All is smooth, and all is well.
When new algorithm updates roll out from Google, the implications are generally serious. While many websites benefit from the new algorithm, others see a severe drop in traffic. The algorithm, according to Forbes, has been active for over a month already. Some other sources have cited it was deployed more than several months ago, although Google’s announcement came only recently.
Over the weekend after our move to our new office (which we will cover soon enough) we have examined our Google Analytics records of our clients’ websites, and there have been no significant loss of traffic whatsoever – business as usual!
Google Hummingbird release had no negative impact on traffic to our clients’ websites whatsoever.
How did we manage to keep traffic up & steady?
We always emphasize great content structure, great navigation and clear/concise data presentation when it comes to our websites. Not only do our websites look great as a consequence, but well designed websites also tend to have better performance on Google as well. We do not utilize any black-hat methods of search engine optimization (stuff that, if Google finds you’ve done, will get your site demoted or even banned from Google). Delivering quality content through good code structure with a combination of posting on social media outlets and 3rd party websites with good reputation is our main game, and that will not change. Quality original content always wins out in the long run, according to Google.
So What’s Next for Brixwork’s real estate website clients?
Because we have been doing it the right way, no loss has been incurred as a result of this algorithm upgrade. We keep pushing forward. But, we believe in making things better all the time, so here’s what we have in our roadmap for all of our SEO packages:
Heavier Focus on Longer, Natural Queries – More “Human” Queries
Because the new upgrade algorithm has a heavy emphasis on long phrased natural queries, we will be focusing our SEO efforts in that direction to ensure that our clients’ real estate websites can be picked up. In fact, we have been focusing on long-trail queries already for quite a while now if you noticed. Previous upgrades to Google’s algorithms did start focusing shift on more natural phrased queries. For example, back in the days, people had to query like a computer (“Condos Yaletown Listing”). Nowadays, people are more used to testing Google with more complex searches (“West Vancouver Waterfront Homes For Sale”, or “Condos listed around the Waterfront Skytrain Station”).
Increases In Social Media Presence & Leveraging 3rd Party Websites
With an increasing shift from Google’s part to monitor human browsing behaviour, social shares on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (especially) have an impact on your search engine performance. The visitor patterns on your website also have a feedback effect. And as always, other websites’ links that point back towards your webpage always helps. We are focused on finding quality websites that we can leverage for legitimate back-links. We never buy links, or link-spam your website address on sketchy blogs created by some guy sitting in his mom’s basement. We do things the white-hat way. Effort has its price, and it also has positive results on your marketing efforts, and that’s what we’re all about.
