What The Google May Core Update Means For Your SEO

The digital marketing industry tends to hold its breath in anticipation of the next Google Core Update.  These are interesting times, however, and last month, Google decided to release the latest update on May 4th.

These updates can have huge consequences for your search engine rankings and traffic.  Some updates have more effect than others, but because Google tends to keep its cards close to its chest in terms of the content of the update, you never really know how it’s all going to pan out until it the update hits.  

Why Does Google Produce Core Updates? 

A few times a year, Google makes some changes to the algorithms it uses.  This is to improve that way that it ranks and presents relevant and authoritative content. Some updates have very little effect on search rankings, others are more substantial. It was only after a few days, that the ripple effect is felt through the search rankings.  If your business is dependent on good SERPS, then you really need a specialist SEO company to help you navigate the updates.   Specialists like Riordan SEO will be able to put a strategy in place to recover your rankings.  

Who Was Affected? 

They May 2020 update has caused a high degree of volatility in SERPS than many previous ones with certain industries affected more than others. This time, the travel, health, pets and real estate have seen the greatest hit, something that has now been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.  

Not everyone experienced a downshift in their SERPS.  Unsurprisingly, the news sector has made major gains, due to both the update and the coronavirus pandemic 

What To Do If Your Rankings Have Fallen

Now that the fallout from the update has had time to even out, it’s easier to see the effects.  Keep in mind that the world, in general, has undergone a huge shift due to various aspects of lockdown, so it will be difficult to tell just how much of the dip is due to this.

If you’re not already on top of your SEO, now’s the time get on it. Don’t be tempted to use black hat tactics touted by some companies.  They generally don’t work, and if they do, it will only be for a short amount of time until Google penalises your site and does even more damage to your business. 

The best thing that you can do is make sure that your site is sound from a technical SEO perspective and concentrate on creating well researched, optimized and quality content.  Authoritative content that really serves the needs of searchers will put you in a far stronger position to ride out any future updates. 

Monitor Your Rankings

Take the guesswork out of rankings by keeping track of them.  There are a number of tools that you can use to do this including Semrush – which will monitor your rankings and send you an alert if they dip below a certain threshold. You can also use a site audit tool to check for any basic, technical errors that might be affecting your ratings.