How Can SEO Make Your Website Resilient to Google Updates?

 

In our current digital age, the market share and reputational growth of websites operating on a national or international level are linked to their ability to adapt to market modifications and respond to search engine algorithm updates. Does your company have to compete with products or services offered by businesses with loyal user bases? In that case, you will need to invest in SEO measures that will keep your organization stable even after core algorithm modifications. How can SEO help? For one thing, search engine optimization is a set of techniques designed to modify technical and content parameters that can influence the experience of target audiences on your site's pages.

In other words, in SEO, there is no such thing as advertising; there are only measures that can organically improve the elements contributing to SERPs' visibility. The algorithms used by search engine crawlers are designed to identify qualitative and informative content that is relevant to the interests of target audiences. SEO helps by improving the readability of texts, identifying the keywords used by target demographics, and enhancing the backend technical elements that can influence page speed or indexability for search engine algorithms.

Search engine optimization can improve your pages' authority score, make your site more adaptable to broad core modifications, and improve the UX elements that affect target audiences' interactions with the offered products or services. SEO is the most cost-effective digital marketing tool available to companies active on a national or international level; it involves continuous monitoring of analytical data that can be used to modify the strategies implemented and is by far the most straightforward method by which you can measure the effects of an unexpected Google update.

What Are the Most Significant Recent Google Updates?

The current algorithm system used by Google can trace its roots back to the Panda update of 2011, which targeted the usage of low-quality content farms and penalized companies that used duplicate content or spammy link-building strategies. The 2011 Panda update was influential because it represented a shift in the way Google interprets the quality of websites and introduced a new machine learning algorithm that today is integrated into the broader ranking one used to assess the quality of indexable content. One year later, Google introduced the Penguin update, which promoted organic link profiles and focused on reducing unsustainable link-building practices.

2015 was marked by the introduction of the RankBrain machine learning algorithm, used to interpret ambiguous indexable content, and by the deployment of a mobile-friendly update, which was also the beginning of the Mobile-first indexing approach, finalized by Google just a couple of months ago. Another major update happened in 2018, with the launch of the BERT deep learning model, and in 2021, with the June Page Experience Update, which expanded the importance of Core Web Vitals for SERP rankings.

As for a more recent algorithm update, the August 2023 core update focused on improving search relevancy, the November 2023 update targeted unsearchable content on page level, and the latest March 2024 update introduced new signals for evaluating the usefulness of content, addressed the growing problem of websites utilizing AI for the creation of articles, and achieved a 40% reduction in low-quality content indexation. Each update changed the way Google's algorithm works and ultimately contributed to a better experience for end-users.

What Factors Can Influence Search Rankings?

First, the online visibility of your pages can be influenced by the quality of the indexable content present on your website. Search engine algorithms prioritize quality over quantity. Therefore, creating technically optimized articles that comply with the E-E-A-T guidelines is one of the most straightforward ways to increase SERP rankings and make your business more resilient to Google updates. Second, your website's ranking will be influenced by the technical elements that contribute to the overall experience of your site visitors and your page's backlink profile.

Does your site get hyperlinks from domains considered to be top priorities in their sector? Then, the search engine crawlers will most likely deem that you post qualitative content that deserves a push in the SERPs. In recent years, the importance of backlink profiles has been modified by algorithm changes, and the penalties for low-quality backlinks have been tightened. Therefore, the link-building strategy you use must be designed and implemented by an SEO technician with experience in the field.

Not least, your site's search ranking will be influenced by the incidence of long-tail keywords in the content strategy used, as well as by changes to the backend structure of your site. The latter are particularly important, as they will impact the UX of your pages and are the only way you can respect the Core Web Vitals. The SEO expert you call will analyze the structure and crawlability of your pages, boost Featured Snippets generation by introducing schema markup in the HTML code, and create robots.txt files and XML sitemaps for crawlability improvements.

How Does Content Protect Against Algorithm Changes?

The latest Google updates that have significantly impacted the SEO market have focused on changes to the indexing of sites using scammy link practices and low-quality AI-generated texts in their content creation strategies. In other words, the focus of the algorithm changes was on quality and on improving the SERP score of sites using human authors, organic link connections with relevant sites, and that comply with the E-E-A-T guidelines.

Content that takes user intent into account, provides prompt responses to direct queries and respects the formatting rules imposed in the webmaster guides will be less likely to be affected by Google updates and will have a better chance of attracting the attention of target audiences. Moreover, the SEO specialists you call upon will diversify the type of content existing on your website and create long-form articles that align with the optimal length for SEO texts, as well as shorter blog posts with a pronounced call to action. Plus, he will ensure that your pages are filled with evergreen materials and keep in tune with market developments.

High-quality human-written articles can be a tool to target the hidden interests of your target audience, discovered during the SEO audit phase. Moreover, by creating a content strategy using long-tail keywords, you can target the niche interests of new demographics and increase the likelihood of attracting traffic from inquiries made through voice searches. The past and future of search engine optimization is tied to natural language and Semantic SEO. However, in the center of them all is content, which will still need to reflect the same level of quality that characterizes the technical functionality of your site.

What About Latent Semantic Indexing?

Latent semantic indexing, or LSI for short, is an informational retrieving concept that determines the connection between conceptual terms and selected primary keywords. LSI is a method by which search engine algorithms can identify the primary context of indexed texts, not only by looking for exact keyword matches but also by finding similar terms or phrases. In other words, LSI keywords are phrases that are semantically similar to the primary keywords used in the analyzed texts. As an example, let's take an article about travel. The principal keyword in the written text may be "vacation." However, the semantic LSI keywords could be "tourism," "destination," "flying," or "backpacking."

LSI keywords, when incorporated naturally in the body of the text, can lead to increased content relevancy, improve the experience of your target customers, and reduce the risk of keyword stuffing that's been discouraged by Google since the September 2013 Hummingbird algorithm modification. LSI keywords can make existing content on your pages more resilient to algorithm fluctuation by helping your content rank for more than one query. As LSI keywords are contextually rich, they are more likely to align with the quality-first focus implemented by the majority of search engines. Therefore, their usage is one the most efficient ways by which you can attain in-depth topic coverage and boost SERP rankings.

What Makes SEO Unique?

Compared to other digital marketing methods, such as PPC or social media marketing, SEO does not use advertising but instead tries to attract the attention of target audiences organically. In a search engine optimization approach, the goal is to improve the on-page elements that can increase user retention, as well as the backend ones, which can affect the indexability of your content. SEO can generate an ROI exceeding 300%, is the most straightforward way to increase user engagement, can be combined with other digital marketing strategies, and is an approach that focuses on long-term results.

Through search engine optimization, you can identify the keywords used by your audience, find the link-building collaborations of your business rivals, improve the CTRs of your pages, and enhance the overall credibility of your brand. Is SEO perfect? No. However, it's an objective approach that uses pure data and analytical tools to find the best plan for long-term market growth. SEO strategies are adaptable to market conditions, can be modified according to algorithm changes implemented by search engines, and lead, in almost all cases, to predictable, repeatable, and quantifiable results.