See Your Search Score Surge With Our SEO Checklist
Google announced a core algorithm update on September 24. It's important to understand what core updates mean because the search engine will rarely provide details on what specific changes were made to its search algorithm. Usually, the takeaways are related to white hat SEO methods, which takes a human-like approach to search results by prioritizing relevancy and user experience above everything else. With each update, Google echos the advice we give to the creators who produce successful content on our CMS platform every day.
Click here to read Google's statement on their process for releasing core updates. For the September 2019 core update, it could be days or weeks before you notice a difference in your search traffic. In the meantime, here's how you can be prepared and benefit from this update.
Emphasis on E-A-T
Similar to a white hat SEO strategy, E-A-T stands for expertise, authority, and trust. This has nothing to do with algorithms, but rather a human evaluation of whether or not your content should be trusted. Routinely ask yourself, is your content relevant, informative, and beneficial to readers searching for your designated keywords? Is it better than the links that are currently winning the phrases you want? Read more about this methodology here.
Your E-A-T Checklist
Trying to pinpoint if your content has an emphasis on E-A-T can be abstract. However, there are some simple things you can do to make sure your content is optimized correctly:
Improve "About" Content: First, improve author profiles and bios. Sites that feature trusted people with detailed, impressive bios on the topics your content is about will improve trust. Also, make sure those profiles are easy to navigate to on site.
Next, review all of your "About Us" pages. Edit them as if the audience is a human reviewer at Google tasked with giving you a trust and expertise score. Are you making the right case for your content?
Review Your Ads: Review your current ad delivery. If your site features too many intrusive or irritating ads, then you'll lose trust in the eyes of Google. Remember, the search engine is hyper-focused on user experience. Ads can be the number one way to tank a site's user experience.
Link to High-Performing Content: Focus on your content that has already performed well, and this doesn't always mean internal links. Linking to trustworthy articles that are already winning your desired key phrase can demonstrate to Google that you deserve a seat at the page one table. On RebelMouse, you can add these links right from our Entry Editor.
Send Regular, Thoughtful Emails: Next on the E-A-T checklist is to tighten up your email strategy. Newsletter alerts on important content can help build influencer links that are valuable and spread across the digital ecosystem quickly. Plus, it offers people the opportunity to sign up for breaking and important news in the future. This kind of engagement will help build your case for relevancy to Google.
Write With Relevancy: It's important to post on subjects that your authors are truly qualified to write about. For example, don't publish an article with medical advice that isn't written by a medical professional. Focus on topics that are on message with your brand's special expertise. Also, avoid obvious rewrites or risk penalty from Google.
Use Particles, Media, and Images: Google looks for standout articles that took a lot of time, care, and love to produce. Creating articles that are full of dynamic media, including user-generated content, slideshows, multi-column layouts, and more, will tip off Google that it's crawling a carefully written post. It's true that quality content matters the most, but the presentation is also important, too. Multidimensional media is a vital way to improve any article's visual score. Be sure to use RebelMouse's Particle Assembler and Add Media Bar for inspiration.
Review Third-Party Calls: Using a lot of third-party calls across your site will lower your PageSpeed Insights score and significantly reduce your trust with Google. Try to use only what you need. Review your Google Tag Manager account to make sure that your code is clean. If possible, expire JavaScript vendors that aren't performing, and instead just add the code to your website. Third-party vendors will slow down your site significantly, which is a fatal blow to your search ranking. Click here to learn more about how Google measures page speed. Fixing these issues is the quickest way to improve your SEO efforts.
Improve Your Search Strategy With RebelMouse
RebelMouse has proprietary SEO technology that quickly propels our clients to Google's page one with every publish. Thanks to the scale of our platform, we have access to large sets of data which help us monitor and identify algorithm updates before they happen. Usually, the sites we power are well prepared for Google's core updates and see a surge in search traffic.
Request a proposal today and let's start working together. If you're already on a site powered by RebelMouse, email support@rebelmouse.com or contact your account manager today to learn more about how to thrive during this core update.
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