It’s been a long 20 years – and Google has decided it’s time to do away with the old Webmaster Guidelines and rebrand to the new and improved Google Search Essentials. Understanding the preferences and limitations that come with the new update are essential to maintaining your status at the top of the first page, and the sustainability of your SEO strategy.
Read on to learn more about how you can leverage the latest Google Search Essentials update to go viral (and stay there.)
What changes were made with the Google Search Essentials update?
With so many updates rolled out in 2022, it can be hard to keep track of what matters the most for your dealership. However, our team has taken the time to read through the changes and condense them – giving you all of the key points you need to know for your SEO and content strategy.
Expansion on the core update: Content is king
The new update offers sleek, condensed preferences for navigating your SEO strategy, giving you direct insight into what the engine wants to see from content going forward. Unsurprisingly, it expanded on the requirements of the latest September 2022 core update, requiring users and webmasters to publish and create “people-first” content. Keywords, while important, are no longer the sole determinant of rank. Google took the opportunity to emphasize this in a timely way in the context of quality; coming at a perfect time – especially with the rise of AI and co-writing tools.
Consolidation of specific publication pages
The search engine used the latest Google Webmaster Guideline update to expand on certain areas of functionality and best practices, such as the addition of spam-law updates, best practices and recommendations, and technical requirements for publication. Additionally, we saw some pretty extreme consolidation occur in these key areas:
- Link spam
- Affiliate-related content pages
- Security-related content pages
Why do the new Google Webmaster Guidelines matter?
Google Webmaster Guidelines are your guide to creating high-quality, optimized content without the use of secondary keyword tools. They’ve remained the same for two decades – shifting drastically from a focus of optimization to a focus on user intent and well-written content in tandem with the new and improved optimization guidelines. Understanding the updates and reading up on the areas of addition and consolidation will give you the working knowledge you need to strengthen your holistic SEO and sales strategy using the Google search engine.
Questions? The team at Reunion Marketing is here to help. Please reach out to salesteam@reunionmarketing.com to learn more about this update, and how it might impact your dealership’s site.