A big Google update !
On August 1, Google did a broad algorithm update. They do this several times a year, but for this update, it appears to have affected the YMYL niches – "your money, your life."
Some health and lifestyle sites took a huge hit, and many sites that were ranking top 1-3 are now...not! The YMYL niche is a huge niche – especially for us mom bloggers.
What Google was looking for during this update (at least this is the speculation) was improved E-A-T – expertise, authority, trust (more on the trust factor for this update).
Did you know Google employs actual people who visit sites and review them based on certain criteria?
Much of the E-A-T is based on external factors, but on-page is also important and when the quality reviewers come around they want to see signals like:
- There is a human or real company behind the site
- An about page
- Useful, unique content
- That you exist to provide value and not just for promotion (so not too many ads, or self-promotion for products)
So when a reviewer goes to Goodnightmybaby.com, for example, they clearly see it's a blog, there's a picture of me and my son, but I really need to put a mini bio on my main page. I also am wondering if I have too many ads - what do you think?
Since I am just getting traffic from Pinterest, and none of my articles are ranking number #1 yet.... I want to be careful of putting too many ads up everywhere, just not worth it right now until the dust settles with Google!
If your blog is ranking in Google for certain keywords or longtail keywords, here are some tips to help increase the trust of your site:
- Your About page is optimized for trust – you immediately mention what your blog is about and how you can help your readers and mention who you are to make yourself more credible in the niche you are writing about
- Each blog post has an author bio – I noticed this on alot of valid sites and I really wish I knew what plug-in to use so that I can have this as well.
- There's a real name on each post – so not using "admin," an email or your blog name as "your name" when you publish and reply to comments
- Your name redirecting to your About page – I also want to know what plug in to use with this, so if you click my name on a post, it will lead you straight to my About page, not to the default WordPress author post list, any ideas?
Recent Comments
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I just had a thought, I am going to create a template that includes the brief bio and a link to my about page.
Thanks for this article, it helped me and will undoubtedly help others, as well!
Best wishes,
Karin :)
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A lot of great information, looks like you to are big fan of Marie Haynes, the absolute SEO expert.
My site, traffic wise been hot heavily - talking over 50% down on traffic. But they key is proper indepth analysis or keyword positions, changes, keywords lost and yes, keywords gained!.
Despite the traffic drop, my traffic quality is better.
- More average time on site
- Move pages viewed per persons
above all
- higher EPM (Thus far earnings not affected!).
Some you win, some you lose. It really is that simple!
Last June a big update went in my favour, quadrupled my traffic! Doubled my income! (kinda lead to drop in EPM from $80, 90 and sometimes over $100 to weakly $40 by end of summer and thinking a weak $50-$60 being good! (its horribly low).
Just to add on page time of 2min and average pages viewed of 1.75 both dropped to 1.25 and 1m20 more traffic yes, but of far lesser quality.
Digging deep...
I have more top 3 positions!
Slightly less top 4-10 this may be they went up!.
Less top 50 overall.
Go figure!
Most of my review based keywords (review, best, buy) have remained the same, got slightly better or only a little bit down comparing a 7 day period Vs Previous 7 days in web master tools.
Time will tell how badly I am affected might be less traffic but same earnings, traffic of more relevance to my site.
Further analysis lead to discovering two competitors, one of which very badly effected both this one and March update in which this update is related to. One benefited!
Check your competitors, if they have benefited figire out what they are doing and emulate it. If they have been badly hit figure out why and dont do it!.
Expert. What makes you an expert in that niche area?
Authority? Generally, you are going to achieve this by means of quality related content. (my take on it!)
Trust why would someone trust your information? Are you promoting low quality products? Are your products known scams? Are referencing and backing up any claims you make with trusted references?. How do people rate your site? are they leaving good reviewes and comments?
As far about me page goes, you got it spot on. Do include a link to your linked in profile. Seen as more genuine. And have contact Us/me page.
Also, don't be overly reliant on one single traffic source including Google. They might just hit you with an update and lose half your traffic!.
And not give a single cahoots if you spend 15 grand on content!.
How to recover from an update that did nt quite go your way?
Hmm
"create better quality content" same old line that google will dish out!.
- you can check google webmaster tools and take note of keywords dropped (yes WMT will tell you that! just compare two date ranges! Keywords you were ranking for but not currently..lost keywords!)
Find the highest ranking ones or highest traffic Or even easiest to rank for ones and create content targeting those lost keywords.
If you have already targeted the keywords, have a good look at study what is currently ranking in the top 3 and have a content rewrite.
To emphasise the need for proper analysis. Your traffic can go down and your sales up. In 5 days since I have been heavily hit - 50% less traffic but still taken in $76, $144, $10, $9, $106, during the past 5 days.. $326 on half the traffic!.
It does seem like analysing where the traffic was lost, what keywords were affected and what was wasn't. Top 50 keywords lost 326 clicks - none of which related to money posts.