WHAT DO GOOGLE’S CHANGES MEAN FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
One of the best business lessons comes from an unlikely source: mice.
The story is told of two mice and two small people living in a maze. They found a huge stash of cheese—their favorite food—and feel comfortable with their food source and their lives. The people even move their homes closer to the cheese, and it becomes the center of their lives. As the mice and people eat the cheese every day, they don’t realize that the supply is slowly getting smaller and smaller, until one day they arrive for their breakfast and the cheese is gone.
The two groups have opposite reactions to the disappearance of the cheese. The mice accept that the cheese is gone and run off into the maze looking for other food sources and eventually find more things to eat. But the people have built their entire lives around the cheese and are heartbroken that it is gone. They think that surely someone has stolen it from them, which stops them from hunting for a new source of food.
What’s the lesson we can learn from this? The way we live and work is constantly changing. It’s not unusual to wake up one day and have everything be completely different than it was the day before. New technology, increased connectivity, and new trends have made many business stalwarts obsolete. We can’t slow down the pace of change, but we can choose how we react to it. In the story, the mice didn’t lament their lost cheese, but instead moved on to find something new and another way to survive. On the other hand, the people were so caught up in the change that they missed out on new opportunities and didn’t progress.
One of the biggest applications to this story can be in SEO. So many companies are like the characters in the story and build their entire organizations around Google. Things go well for a while until Google makes changes to its algorithm and strategy, leaving the companies to either hunt for something new like the mice or wander around in despair and confusion like the people.
Google is Constantly Changing
Like all businesses, Google makes regular changes based on customer demand, technology, and what’s happening in the world. But unlike many other companies, when Google makes a change or update, it impacts the rest of the world. Google’s algorithm determines where websites end up in the search results, which has a major impact on web traffic, credibility, and overall business growth. Most people won’t look past the first page of Google results, which means that companies need to be aware of Google’s changes to adjust their approaches and get the highest results possible. What worked to be in the top search result a few years ago will likely not work today in most cases. An unwillingness to change and adapt could land a website buried multiple pages in the results.
Google is constantly tinkering with its approach and makes thousands of small changes every year. Most of these smaller changes are unnoticeable by the average user. However, Google also tends to roll out major changes to its algorithm and overall search strategy a few times a year. These large updates completely change how Google calculates search results to instantly deliver the best results from a query. Changes could move a website from a top spot in the search results to the second page overnight.
Google’s Most Recent Changes
Google rolled out its largest change in five years last October, but made another major change in January 2020, called the January 2020 Core Update. These large updates often change where a page lands in the results and tend to affect certain industries more than others. The January 2020 update seems to have impacted the health, family and community, and beauty and personal care industries the most, meaning these types of websites most likely had their search results affected over other industries.
What Do the Changes Mean?
Why do businesses need to know about Google’s changes? How do the changes impact overall strategy? The changes matter because search results have a large impact on business. Search engine optimization isn’t just a one-time thing. Setting up a website with SEO content isn’t the final step—the most successful companies continually update their web presence based on algorithm changes to ensure they stay at the top of search results. But more and more Google changes means it’s harder than ever to land at the top of Google. SEO experts can keep an eye on changes, monitor how the algorithm is adjusting, and adapt SEO strategy to ensure companies have the best web presence possible.
The internet is crucial to business success, just like the cheese was crucial for the characters in the maze. And although it changes all the time, the best companies are the mice who move around and find new solutions. Staying on top of Google’s updates and adjusting their strategies accordingly can help companies of all sizes win the maze and find great success online.
“SEO Isn’t About Gaming the System Anymore; It’s About Learning How to Play by the Rules.” – Jordan Teicher