SEO Insights: August 2024 Report
It appears that summer holidays are alien to Google. Last month, it rolled out a new Core algorithm update, the last one having been released back in March.
The release of the August Core Update on the 15th coincided with a significant search ranking bug which they summarised as “an ongoing issue with ranking in Google Search that’s affecting a large number of search results.”
Therefore, websites that suffered ranking drops on the 15th may have been caused by the Core Update or the ranking bug, although it was most likely the update that caused significant drops.
The Core Update is expected to take four weeks to fully roll out, but if a website was going to feel the effects of this, it will most likely have already happened.
Helping small and independent websites
When Google announced the release of the August Core Update, their statement included the following message:
“We aim to connect people with a range of high-quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content, when relevant to users searches.”
However, across the many industries that we monitor on a daily basis, it’s hard to see that they’ve achieved this is any way.
The large brands still dominate in the search results and smaller websites/businesses still often struggle to compete with them, even when their content is better and more focused for the user. It’s for this reason that small businesses really need to focus on their visibility online and appear to Google that they are trusted and recognisable brands.
Brand searches
If you’ve been reading our monthly insights report over the years, you’ll know that we’ve often discussed the importance of being seen as a brand. Google, in theory, tries to reflect the real world, and rewards businesses that are seen as ‘brands.’
For example, it’s easier for Google to rank Rightmove for properly related searches as it’s a known and trusted brand. Why would it rank another website?
For a small business, it can be very difficult to appear as a recognised brand, that’s why generating brand signals for search can be very difficult.
Big brands spend a lot of money on marketing, that’s why they are known and how they generate brand searches. Users actually search for the brand name.
Back in 2012, Google filed a patent called “Ranking search results” which covers the use of brand searches as ranking signals. It makes sense; if users are searching for a particular brand then it must mean that it’s popular, and Google wants to reward that.
Although a patent is just that, and there’s no evidence that it’s actually been implemented, it is interesting to note that the primary inventor of this patent is Navneet Panda, the creator of the infamous “Panda Algorithm.” It’s, therefore, quite likely that his ideas to incorporate brand searches into the main ranking algorithm were adopted.
Brand searches for small businesses
So, what’s a small business to do and how can it generate brand signals and searches?
This is a very big area and there’s a lot that a small business can do, but I would summarise it into the following key areas:
- Reviews – Show that your business is active and provides a good service.
- Website freshness – Show that you are actively maintaining your online presence and that your website is up to date.
- Google Business Profile freshness – Show that you are focused on providing the latest information about your business.
- Social media activity – Show that you are actively engaging with your intended audience. This can often lead to brand searches too.
- Ads – Running ads (Google, social media, etc.) show that you are actively marketing your business and can also lead to brand searches.
Ranking highly on Google is the holy grail. The value of the traffic far exceeds that of any other source and ensuring longevity can really support and grow a business through even the toughest of times.
As well as our extensive technical SEO activities, we work with our clients to ensure that their websites and their Business Profiles are always up to date and that they are constantly generating reviews for their business.
We currently do social media updates and ads for many clients, and this is an area which we need to enhance to increase brand signals and the overall reach of our clients’ websites.
Creating long-term stability and growth is our core focus for all clients, and all of our efforts are completely focused on these goals.
