Ep. 162 - Dec. 9, 2020 - Light Version

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In this episode, we discuss the December Core Algorithm update and our thoughts on it thus far, creating sustainable monetized websites, FAQs on Google’s Core Web Vitals, and more!

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The following topics are covered in the premium version of this episode:

  • What you need to know (so far) about the December core update
  • New from Google: Creating Sustainable Monetized Websites (with our observations from the QRG)
  • Suggested advice for handling your sitemap when you do a site migration
  • A thread on things you might not know about bounce rate
  • Is there some kind of “quality reduction” to having a bunch of 4xx pages?
  • Google explains crawl priority
  • How important is positioning of URLs in a sitemap?
  • Google has updated their guide on managing crawl budget for larger sites
  • Tip for minimizing layout shifts
  • How to improve your internal linking
  • How to generate more reviews online
  • Everything you need to know about Google Posts
  • Are Local Services Ads stealing your GMB clicks?
  • Using Ahrefs Site Explorer 2.0 reports to compare changes in pages and keywords between two dates (useful for algo updates!)
  • Analyzing a Google update via Search Console data and Google Data Studio
  • Compare field data for a series of websites using the Chrome UX Report
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles
You’ll also have access to all past episodes, including this one.
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Algorithm Updates

The December Core Update is live!

We did not think that Google would push out a core update in the final days of 2020. We were quite surprised to see this announcement on December 3:

At 1:16 pm EST on December 3, Google SearchLiaison confirmed that the update had started to roll out

At MHC we have been working hard every day since then to analyze this update. We have had daily team meetings where we spend several hours looking at sites that won or lost, and using our knowledge of the Quality Raters’ Guidelines and Google’s algorithms to try and understand why these changes happened. It is still very early to draw conclusions but we were excited to see gains for some of our clients. It should be noted that not all of our clients saw improvements. 

In the next section, our premium readers can read the following:

  • A thorough list of everything we know so far on this update
  • Which types of sites were affected
  • Analytics for sites that improved along with some thoughts as to why
  • Our early thoughts on whether links were a component of this update
  • Specific advice from Google on recovery

MHC Announcements

We’re hiring! 

The MHC team is growing again! We’re currently taking applications for digital marketing trainees to join our team in 2021! If you love digital marketing and want to expand into an SEO auditing role, this is the job for you! 

Please be sure to read through the whole application to get a sense of what the job is and what working at MHC is all about. We can’t wait to hear from you! 

Ahrefs Tip of the Week

Use Ahrefs to improve content quality and relevance (Sponsored, but good for everyone!)

We loved this tweet by Ahrefs this week and thought we’d give the content gap tool a go.

We looked to see who was ranking in the top 10 for searches for Google’s May Core Update. We then used Ahrefs’ Content Gap tool to determine which keywords these posts were ranking for:

ahrefs content gap

The results showed us that Moz’s post on the May core update ranks for a bunch of terms containing the words, “Google algorithm update”.

ranking posts from content gap tool

If we were working on optimizing this post, we would do the following to improve our chances for ranking for more terms:

  • Include the words “Google algorithm update” on the page a few times. We likely would add a paragraph that uses, “Google algorithm update” in the h tag.
  • Add the word “algorithm” to the title tag
  • Link internally to our page several times using the anchor “Google algorithm update”. (See what we did there?)

We would also look at the post from the eyes of someone who is skimming for information on recent Google updates. If a searcher typed in “Google algorithm update” there is good information in our post, but it’s hard to skim and find it. Some tweaks to content really should change this!

We expect we will be using Ahrefs’ Content Gap tool even more as we work with clients to improve their content quality and relevance after the December core update.

Google SERP Changes

Google appears to be testing the Page Experience indicator in the SERPs

As we covered in previous episodes, Google is going to start showing a Page Experience indicator besides the search results. Well, it looks like it is starting to show for some pages! Brodie has spotted it beside a URL. Don’t forget, this could impact your clickthrough rate if you have a low experience score. We recommend working on some optimization before this rolls out in full. 

SEO Tips

FAQs related to Core Web Vitals are available

https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1334234226586218498

If you are still a little in the dark on the Core Web Vitals — and their arrival as ranking factors in May 2021 —this is a great place to catch up, as Google’s Cheney Tsai has compiled and answered a thorough list of the most frequently asked questions.

 

Google Search Console for nonprofits

On the most recent “Google Search Console Training” video, Daniel Waisberg talks about what are some of the key data you should pay attention to when reviewing your GSC report. 

 

Tips on image optimization for Wix

Any Wix users out there? Mordy has provided some great tips to help you optimize your images! Wix has some neat features that will help you improve your photos, so we recommend checking out this thread.

Local SEO

We expected to see some fluctuations this week on BrightLocal’s flux tool as the organic SERPS saw massive shakeups with the December Core update. Often the local rankings follow suit. In this case, we saw some slight turbulence on December 4, the day following the core update, but things have been relatively quiet on the local scene since then.

local flux dec. 9

Local SEO - Other Interesting News

Some changes made to the suggest edit feature in Google Maps

There appear to be more explanatory options when you suggest an edit now. It’s a great way to help Google understand why a business may need changing. However, it will be more important to keep your listings up to date, as it will now be easier for users to suggest changes to your business.

 

Recommended Reading

We Analyzed 306M Keywords. Here’s What We Learned About Google Searches – Brian Dean
https://backlinko.com/google-keyword-study
December 1, 2020

If you are currently in the process of optimizing your content to have a better chance of ranking for your main keywords, this article by Backlinko can give you some insights on some of the things you should be focusing on. Definitely a read worth looking into!

 

A Practical Introduction to Structured Data for SEO – Geoff Jennedy
https://sitebulb.com/resources/guides/practical-introduction-to-structured-data-for-seo/
December 2, 2020

For a hands-on introduction to structured data, this resource from Sitebulb has you covered. If you’re eager to earn rich results, assess what kind of pages could qualify for a schema type, which pages you should consider prioritizing, understanding the different implementation and validation options, this is an excellent overview for anyone new or potentially inexperienced with the subject matter.

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Want More?

Premium members also get the following:

It’s well worth the $18 per month!

The following topics are covered in the premium version of this episode:

  • What you need to know (so far) about the December core update
  • New from Google: Creating Sustainable Monetized Websites (with our observations from the QRG)
  • Suggested advice for handling your sitemap when you do a site migration
  • A thread on things you might not know about bounce rate
  • Is there some kind of “quality reduction” to having a bunch of 4xx pages?
  • Google explains crawl priority
  • How important is positioning of URLs in a sitemap?
  • Google has updated their guide on managing crawl budget for larger sites
  • Tip for minimizing layout shifts
  • How to improve your internal linking
  • How to generate more reviews online
  • Everything you need to know about Google Posts
  • Are Local Services Ads stealing your GMB clicks?
  • Using Ahrefs Site Explorer 2.0 reports to compare changes in pages and keywords between two dates (useful for algo updates!)
  • Analyzing a Google update via Search Console data and Google Data Studio
  • Compare field data for a series of websites using the Chrome UX Report
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles
You’ll also have access to all past episodes, including this one.
I

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– Paul Macnamara – Offers SEO Consulting at PaulMacnamara.com


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