Google’s core update: Should you be nervous?

Fay Roe

The holidays have been and gone, and you are now slipping back into the familiar routine of work. You’ve made your New Year’s digital marketing resolutions. You are energised, goal-focused and raring to lay the foundations to make 2020 a great year of business success. And then Google releases an algorithm update. And it’s a big one.

The global rollout of Google’s core update started on the 13th January 2020. All regions and languages have been affected, although it may take a couple of weeks for its impact to be felt.

Google tends to provide guidance with its updates, but this time the search engine giant points webmasters, web developers and SEO agencies to this article. Take a read.

This update is not a stick to beat you with, rather it’s a stick to prod you towards excellence; encouraging you to publish content that searchers want to consume – trustworthy, informative, and unique – which, if you take notice of the article’s message, will help you to increase website traffic and boost your sales.

Google use this analogy to describe their January 2020 update:

“Imagine you made a list of the top 100 movies in 2015. A few years later you refresh the list. It’s going to naturally change. Some new and wonderful movies that never existed before will now be candidates for inclusion. You might also reassess some films and realise that they deserved a higher place on the list than they had before.”

How will the latest Google core update affect my website?

You may have experienced unexpected but significant fluctuations to your website’s ranking position and traffic. This is a two-way street; some of you may experience a drop in position on the search engine results pages, but others may rise – yes, this update can benefit your business!

Keep an eye on how your website is performing. If you are unsure about how to analyse the figures, get in touch. Digital Presence translates the jargon and metrics of the dashboard into an actionable online marketing campaign to increase web traffic and selectively target customers .

My ranking position has dropped. What can I do?

Regardless of the latest update, Google continuously looks for other signals to rank websites. It looks for technical SEO expertise in the web design; how responsive your site is to the different devices that are used to access it and its speed. Google are not going to direct their searchers to websites that don’t deliver the goods.

Digital Presence will evaluate where your site is at now and, using enhanced content and algorithm-busting SEO , develop a brand enhancing digital marketing strategy to protect, restore and improve your website’s visibility.

You don’t have to fear a Google update. See it as an opportunity to streamline how you represent your business online.

Digital Presence is a Christchurch SEO and digital marketing agency; we help businesses succeed online. If you have any questions or wish to hear how we can boost your business growth, call us on 0274 278047 or drop us a line at hello@digitalpresence.co.nz to learn more.

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