In a sweeping slash of its sword, Google completed a major update of its new search engine protocol. The move was detrimental to tons of webmasters that depended on organic traffic. Suddenly their traffic plummeted forcing job cuts, site closures, and web-wide panic. Is there a way to recover from the new Google SEO fallout?
Firstly, you may wonder why call it an SEO fallout. Is Google turning its back on optimization? If so, how many of these optimization apps will flop? How will small webmasters survive? Is it the end of blogging?
According to a report by the BBC, Google’s update was aimed at cleaning up the web. After many smart software found ways to bypass its bot, Google loaded tons of inappropriate answers. And no one can really deny this.
A Swipe at SEO, a Hand to Users
The BBC report pointed out that most articles that served as great food for meta bots, were in no way digestible to humans. Incidentally, it also shared links to several popular sites that went from thousands of daily visits to less than hundreds.
“The second Google algorithm update came in March, and it was even more punishing. HouseFresh’s thousands of daily visitors dwindled to just hundreds. “We just got absolutely crushed,” Navarro says. Over the last few weeks, HouseFresh had to lay off most of its team. If nothing changes, she says, the website is doomed.” The BBC reported.
Reviewing some of these companies’ websites proved that Google was right.
One of the sites that provided unique cleaning formulas, was difficult to read and had two paragraphs per page. Human readers do not want this. The search giant’s management wanted to ensure you enjoyed your search and content.
Another website, that eventually fired 14 of its 18 staff writers, created special pages for the search engines. These pages met all of the conditions laid out by Google. However, once the user clicked for more information, it led to unoptimized pages.
Surprisingly, none of these pages had sentences with less than fifty words. Thus, the ideas are completely lost when the reader gets to the middle. Unreadable.
Moving Forward – Google Deals and Winners
One of the key points listed in the BBC article was the success of Reddit. The article cited a deal between Google and the forum giant. Other forums like Quora, were also among the big winners. The article has sparked a forum rebirth.
Recently, as seen on Digital Point Forum, users are rapidly hiring permanent Reddit forum posters. Meanwhile, others are scrambling to create forums alongside their blogs. One blogger hired me to install a forum and promote it immediately.
Unfortunately, this is not what Google is after. The objective is to get more accurate responses to search queries. By focusing on higher readability, the search giant can now be assured that the content is related to its meta tags.
Finally, you can employ these three key features to improve your readability.
- Be concise: Write with short sentences and paragraphs. Keep your sentences to less than 20 words and use only 3 – 4 in each paragraph.
- Keep an active conversation: Most writers tend to advertise or sell at each opportunity. This can turn readers away. Instead, let them perform the action. Most writers call it the active voice.
- Read your article aloud: If you do not like how it sounds, do not publish. Tying your sentences together will improve your fletch score. Try using transition words like in addition, according to, however, etc.
Practicing good SEO should never abandon the human reader. Google is here to defend that and if you do not improve, you will stay out.
