Well, Google has finally announced its “classic” fall core update this week on November 11, 2024, on Twitter, or should I say X. This is the third core update of 2024 and likely the last one of the year.
Over the years, it’s normal to expect a core update around this time, and with Google wrapping in Helpful Content Updates into these core updates now, we expect a lot of that to be the main focus here again.
What the Google Core Update Impacts
These core updates are Google’s “large” updates that impact the entire search engine results, not just nationally, but globally and across all industries.
We mentioned above how helpful content updates are now in these core updates, which means a large portion of this core update is looking at how helpful your content is to users, which will directly impact your search rankings.
We’ll get into what to look for to see if you’re impacted below. We have a few suggestions to help improve your content so that these core updates are beneficial to you rather than something to be afraid of.
Content Tips for Core Updates
With Google putting more emphasis on relevant, informational, and overall helpful content for its users, the old days of just trying to cram keywords and links into a piece of content are behind us.
We’ll give you our top three tips to improve your content, but there are plenty of others that can help you make small tweaks to improve your rankings.
1. Write for the User, Not the Search Engine
It doesn’t matter what search engine we’re talking about here. The way we approach content, be it a page or blog, is to do our best to put ourselves in the shoes of the user. Try to think about what questions they would ask, not what questions you think they should ask, and then give them the answer to THEIR question.
Too often, we try to put questions in the minds of users, rather than tailoring our content to what they need.
2. Add Useful Resources to Your Content (Even if They Aren’t Created by You)
Two things people do that we’re not the biggest fans of: 1. Trying to “sell” to their users too quickly, and 2. Being afraid of pointing a user in a direction that isn’t on their website.
Leads are important, don’t get me wrong, but if you want your users to get all the information they need to eventually turn into a lead for you, you need to give it to them, whether you wrote it or not.
Side Tip: It’s okay to link to external content that will be helpful for users. Plus, once you figure out what they are looking for, you can create your own content around that topic or information to keep them on your site.
3. Use Varying Types of Media in Your Content
Let’s be honest, most people these days are going to read a full blog word for word. Many different types of users like to receive information in a variety of ways. So instead of just typing everything, look to add visuals like graphs, videos, images, etc., to help users digest your content the way they like to.
Overall, in the past, we’ve seen some industries get hit or changed more than others, making it important to keep an eye out to see if your industry is impacted more than others.
If you’re an agency working with different industries, like ourselves, keep an eye on all your clients and then focus on the ones where they seem to be decreasing more than others.
How Long Will the Rollout Be?
It’s hard to say for certain how long it’ll take for the full core update to be rolled out, but in general, they take about two weeks.
What is nice is that Google has a status dashboard to help you keep track of it as they roll it out. You can also assume that there will be some variability in search rankings, so once you start to see those calm down/level out, your best bet is that the rollout is complete.
What to Look for to See if You’re Impacted
You might have to wait longer than two weeks to see if the core update has negatively affected your site, but there are a lot of things to check along the way.
First off, we should state that Google recommends waiting a full week after the core update completes before you start to analyze your site and data. In our opinion, it’s okay to look at this data but you should wait a bit longer before you start to make any changes.
1. Review Your Top-Page Rankings
If your site is truly negatively impacted, you’ll see your top pages start to drop in position. Now this drop won’t be something small like 3 to 5, it’ll be 3 to 31. It’ll be drastic.
Even with a larger drop like this, we still don’t recommend making a drastic change right then and there. It’s worth waiting a bit longer, doing more of an analysis of your page/content, and seeing if the ranking stays lower than it used to be. If so, then you can start to make edits.
2. Look At Your Organic Traffic
This might seem a bit obvious that if you’re negatively impacted by a core update, your organic traffic will dip, but there are a few things to think about while diving into this data.
It’s important to think about the time of year or your usual spikes/falls in traffic. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we all will likely see some dips in organic traffic (unless Black Friday is a big time for you), so don’t think that the dip during this time is because your content was impacted negatively.
It’s easy to see this and think “My content needs to be changed or updated right now,” but it could just be the time of year or week when you should expect a dip. Take a deep breath, continue to monitor your traffic, and then if it stays lower than usual, start to make edits.
What Should You Do if You’re Impacted?
Now you’re probably wondering what you should do if you were impacted negatively by the core update. That is a fair question, but I want to revert to what we said above: take time to see if things go back to normal!
Now, if they haven’t, continue reading.
Our biggest tip is to NOT MAKE QUICK FIX CHANGES, seriously, please don’t do that. There is a reason that in this blog we’ve talked about taking time for things to roll out and patiently accessing data. If you start to make edits too quickly, you might be “fixing” something that isn’t broken.
If you feel like you have enough data and time on your side to warrant making edits, we recommend taking an objective look at your content (and putting your feet in your user’s shoes) to see what could be improved.
Are you trying to push a question upon the users? Are you just trying to hit keywords and not thinking about the quality of your content? Do you try to “play the system” (black hat vs. white hat)?
We’ve even been there before, where we take a step back and think, “This content isn’t the best when I actually read it. I should adjust this and this”, and that’s okay. Our first crack at a topic might not be our best.
Our last thought is not to knee-jerk react and delete your content; that should be the last resort. Please first look at rewriting, restructuring, or adding to it before you make the bold decision to delete it. Take a breather, this core update has nothing on you!
Additional Content Resources
