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Is the latest Google update bad news for your business?

Blogs. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Youtube. The list goes on when it comes to marketing your small business online. However, there is little doubt that of all the online channels, Google is still arguably the largest. With its suite of products like AdWords, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, and Google+ (among others), Google’s footprint on the web is huge. So when Google makes an algorithm change, your website is most likely affected in some way.

Last week, Google announced its latest algorithm change (sometimes called Google “Fresh”), which directly highlights fresh information and new web content. According to Google, this update focuses on three key areas:

1. Recent events and current affairs. Search engines generally want to find the latest information instantly, so Google will now display what it considers high-quality pages, including those that may be only a few minutes or hours old.

2. Recurring events. Many events take place on a regular basis, such as the Superbowl or political conventions. Google wants to make sure users get the most up-to-date information possible and has provided this example:

“If I search [olympics], I probably want information on the upcoming Summer Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics. Google Search uses an update algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I’m just typing [olympics] unspecified 2012, I still find what I’m looking for. “

3. Frequent updates. This is the feature that will probably be most important for small business websites, unless your site is already based on current events. For searches that are not recurring events or hot topics (items 1 and 2), Google will now search for sites that add new information frequently and list those results first, above outdated sites that haven’t been updated in a while.

So what does this mean for your small business website? It means that if you don’t regularly add new content and information, don’t expect to appear in Google search results. In addition to all the other facets of optimizing a site to rank well, now you need to get serious about keeping it up-to-date, up-to-date, and relevant.

The good news is, there are a few things you can do right now to help your site survive the update and rank higher than your competitors:

• Obviously update your website and add new content regularly. Adding articles, new pages or updating the content of the existing page will indicate to Google that you are serious about your business and deserve to be included in its results.

• Make sure you have correct and up-to-date timestamps in your XML sitemap. Many SEO experts already agree that timestamps will become a significant ranking signal, so make sure your XML sitemap is correct and working properly.

• If you have not yet optimized your website, you should do so immediately. SEO basics are more important than ever, especially since Google continues to evolve and add new ranking signals. Make sure you have the basics firmly in place.

• If you have already optimized your website, double check your keywords to make sure they are still valid terms. There is no point optimizing keywords that search engines never type in the search box. You may need to re-optimize some pages for better and more relevant keywords.

• Have your SEO company run a report to check what your competitors are doing. If you want to overcome them, you need to know how they are performing so you can take the appropriate action.

You may be wondering “how often should I update my website?” The answer, of course, is “more often than your competitors.” But a great lesson to remember is that if you want to rank well in search engine results, it’s all about producing relevant content and doing it regularly. With all the other SEO elements in place, this latest update from Google could significantly improve the way Google views and ranks your site in its search engine results.

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