This is the second in our four-part series about the Google API documents leak.
Table of Contents for Google API Documents Leak Series
In our four-part blog series, we share:
- 7 Caveats Small Business Owners Need to Know About SEO and the Google API Documents Leak
- 12 Things Our Agency Emphasizes About SEO and Small Businesses that Seem To Be Right on the Money in Light of the Google API Documents Leak
- 12 SEO Tips That Now Require More Focus for Our SMB Clients After the Google Documents Leak
- 12 Shocking Google Leak Revelations and What SMBs Should Know and Do Now
12 Things Nancy Burgess Strategic Marketing Inc. Emphasizes About SEO and Small Businesses That Seem To Be Right on the Money in Light of the Google API Documents Leak
1
Search is Dynamic.
Search is ever-evolving. We know Google changes its algorithm (formula for getting found) at least five times a day. Not a huge surprise here. Search is constantly changing.
2
Use Structured Page Headings.
Ideally, small businesses must include the correct heading structure (H1, H2, H3, etc.) in the proper order for every website page.
3
Write Engaging Content.
You want your small business customers or clients to Google your keywords, find your content, and stay on the page.
Google calls these “Good Clicks” and “Longest Clicks.” You do NOT want people to “Pogo-stick” your content—view it, immediately return to search, and subsequently Google the same or a similar query. Google calls these “Bad Clicks.”
Our agency has always purported this.
FYI: At least in part, Google uses Chrome user data for this. (We believe the new GA-4 Google Analytics is or will soon be used for this purpose, too.)
You may not be able to see Chrome data, but we track our small business clients’ page engagement time in GA-4. Check yours out. Then, rewrite or archive content with low engagement rates.
4
Measure Engagement by Scrolls on Your Website Pages.
If people are reading or scanning your page content, they will scroll down the page. This is another way that Google measures engagement. As a small business owner, you also can see these analytics in GA-4.
5
Build Your Brand.
Google loves entities. “Entities are a single, unique, well-defined, and distinguishable thing.” Think of them as nouns.
Your brand name is a noun. Building a well-recognized name brand outside of Google will serve your small business well in search.
Our agency first focuses on creating a brand identity and promoting that brand before and while we build our small business clients’ websites.
We then help our clients engage in a variety of marketing activities. This is called integrated marketing.
For example, you might rock out a specific social media channel or other platform. Or, you may plaster your name all over your local chamber of commerce or on billboards in your area.
Google wants your customers or clients to search for your brand name, visit your website, and linger there.
6
Create Author and People Pages.
We mentioned that Google loves entities. Your authors and well-known people at your company are entities. Underscore the value of your page authors and prominent experts by showcasing those with topical expertise.
Have your marketers ghostwrite your blogs and pages with your experts’ input, review, and approval. Give the well-recognized expert the byline and an author’s page.
You can also include schema markup as profiles of these people.
7
Write Well Thought-Out, Quality Content.
Google examines the Quality of your content and the Effort you put into each page.
You should post what your “Googlers” are “googling” and want to read. Is it educational? Entertaining? Do viewers want to read it? Is your website popular? Do you establish E-E-A-T? (See below.)
By aligning your content with what users are “Googling,” you can readily answer their queries. As mentioned above, small business will want to establish author thought leadership:
- Experience
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
Google crawls and indexes content that showcases E-E-A-T.
Historically, Google quality raters (humans) have evaluated pages following the Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines. In addition, machine learning (a type of artificial intelligence) was trained on the quality raters’ input.
Small businesses can see how long users engage with page content in your GA-4 metrics.
8
Use Anchor Links With Relevant Text.
Internal anchor links with appropriate, relevant words are vital and should go to your most important pages. The same holds true for outside websites that your small business website might link to.
We also learned that using irrelevant words on the anchor text will demote your content.
Moreover, internally linking to your “unpopular” website pages may hurt rather than help your SEO.
9
Get Links From Others.
These links, called external links, are a vote of confidence for your site.
This means that your content is “popular.” You want to be one of the cool kids.
10
Different Verticals Work Differently.
A vertical market is a business niche.
We have discussed that Google works differently for different vertical markets. For example, YMYL (your money or your life) websites must achieve higher standards. These include websites with medical or financial information, where misinformation could result in life-threatening or dire consequences.
Google sets the SEO bar higher for these sites, and E-E-A-T becomes even more important. Again, not much surprise here.
11
Originality Matters.
If you can publish content that users want to read but is not readily available on the web, that content can be quite successful. Original research and other insights can be extremely helpful for small businesses to rank.
12
Google Uses More Than 200+ Algorithm Factors.
SEO experts have reported that more than 200 algorithm factors are considered in Google’s secret search algorithm. We now know that Google is tracking thousands of attributes. Were we correct in saying more than 200? Technically, yes. Ironically, many, many more.
Nancy Burgess
