12 Shocking Google Leak Revelations & What SMBs Need to Know & Do Now

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #1:
It’s Not a Level Playing Field.

What’s Shocking About 3 Tiers

It’s challenging—if not impossible—for an SMB to rank better than enterprise sites in Google search, no matter how much a regional company website strives to:

• Showcase Expertise
• Highlight Experience
• Speak Authoritatively
• Be Trustworthy
• Be Transparent

Perhaps this is why the very question I asked during Google Search Central’s office hours was answered this way.

“I think that’s super hard.”

At first blush, I (Nancy) find this very discouraging. It gave me pause and made me go back to my original question in the video, “Should I just give up?”

But wait.

What SMBs Can Do Now

Don’t give up. Here’s what I know to be true:

Realize that enterprise companies aren’t usually your offline competitors anyway.

You are rarely competing directly with enterprise companies when it comes to the final sale. People work with small, family-owned entrepreneurial companies for a variety of reasons. These smaller companies offer their customers:

• Access to top-level people
• Long-term relationships
• High-touch customer service
• Cost savings
• Opportunity to be a “big fish” in a smaller pond

You can beat your local and regional competitors online and offline.

Although Google’s algorithms may favor enterprise companies on Google search returns, you still have a fighting chance against competitors in your weight class—especially if they don’t really understand SEO or implement strategies correctly.

SEO strategies make an enormous impact.

I’ve applied SEO strategies for nearly 20 years—and as the owner of a small digital marketing communications consultancy for the past seven years. I’ve seen how we successfully improve results for SMB clients—in terms of traffic, leads, and revenue. Therefore, SEO is still relevant to SMBs.

Aim for the top.

If we’re relegated to the bottom tier, we’ll continue to aim for the very top of that tier, updating content regularly and keeping the content fresh.

Get your business on other Google tiers.

Leverage public relations to get yourself on a top-tier news site. Or get a clickable link from an enterprise site to your content.

Recall from our last blog that Google also favors popularity.

Integrate other marketing tactics to increase your brand awareness. For example, build a social media following, create a sales promotion, or get featured in local trade or commerce sites. These can help increase your website authority.

Avoid shiny objects and FOMO.

However, choose only tactics that make sense for your company strategy. Avoid “shiny object” syndrome, which often comes with huge price tags and low returns on investment (ROI). Don’t jump off a bridge—even if “all the other kids are doing it.”  Just because another company is making TikTok videos doesn’t make it right for your business.

Make a plan, adhere to it, and adjust it when needed.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #2:
Google Uses Separate SEO Models for Different Types of Content.

What’s Surprising  About These Models

First, What’s NOT Surprising About Distinct Models for News and YMYL

It’s not surprising that news and YMYL (your money or your life) sites each have distinct search models.

Google has long set a higher bar for websites that discuss finances (YM) or health issues (YL). This is because these are areas where misinformation can cause grave harm.

It also makes sense that news websites must be crawled and indexed more often to help people find breaking news.

What’s Surprising About Ecommerce and Video Site Search for SMBs

The ecommerce and video sites may offer more SEO opportunities for SMBs since there are usually fewer competitors in these areas than in general search.

What’s Shocking About Small Personal Blogs

No one saw this one coming. Like the Japanese character Yama bushido (crisis), it offers both danger and opportunity. Your blog could be relegated to the lowest stratosphere, or if it meets Google’s standards, it could soar in the blog search rankings.

Does personal mean individual? If your name is hanging on the shingle for your company, will your blog be ghosted (ignored) by Google? A solopreneur’s business blog and a personal blog may overlap when it comes to Google searches.

What SMBs Need to Do Now

About News Websites

Leverage them, adding your own news.

Whether or Not Your Business Focuses on Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) Content

Always, always, always have a credentialed expert as the author of your content. This is particularly true of YMYL content. Ensure these experts have reviewed and approved the last version before pushing content live.

Regarding Ecommerce sites

Google is trying desperately to compete with Amazon. If you offer ecommerce solutions, especially if your regional competitors do not, you may offer a convenient way to increase sales. You may also discover ways to move your products from local and regional sales to national and global markets.

