How 3 Simple Google Updates Made The World Go Crazy

(PLUS – How to rank higher in Google faster, safer, and easier with 8 DIY steps to follow)

It's a common misconception for new website owners to believe in the "build it and they will come" strategy.

It's DEAD WRONG.

And let me tell you why.

Let's imagine that you've just written a fresh article, and you've published it on your blog.

A common assumption is that it'll appear on Google right away.

But that's simply not true.

People have no way of seeing your article.

And if you don't follow the exact steps I'm going to show you in this article, they never will.

Even if your goal is to distribute your article with paid ads only, why turn down 100,000s of free views?

It’s nonsensical if you’re NOT capitalising on free traffic 24 hours a day.

Yet this is what so many businesses are doing.

To truly understand how to do this, we're going to dig into a brief history of three major Google updates.

What is Google?

Google is a library. It contains the world’s largest database of websites.

They use complex algorithms to search and retrieve results from its database, per your request, for free.

But you already know this.

What makes Google incredible is that it has over 100 different rank signals that deliver information that’s relevant to YOU.

It’s the reason why you don’t see the same search results as someone else who lives on the other side of the planet – even if they used the same query as you.

Over the years, Google has launched significant updates that have affected the way websites are ranked.

Understanding this is especially important if you want to rank on the first page of Google for your keywords.

I’ve listed just a few updates to help you understand how search has evolved. These updates truly shook the world and made every SEO guru fearful of each new update.

The Panda Update (2011)

Commonly thought to be named after the animal, this update was actually named after one of Google’s engineers.

The Panda update was introduced to remove low-quality pages from Google’s index.

Low-quality pages are pages that deliberately stuff keywords in the site’s content, to rank higher in Google.

People who had low-quality pages did this intentionally to get a higher ranking and generate income from ads.

RESULT: Google penalise and remove websites that have forced keywords (high keyword density), and inorganic content. Website owners are forced to write organic content on their website that’s aimed at improving the user experience.

The Penguin Update (2012)

Google believes in fairness and equality.

Therefore, when someone recommends your website by sharing the link, Google rewards you by ranking your site higher in the search results.

But like all things, people exploited this. They created what is known as “Link Farms”, for the sole purpose of buying and selling link recommendations.

People would buy links from link farms in an attempt to improve their own page rankings.

Google cracked down on this, and thus removed a tonne of websites from its index – and continually do so year after year.

RESULT: website owners are forced to create quality content that people find valuable, otherwise Panda and Penguin will find them, and hunt them down, eventually.

The Hummingbird Update (2013)

Hummingbird brought about the use of long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords allowed users to be ultra-specific about what they were searching for.

For example, in the past, if you were to type in “raspberry and vanilla cake recipe”, Google would only pick up the keywords “cake” + “recipe”.

Thus, your search would have been translated to “cake recipe”. Not exactly what you had in mind, right?

With Hummingbird, that changed. You get the idea...

RESULT: website owners had to alter their metadata to reflect this change – inserting more long-tail keywords and removing vague or loose keywords.

Why did you need to know all this?

Well, just like the Karata Kid, it helps to know the core fundamentals first – wax on, wax off.

There are two main SEO categories that affect any website.

The first is on-page SEO. This means the internal website information that feeds into a search engine.

This can be data such as the page title, page description, keywords, content, images and more.

The second is called off-page SEO. This is any external factors such as the link recommendations we discussed earlier (regarding link farms).

Pretty straight forward, right?

I’m not going to explore SEO in-depth, but hopefully, this helped you understand the process a little better.

There are many things I didn’t mention, such as localised and Global SEO, but that would require taking relevant SEO courses.

Now, as I said earlier, you’re at that stage of just publishing an article (or website page).

The very first recommendation I would consider is hiring a professional SEO team to index this article properly and optimise it for on-page and off-page.

It can take anywhere between 72 hours to 6 months for your new article to appear on Google search.

Remember, this is dependent on over 100 different ranking signals. So instead of learning this all by yourself, it’s easier to get the pros to handle it, while you run your business.

I’m not going to leave you high and dry with just that.

I've created a simple, 8-step process you can follow to get your website on Google faster, and ranked higher:

Step 1: Meta Title

Optimise your meta title. Include one major relevant keyword. Be descriptive as possible to explain what the page entails. 60 Characters Maximum.

Step 2: Meta Description

Include an organic description of the article (or web page), with 1-3 relevant keywords. 170 Characters Maximum. Try not to force inject too many keywords.

Google is smart enough to detect if you're deliberately trying to stuff keywords into your web page.

Step 3: Meta Keywords (may be redundant)

Google has recently placed less emphasis on Meta Keywords. But, if you can access the page's meta keywords, it doesn't hurt to optimise this.

Include no more than 10 short and long-tail keywords related to your blog post.

Step 4: Internal Links

Ensure your new article is referenced within your website somewhere relevant. Preferably from another blog post that’s on the same subject. This allows search engines to connect patterns of relevancy.

Step 5: Index Your Article (or web page) with Google

You need to manually request for Google to index your article if you want it displayed on the search results faster.

To do this, search for “Google Search Console”. If you haven’t already registered your website, you’ll need to index your entire site.

Each time you publish a new article on your blog, come back here and index the URL within the Google Search Console.

Step 6: Post On Social Media

Share your article across your social media to people who are looking for this type of content (using relevant hashtags depending on the platform).

Step 7: Email influencers

Have a think about people in your industry who would find this article useful.

It’s great to email influencers who have shared a similar article in the past. You can do this by using BuzzSumo.com.

But make sure there’s an incentive. Not everyone is willing to do something for free.

Step 8: Email Colleagues

If you’ve got friends or acquaintances who have a burning problem that your article solves, share it with them.

But remember, don’t bombard people with your article just because you know them. You should do research first to see whether they have the problem that your article solves.

No one likes being spammed.

THERE YOU HAVE IT!

You've learned the 3 major Google updates that shocked the world into chaos. Plus, you've also received an 8-step checklist to DIY your SEO.

If you received any value from this article, comment below, and share with any friends who may find it useful.

Until next time.