In the world of online marketing, it is always important to stay ahead of the game, especially when it comes to changes to Google’s search algorithm. Each year, Google changes its search algorithm up to 500-600 times. While most of these changes are minor, once in a while Google rolls out a major change that can significantly affect your search results.
The most recent change to the algorithm has been geared to punish websites with excessive “above the fold” advertising, sites that stack the top of the page with nothing but advertisements. According to Google, the changes are to encourage websites to be more user-friendly, stating that “rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see that content right away.” This could result in Google dropping any ad-heavy sites from its search results.
Although Google states that this change will only affect about one in 100 searches, with only the sites deemed to “go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree,” it is still vitally important to consider how these changes could affect your SEO campaign.
The main thing that jumps out with these changes in mind is that banner advertising, although it may still be of some SEO benefit, it may not be as useful to your campaign as it once was and will definitely mean that you will have to be much more selective with which sites you choose to advertise on. The changes will definitely lead to much more creative approaches to an SEO campaign, and creating interesting and original content that can be promoted by other sites, also ensuring your own website is constantly updated with fresh content, although this was important before will now be even more crucial. This will be important if you are to effectively drive traffic to your site. I wouldn’t heavily rely on banner ads or put any focus on acquiring links Google could deem as irrelevant to the site user, as theses will have less and less effect on your campaign.
If we have learned anything from this latest update from Google, it’s that it is now, more than ever, extremely important to keep up with the algorithm changes and adjust your SEO campaign accordingly.
What are your thoughts? – @gary_greenall