About video sites

Most SMBs are trying to keep up with the day-to-day demands of the business. However, taking time to create engaging, on-strategy videos may help increase brand awareness and sales.

Regarding personal (“small”) blogs

When you generate content, be sure it’s original, high-quality (not AI-written) content that provides relevant new insights or information, and is helpful, reliable, and written for people.

Furthermore, keep your content up to date, refreshing it often. There’s nothing worse than going to a blog where the newest content is five years old or more. It feels like a ghost town.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #3:
Old Content Can Hurt the SEO of Your Entire Website.

What’s Shocking About Aging Content

The shocking part is not that Google prefers fresher, newer content but that aging content, like a wedge of aging Limburger in your refrigerator, can stink up your entire website.

What SMBs Can Do Now to Keep Content Fresh

Rewrite and repost outdated, relevant content to keep it fresh.

Throw out the moldy cheese. Remove irrelevant content. If your website is still discussing COVID-19 (and you’re not a medical expert), it’s time to archive those pages.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #4:
Unpopular Content Can Damage the SEO of Your Entire Website.

What’s Shocking About Unpopular Content

It’s not surprising that Google demotes content that no one reads. But it is surprising that a “crickets” blog post or website page may be able to torpedo your whole website.

What SMBs Can Do Now to Be More Popular

First, check your analytics. Are there website pages that no one visits?

Next, evaluate why that page may not interest your visitors. Here are potential considerations.

• Is the page buried deep in your navigation so that no one even knows it’s there? Don’t submerge it. The fewer clicks to get found, the better.
• Do people find the content, but it’s hard to read? Boring? Difficult to visually scan or look at? Did you use tiny “mouse type”? Or large “horsey” fonts? Consider website writing and layout best practices.
• Is it a topic that fascinates you but is irrelevant to your target audience? Remove it.
• Do people find the content but abandon it after several seconds? Ask yourself and others why it isn’t meeting their needs. Then, consider rewriting it.

You can see more guidance in our recently updated Easy SEO™ Content Template.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #5:
Topic Segues Can Put Your SEO at Risk.

What’s Shocking About It

Tangential topics are shared on websites to pique long-time visitors’ interest and attract new customers.

For example, our core services are branding and digital marketing for small and midsize businesses. However, sometimes we stray—just a bit—from branding and marketing. For example, we wrote 101 Motivational Quotes for SMB Owners—something many SMBs could use. It was meant to help those who were looking for a different inspiration than our 65 Inspiring Social Media Content Ideas–intended to inspire a variety of social posts rather than to provide personal inspiration.

But this type of tangential content may dilute your topic authority. Content that drifts from the website’s core focus is demoted in search.

What SMBs Can Do Now to Create Topical Content

Stick to what you know—mostly.

• Know the central purpose of your website. Is it to woo investors? Sell products? Build a brand? Generate leads?
• This will help you define your core audience (or persona) and speak to that audience.
• Showcase your E-E-A-T when creating content.
• If you have more than one area of expertise, generate a volume of relevant, helpful content on that topic. One page about a core topic won’t give you topic authority
• Use tangential content sparingly.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #6:
An Irregular Cadence to Website Updates May Diminish Your Website’s Success.

What’s Shocking About Irregular Updates

Some SEOs theorize that updating content irregularly may be worse than neglecting it entirely. Google denies this.

What SMBs Can Do Now

Small and mid-size businesses often struggle to find time to address their marketing activities. It’s tough.

• Carve out time for your website content and marketing strategy.
• Don’t have time? Delegate tasks. Hire employees, consultants, or a marketing agency with the ability to help you.
• Create a schedule for content updates and adhere to that schedule.
• Neglecting your content will hurt your SEO.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #7:
Newer Links Are Better Than Existing Links.

What’s Shocking About It

Intuitively, SEOs might think that longstanding links are best. For example, more established websites usually excel in Google search results.

However, Google’s mindset about links appears akin to, “What have you done for me lately?” Recent links matter more—unless the older link is from a more reputable or relevant source.

