day. And the first client you pull up makes your stomach turn.
“What in the keyword fluctuations is going on!?” You exclaim.
(Sure. That’s a real phrase.)
Google has made an update. And for some reason, your traffic has gone upside-down.
What’s going on?
There are four main reasons your traffic drops after a Google algorithm update.
1. Your Website Provides a Subpar Experience
Site speed is a critical ranking factor.
You need to have a fast site. It may be possible to row a boat across the Atlantic, but few people have the patience. No one will wait 10, 20, or 30 seconds for your website to load.
Nothing and no one is that important.
Beyond site speed, your website may not provide the best experience for users. Frustrating UX, too many CTAs, pop-ups, confusing navigation, and other issues can drive users to bounce.
Whether or not bounce rate is a ranking factor isn’t important. It can still negatively impact your site.
Pissed-off users don’t link to your content.
They don’t share it.
They don’t talk about it.
They don’t Tweet it.
On the other hand, your competitors’ content continues to climb in rank and get the engagement it needs to stay there. People are reading it, sharing it, talking about it.
Most importantly, your competitors build trust with their audience while your content remains buried. This puts you at the disadvantage.
2. Your Content Sucks
Most content sucks.
Literally.
Ahrefs did a study and found that over 90% of does not get traffic. 9 out of 10 blogs go unread. This aligns with Sturgeon’s Law that “90% of everything is crap.”
SEOs are trained to find the red flags:
- Thin content
- Duplicate content
- Unoptimized content
- Mounds of technical errors
- Minimal backlinks
As a result, most SEOs find the pages that need work and build a content calendar for improvements.
After, they hand it off to a writer. And 9 times out of 10, that writer is not an expert in the field. They may have varying degrees of experience with content creation. But more often than not, they’re not niche experts.
These writers carry out research to learn about a topic and create something that’s “better” than what’s out there. (Hopefully.)
There’s nothing wrong with this approach.
As long as you don’t stop there.
The next step is to have an expert edit the content and provide unique insights. This can be from leadership, the sales team, developers, etc.
Without that niche insight, the content is at risk. While it’s possible to rank content without being a direct expert, the more competitive the niche, the harder that is.
Sooner or later, someone will drop expert-level tips into a piece, and an update will shake things up.
And that will leave you scrambling to increase traffic to your site.
3. Your SEO Strategy Is Off
I will never forget my biggest failure with SEO. I had a client with a lot of traffic and many old posts that were not optimized.
I built out the strategy and focused on updating the older posts first. Add internal links, improve external links, make the content skimmable, flesh out the topics, you know the drill.
We were three months into the strategy when the site traffic started to decline across the site.
And it took months of testing and analyzing competitor trends to realize the problem: the client wasn’t qualified as an authority on the topic. They were in a related niche but not the preferred source of information.
The client had published posts in a sensitive niche for years without any issue. With Covid, authority mattered a lot more. All it took was an update for their traffic to drop dramatically.
No amount of optimizing or backlinks to top posts could turn that drop around. And the time spent trying to “fix it” was a waste.
Always make sure that your strategy aligns with your client’s business goals. It’s not about ranking for keyword opportunities. It’s about ensuring your client is ready with an answer when prospects visit AND that they’re qualified to respond.
4. Dated Backlink Practices
Backlinks are an essential ranking factor. And they’re extremely hard to get. Outreach is a beast to master. Businesses also realize there’s money in selling links, adding to the difficulty.
Google does not want businesses trying to manipulate its results. As a result, they’re constantly searching for ways to minimize link schemes.
While they don’t manually penalize businesses as often these days, they quietly ignore previously strong signals.For example, getting Wikipedia and scholarship links was huge back in the day. And getting a backlink from sites like Huffington Post or Forbes was the dream.
Flashforward several years later, and those link schemes don’t provide a huge lift. If your business was built on them, you probably felt the pull of a sudden traffic drop over the years.
This is why it’s often better to invest in publicity (PR) instead of direct link building. Creating a buzz around your brand tends to drive better results in the long run.
Don’t Use Google Updates as a Crutch
Many SEOs jump the gun.
They see a drop in traffic and immediately rush to Twitter, asking if there’s been a Core Update. Don’t fall into this pattern.
This “Chicken Little” approach to SEO will damage trust and weaken your clients’ faith in you.
While you may correctly call an update occasionally, it won’t change the fact that your client’s website is upside down, and you need to figure out how to get them back on track.
What to Do If Your Traffic Drops After a Google Update
Google updates that negatively impact your business are a wake-up call. If you’re caught on the bad end of a site update, you need to do three things:
- Notify the client immediately of the traffic drop: Tell them you’re looking into it. But, you don’t want to rush in and make changes until you have a clear picture.
- Identify the reason for the traffic drop: Evaluate your content, links, and website. And be honest in your analysis. If competitors are doing it better, you need to admit it.
- Redesign your strategy: Based on your findings, figure out what you need to improve to get back on track.
As an SEO, you know a solid website when you see one. You should also know great content and recognize authoritative websites.
Ask yourself if you’ve been providing the assets your client needs to stand out against competitors.
Or, could you do better? (Not longer. Better.)
Can you provide more detailed and digestible information?
To get our clients back on track, we reevaluated their business niche and designed a content strategy that answered questions more aligned with their business and expertise. We also deleted some older content not aligned with their qualified expertise.
It went against what had worked for them over the years. But, it was what was best for their prospective customers and business.
That made the difference.
Why You Shouldn’t Obsess Over Algorithm Updates
I’m just as guilty as any SEO of spending too much time feeling like a victim during a Google algorithm update. No more so than in May of 2020.
With the pandemic and budgets tightening, traffic drops meant potentially losing a client at a time when finding a new one seemed nearly impossible.
And as markets become more unpredictable and client churn seems higher than ever, updates can be extremely stressful.
But, you need a different approach.
Instead of focusing too heavily on each new update, focus on what your clients need. Your goal should be to support your client’s sales channels using SEO. The content you create should answer prospects’ questions, concerns, and objections. And it should provide unique business insights into those challenges.
While it’s important to stay up-to-date on Google updates, helping your client serve their customers is always the main focus.
Instead of figuring out what the algorithm impacted, spend time figuring out how to build a better service for your clients. That’s time well spent.
