Everything To Know About the 1st August 2018 Google Algorithm Update

Over a billion people use Google’s search engine regularly, and getting to the top of their SERPs is the goal of nearly every site out there. Since its creation, both Google and digital marketing specialists alike have tried to make the algorithm work for them. Google wants to show its users the most authoritative sites that do more than just match keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. searches. As such, it rolls out updates to better their SERP rankings. These updates are not advertised beforehand, nor are they explicitly explained to the SEO industry. So, what do we know about the update?

Google’s New Algorithm: Medic Update
What we know is that Google released an update to its core algorithm on 1 August 2018. This update has since been colloquially referred to as the “medic update” as it primarily seems to have affected websites that fall within the medical niche. In fact, of those sites affected, an incredible 41.5% have been health-related, while only 16% were e-commerce related and 10.8% business related. All other niches have experienced a relatively minimal impact, though you will likely have experienced some keyword fluctuation following the update. This does not mean that your current SEO strategy is now blacklisted, or that you have done anything wrong. It simply means that some of your competitors have been focusing and prioritising building trust and authority faster than you have.

What Medic Update is Looking For

Though we do not know the explicit changes that have been rolled out in the latest update, quick analysis and deduction from the SEO industry have deduced that what Google is now looking for is trust and authority. This means that quality and content on your site are more important than ever, and customer reviews are now being included in ranking factors.

How to Build Trust and Authority

Trust and authority can be obtained by producing and posting content that is seen as industry leading. In other words, post articles that are informative and/or useful to your users. The more industry or niche specific, the better you will rank in your given field. Other ways that you can build trust and authority outside of your content strategy include:

1. Include surface or through linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages. to the content you create from service pages or landing pages. Doing so will indicate to Google that your content is authoritative and relevant, thus improving your domain authority on a certain topic.
2. Build trust through customer reviews and ensure that these reviews are present on your target landing pages. You should then include a schema markup so that Google’s algorithm bots can pick up and understand both the content on your pages as well as the reviews. These external reviews will then improve your authority and ranking.

What Are We Doing For You?

The first thing to remember that, though frustrating, Google’s algorithm updates are not a bad thing. They are simply trying to provide a better quality search for their users, meaning that more trust and more traffic will go to those who rank at the top. To help you improve your ranking and continue to succeed after every update, we will analyse how the update has impacted our clients and work on a specific strategy to improve your ranking on Google’s SERPs.

From what we at Click Intelligence have seen, some of our clients have experienced significant keyword fluctuations as Google’s algorithm bots have crawled through sites. These fluctuations further seemed to occur for sites ranking 20 or higher. Fluctuations are normal after an update, and they are useful in determining what Google’s new algorithm update is looking for. In this case, Google seems to be looking for more content relevancy. That is why we are having keyword mapping and content updates done for all of our clients who have experienced a keyword ranking fluctuation since the implementation of the Medic Update.

The Takeaways

Google will roll out new updates to their algorithm, and we will work on improving your SEO strategy so that these updates work for you. Their newest colloquially referred to as the “medic update” seems to be looking for websites to have a high trust authority. We will be building your trust authority by:

1. Creating custom content and informative articles for you that are useful to your users. These will come in the form of guides and how-to articles within your niche.
2. We will add links to this content through service or target landing pages.
3. Further build trust through customer reviews that are viewable on service/target landing pages. We will then ensure that your customer reviews are properly marked up with a schema so that Google’s algorithm can pick it up.

Conclusion

To improve your domain authority and trust, you need to produce better and more compelling content related to your business or niche. Not only can a great content strategy improve SERP rankings, but it can also help increase the organic engagement and shares on your content and site. We will work with you to produce great content that is relevant to your demographic. We will create an audience persona, create a list of topics, and create various types of content to improve your authority and value to your readers and customers. We then combine this prep work with a keyword strategy and optimising each post for SEO. Do this, and your trust, engagement, and domain authority will improve. The better your site’s content and engagement, the better it will rank with this new update.