The SEO landscape changes every year, bringing new opportunities but also added challenges that search marketers need to overcome. We know the events of 2020 had a major impact on the way people search and shop online in the UK and, this year, it’s the changes going on behind the scenes at Google that are shaking things up.
Aside from the high volume of major algorithm updates, we’ve also had big technology announcements from Google and a preview of what the next chapter in search will look like. In this article, we explore how the latest changes in search create new challenges for SEOs and make some older ones even trickier to deal with.
1. UX becoming a top ranking factor
With the recent page experience update whatsapp number database and the rollout of Core Web Vitals, Google is paying more attention to user experience (UX) signals than ever. Over the years, we’ve had mobile-friendly updates, page speed signals and a range of UX factors introduced to the ranking algorithm but, now, Google has a cumulative signal for page experience capable of measuring the user experience of websites and individual pages.
Historically, signals like mobile-friendly have never been too demanding but Core Web Vitals puts pages under the microscope.
Currently, there are three Core Web Vitals and Google says it expects to introduce new ones in the future:
- Loading: This simply refers to you can also find the interview loading times although Google is changing the way it measures this with a new standard called Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
- Interactivity: Measures the responsiveness of interactive elements on your page (links, buttons, etc.) after users click them, using a new standard called First Input Delay (FID).
- Visual Stability: Detects the movement of elements after they’ve loaded on the page and any instability this causes, using a new standard called Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
Page speed has been a ranking factor to varying extents for many years but Google is now checking to ensure pages also respond quickly to users actions and elements stay where they are on the screen.
This is a big leap in Google’s ability to measure specific UX qualities and it’s telling us to expect more signals of this nature in the future.
2. Google updates changing the goalposts
Google is constantly rolling out updates b2b reviews to its search algorithm and the broader search experience. Across June and July, Google rolled out two core updates, the page experience updates and two parts of a spam algorithm update that heavily targeted weak content and low-quality links.
Once again, Google has lifted the bar on content quality and improved its system for detecting link spam and other deceptive tactics.
With Google rolling out several updates over a short period of time, it’s increasingly difficult for SEOs to attribute ranking changes to specific updates and understand what’s affecting what – especially when Core Updates are thrown in among other, more specific updates.