What is Rankbrain and how it affects SEO?

Since the beginning of internet marketing we have wondered what affects a company’s ability to be seen on the search engines.  It was easy to manipulate rankings in the dawn of SEO but now it is becoming more complex.  Google has put in safeguards in order to prevent internet marketing professionals from “rigging” the rankings.  Google has indicated to Search Engine Land that there are more that 200 factors that are used in the Google algorithm.  These factors also have over 11,000 variables that must be considered when measuring the algorithm.

Recently Google has confirmed the top 3 factors in determining the rankings on Google.  The three most important factors are.

1. Content- as we have articulated in many of our articles, content is king.  It is important not to skimp on quality when writing on your blog.  Google is now looking into not just hitting the necessary keywords but whether the material is valuable.  It is important to now take your time and research the material you are to write about.   Although you may be in a technical field, it is always important to write for the everyday man.  Keep sentences and phrases simple and easy to understand.
2. Link building- These are links pointed to your site.  Link building involves several sets of skills in that you have to be a content creator, salesperson, and psychologist if you want other people to consistently link to your site.  It is an arduous process for many and that has led to black hat methods.  Methods such as spamming has become prominent in the last few years but now Google has cut down on the practice by penalizing websites that use such methods.
3. Rankbrain- Rankbrain was thrust upon the masses in October 2015 as one of Google Hummingbird’s key algorithmic factors. It is Google’s evolving AI that helps refine search results and deem the most relevant pages.  Rankbrain attempts to find patterns among keywords and resolve issues with unclear queries.  It also looks for compelling content and determines how relevant it is for the particular search.  This means that writing valuable content is becoming necessary if not mandatory.  The days of keyword stuffing and having fluff articles will be less significant to Rankbrain and because it is an learning AI, it is always looking for material that answers the queries directly.

So what does this mean for content marketing and SEO?  From the 3 major factors it looks like Google has been making major attempts to curtail abuse by black hat SEO companies.  The best and legitimate way to increase your rankings and have a successful SEO campaign is to write valuable content.  Writing content that has long term benefit to the user is more beneficial than writing on current developmental news.  Of course, it surely doesn’t hurt in the short term to write about current trends in your business niche.  Especially if your company is involved and referenced in it.

Google is making it much more difficult to manipulate rankings.  The only way to legitimately have a successful SEO campaign is to invest in valuable content.  You can do that by doing the work yourself or hiring an in-house person to assist with your content marketing needs.  This can be become pricey to bring someone on and if you should decide to do it yourself, you will be spending plenty of time away from managing your core business.

In light of this it can be beneficial t0 work with a digital marketing agency that understands all of the factors that affect SEO that will be updated with new trends that will affect your online marketing campaign.  Falcon Consulting & Marketing is a digital marketing agency that can help any business with these needs.  We are a New York City based digital marketing agency that assists businesses one client at a time.

https://falconconsultingandmarketing.com/rankbrain-affects-seo/

Visit us at www.falconconsultingandmarketing.com

Google Penguin 4.0 Update. How will it affect your SEO campaign?

Google’s 6th revision to Penguin has not come and is called Penguin 4.0.  On September 23, 2016, Google rolled out it’s latest edition.  This is what was released by them via their Webmaster Central Blog:

Google’s algorithms rely on more than 200 unique signals or “clues” that make it possible to surface what you might be looking for. These signals include things like the specific words that appear on websites, the freshness of content, your region and PageRank. One specific signal of the algorithms is called Penguin, which was first launched in 2012 and today has an update.

After a period of development and testing, we are now rolling out an update to the Penguin algorithm in all languages. Here are the key changes you’ll see, which were also among webmasters’ top requests to us:

• Penguin is now real-time. Historically, the list of sites affected by Penguin was periodically refreshed at the same time. Once a webmaster considerably improved their site and its presence on the internet, many of Google’s algorithms would take that into consideration very fast, but others, like Penguin, needed to be refreshed. With this change, Penguin’s data is refreshed in real time, so changes will be visible much faster, typically taking effect shortly after we recrawl and reindex a page. It also means we’re not going to comment on future refreshes.
• Penguin is now more granular. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.

The web has significantly changed over the years, but as we said in our original post, webmasters should be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling websites. It’s also important to remember that updates like Penguin are just one of more than 200 signals we use to determine rank.

So what does that mean for the small business owner or SEO practitioner?

1.  Beware of black hat link building tactics- using services in order to link build should be cautioned.  Although we are not certain how it will negatively affect your site, we do know that it is real time so therefore you will see the results pretty quickly.  At the end of the day it will be very difficult to change the negative status and penalties of using these methods.
2. Google Penguin now impacts all levels like domain, folders, pages and probably also keywords and keyword groups. So anything that goes into the organic rankings will now be affected by the Penguin algorithm on a granular level.
3. Content and data-driven analysis along with knowledge in order to amplify to a targeted audience via multiple channels; social media, paid search, digital PR will be key.  You have to become more of a marketer instead of relying of tricks.
4. Write better!!  Content will become more important.  You have to be able to analyze your subjects and give more value via research driven content that the audience will find unique and useful.  Once you are able to get accustomed to writing in this fashion the better.

Google 4.0 will reduce the idea of using black hat methods and using internet marketing companies that use template boring material that just attempts to hit keywords instead of giving their customers value by writing great content.  Google Penguin 4.0 may become great for the client as it will make companies providing SEO services draft and post better articles in the small business owner’s niche market.

Falcon Consulting & Marketing have always used professional writers to draft articles that have complied with Penguin 4.0.  It has always been our policy to not just hit the appropriate keywords but to make sure that the material is worthy to be posted on behalf of a client.  We are a digital marketing agency located in New York City assisting small businesses one client at a time.   We are positioned to help many companies achieved their goals and comply with Google Penguin 4.0.

https://falconconsultingandmarketing.com/google-penguin-4-0-update-know/

Visit us at www.falconconsultingandmarketing.com