What SMBs Can Do Now

• Analyze your “latest links” report found in Google Search Console.
• Understand that quality, relevant backlinks from reputable sources matter more than recency.
• If you’re speaking on a topic in a public forum or receiving publicity from another source, ask that they include your company name and website link.
• Offer content people find so helpful that they want to offer it on their own websites and, therefore, link to it.
• Promote your link-worthy content—words, videos, products, and podcasts.
• Never buy links (unnatural links). Don’t get links from link-building bots (toxic links). This will result in a “bad backlinks” penalty.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #8:
Custom Photos May Enhance Your Value in the Search Rankings.

What’s Shocking About Image Quality

Most advice addressing images and SEO is pretty basic. Google itself only discusses a few factors about images: size, file type (WebP vs JPG or PNG), responsiveness (images that adjust to a variety of device sizes), and alt tags (behind-the-scenes or metadata describing the image).

However, Google is looking at much more than this: colors, versions, aesthetics, duplication, metadata embedded by smartphones, click signals, duplication, and more. The click signals include four attributes: “engagingness,” usefulness, presentation, and “appealingness.”

Stock images won’t hurt your SEO, but they won’t help it either. Quality images can improve your SEO.

What SMBs Can Do About Images

Ensure your photos are attractive.

• Don’t go cheap on the images.
• Consider hiring a professional website photographer for custom, original images.
• Invest in a graphic designer to create, size, and crop your images.
• Stock photos can provide interest; they’re just unlikely to help you in Google’s search rankings.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #9:
Impressions Influence Search Results.

What’s Shocking About Impressions Influencing Search Results

We’ve always purported that clicks to your website matter—not the number of impressions or the click-through rate. After all, you’re trying to drive traffic to your content.  The eventuality of that click—and people engaging with your content—matters.

Additionally, impressions are controlled by the number of people searching for that query (“googling”) and by how often Google grants you an impression.

In other words, it’s a bit of a circular loop. Google decides how many impressions a keyword phrase or website URL gets and then indirectly measures what it decided in the first place.

What SMBs Can Do About Impressions

Continue to provide unique, relevant information that your users want. Search engines want to drive people to content users want, how they want it, and when they want it. Keyword research can help ensure you meet users’ needs and garner more impressions.

Shocking Google Leak Revelation #10:
Google Scores Page Titles on How Well They Match Queries.

What’s Shocking About Exactly Matching Keyword Phrases

It’s so old school! With Google’s AI capabilities, such as machine learning and the ability to naturally understand language, it’s surprising that Google would still be measuring this.

What SMBs Can Do Now About Keyword Phrases

• Create unique content that users want.
• Use keywords in the metadata title and the copy on your page.
• Don’t overdo the use of keywords. (You’ll be penalized for “keyword stuffing.”)
• Do NOT exactly match keyword phrases in your domain name: “bestlawyernearme.com” or “buyelectronicschicago.com.” If you do, your site will be demoted.

Shocking Google Attribute #11:
Google Is Local Loco.

What’s Shocking About Local in the Google Leaked Documents

It holds many ideas that SEOs rarely discuss—perhaps because most SEOs concentrate on search results for national and global companies.

What SMBs Can Do Now About Local Search

If you’re a local or regional business:

• Google values both depth and breadth of local signals. Use local keywords in your website content, title tags, meta descriptions and headers.
• If you have multiple physical locations, create a specific page for each location.
• Ensure your site is optimized for fast local search on a smartphone (mobile).
• Use relevant local anchor links both within your site and to external sites.
• Know that you’ll receive a “location demotion” if you link to an entity not in your area.
• Include your NAP (name, address, phone number) information consistently and accurately.
• Choose the best business category from the choices Google Business profile allows.
• Citations (mentions of your business on other websites) are important; ensure they link to your website.
• Include video content; it may enhance your local search rankings.
• Demonstrate your expertise on specific topics in your field.
• Ask for and respond professionally to business reviews.

What’s Shocking About Google Ranking Factors

SEOs have always said that Google looks at 200+ ranking factors. It’s WAY more than 200. The Google API documents purportedly represent only a portion of Google’s algorithm. It has more than 14,000 attributes. And while an attribute is not necessarily a ranking factor, it could be. 

What SMBs Need to Know and Do Now

It’s complicated. With thousands of factors to consider and priorititze, it’s best to hire an expert who keeps up to date with the ever-changing information.