Core Update Findings: What Does Google Want?

It's no mistake that many sites have been hit badly by the latest core algorithm update.

After spending days monitoring the sites I manage and talking to experts in the field, I do think there some pretty interesting patterns here.

💡 Subscribe here to weekly Marketing Shots and follow me for more Nick Malekos.

➤ What you will read:

🗝 Authority Sites & Brand

🗝 Underoptimization & Lower Text

🗝 Freshness factor

🗝 UGC

🗝 Proximity

🗝 Links Value

🗝 How to solve this puzzle

Authority Sites Dominating

Highly authoritative sites are dominating the SERPs.

For example, in the SaaS niche, Zapier, PCmag, & Forbes are dominating almost all BOFU queries and many money-pages.

Any topic that they have content on, they are on top.

There are multiple factors influencing authority, but the main one is more highly authoritative links to the site.

My hypothesis however, is that Google uses brand searches in some way to approximate a site-wide authority signal.

Read my post on it:

Underoptimization

It seems like Google is trying to fight overoptimized content towards SEO. Which means lots of content that was written with the intention of ranking high without much "teeth" or a unique approach is being dowgraded.

Some patterns I noticed here is that Google looks for:

• Less text
• Unique view
• Higher authority
• Speed to Value

Many SERPs look like the following, highly authoritative sites on top, followed by thinner (less text) content:

Speed to Value

I do think Google is moving away from longer text which it favoured over the past ~5 years and towards less text, that gives the information faster to the users.

This might be connected to:

• Spending less in servers for crawling (conserving their budgets)
• Easier to train their algorithms (and cheaper) for AI
• That's what they "think" users want (which might be true)

UGC is Up

Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn spam and forum results are not a fluke. Google is trying to surface user content since the Hidden Gems update.

Quora & Reddit were very well placed to do so.

LinkedIn took the opportunity with auto-generated articles.

G2, Capterra, and other review sites were there naturally.

How to work with it?

• Showing up in those directories
• Getting involved in Quora & Reddit comments
• Parasite SEO on LinkedIn

Proximity to the Solution

Another thing I noticed (empirically), is that many results tend to favour close-proximity software.

"What is this?", you ask...

If you search for alternatives, you end up getting a result from the top competitors in the space.

This is probably related to the knowledge graph. Sites mentioning the competitors together, SCHEMA, messaging on the site, etc.

As well as some good authority.

If you search for the "Best Circle Alternative", you probably look for a dedicated membership software like Mighty Networks over something more holistic like LearnWorlds.

Google is trying to serve you directly the solution over the affiliate site mentioning all the results.

Bonus: Links matter Less

And, we got Gary Illyes mentioning that links matter less in Bulgarias SEO conference a few days ago.

That does not mean you should not do links, but you should be focusing on higher quality links.

Read my full post on it:

Solutions

Few things can be really done.

Google has "killed" many popular monetization tactics, and you need to stop using SEO as a money-channel, but rather than a discovery channel and nurture your audience to sales.

Which means:

• Finding untapped topics

Look for higher funnel topics. Bring less ready to convert traffic and work to convert them to clients.

• Focusing on solutions content (JTBD)

Big sites like Forbes and Zapier will not go down the path to covering all your industry keywords. They will focus only on the BOFU money makers.

So, you need to get creating content they have no incentive to write, but your users will love.

Focus on creating a decent content marketing strategy instead of focusing only on SEO.

• Buildings a brand (design, social, newsletter)

You got tired of listening to building a brand....

...And, that's why you got scaling issues.

You can "growth-hack" your way to growth in the first few million $ARR, but without a brand you won't be able to reach the next level of growth.

And, when you get to the scale-up level, you already need brand.

The actions you "skipped' as non-measurable, marketing-BS, come back to bite. People know you as a consumable they found in an ad and not by heart, by name, and do not connect you to a specific result.

How to build a brand?

Stick to a design style/colour for 5 years, keep repeating your core message until you get bored of it ... and keep repeating it, operate a newsletter, post on social (as a company or personal brand).

Repetition is important.

But, control of your message and the emotion it promotes is how you build the brand.

Struggling with the Latest Update?

✉ Send me a personal message, and let's have a chat about it. 💭