This past March, Google rolled out another core algorithm update, which has had the SEO community buzzing about how it will impact website rankings. While the full effects of this update have likely not been observed, it is important to understand that measures can be taken to minimize the impact of Google’s ongoing algorithm updates.

Understanding The Foundation of Google’s Search Algorithm

With each update, Google is constantly refining its algorithms to ensure that the most relevant and authoritative content is featured prominently in search results.

Search intent and website relevance create the bedrock upon which Google’s search engine lays. Google has become the largest search engine in the world because it consistently delivers relevant, high-quality search results to users. Google uses these algorithm updates to better analyze, understand, and rank website content so that it can continue providing pertinent content to users.

If you’re worried that your search rankings will drop as a result of this algorithm update and other subsequent updates, fear not. There are many digital content strategies and useful tools to help you maintain and improve your rankings.

SEO Best Practices to Improve Your Google Rankings

Keeping up with Google algorithm updates is essential for any website or business that wants to stay competitive in the ever-changing digital landscape. This means that it’s important for website owners and marketers to keep on top of these changes so they can adjust their strategies accordingly. Below, we offer SEO best practices and steps you can take to ensure your content remains visible and relevant.

Prioritize High-Quality Website Content

Develop a thorough understanding of what your target market is researching, and create content aimed at educating, captivating, and providing solutions for their questions.

There are plenty of tools available (like SEMrush) that can help you find appropriate keywords to base your website content around. Remember, Google Search uses keywords at the core of its algorithm, so understanding the specific language consumers use and implementing it on your website will prove most successful.

Optimize For User Experience

Having relevant content isn’t enough if your website takes too long to load. Google wants users to be able to access information quickly. So ensure that page load time is fast, buttons and forms are accessible on mobile devices, and the website’s layout is conducive to a strong customer experience.

Set Up Google Alerts or Follow Google Search Relay on Twitter

Constantly monitoring the hundreds of updates that occur every year isn’t realistic; however, Google Alerts can notify you when a core algorithm update is scheduled to take place so that you have time to prepare and adapt. Simply go to google.com/alerts and enter keywords like “Google algorithm” to receive emails about when these alerts will take place. Another option is to follow Google Search Central on Twitter. This account regularly reports noteworthy changes occurring within the Google world.

Using Search Console, Google Analytics, and SEMrush To Regularly Monitor Rankings

Using these tools to monitor website traffic and conversions, as well as keyword rankings, can further assist you in staying ahead of Google’s algorithm updates. You can use these tools to see whether there are dips or spikes in website activity, which can be indicative of an algorithm update. These SEO monitoring tools can provide you with a better understanding of whether your content is compelling and offer insights into improving your content for better performance.

How to Rank Higher on Google with MARION Integrated Marketing

Ultimately a strong SEO strategy is the only way to maintain good rankings with Google. Therefore, developing strong SEO practices is paramount to showing up on Google Search regardless of an algorithm update. For more on SEO and marketing best practices, visit the MARION blog.

Contact MARION today to learn more about keeping up with SEO algorithm updates.

Google releases several algorithm updates every year, and these changes can have a significant impact on your SEO efforts. In other words, it affects how many eyes will reach your content.

So, how do you keep up with the ever-changing algorithm? Let’s go over some general best practices for ensuring your content stands up to any and all future changes.

How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?

Google is well-known for rolling out algorithm updates left and right. On average, there are upwards of 3,000 changes made per year. That being said, the majority of updates are minor improvements that may not be of interest to most content creators and typically go unnoticed.

However, Google also launches several significant changes every year, referred to as “core updates.” Often planned months in advance, these critical components of Google’s ranking algorithm are designed to enhance the quality and relevance of overall search results. As many digital marketing experts know, these updates are notorious for drastically affecting SEO, for better or for worse.

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Check out our ultimate timeline of Google algorithm updates >

Content Creation Best Practices

Simply put, it’s not enough to just produce high-quality content nowadays. Many businesses succeed at creating engaging and valuable content for their target audience—but that doesn’t automatically make it long-lasting, high-ranking content in the eyes of the algorithm.

To ensure your content outlasts future algorithm updates, you’ll need to play by Google’s rules. Follow these best practices and learn how to create the content you need for ongoing success.

• Focus on Quality Content
• Understand Google E-A-T
• Keep Your Audience in Mind

Focus on Quality

Regardless of Google algorithm updates over the years, quality is the key to generating inbound traffic. To create truly valuable content, you must have subject matter that is beneficial to the user—whether that be educational information, unique insights, proven research, new ideas, etc.

Additionally, if your content is presented neatly and accurately, your message is far more likely to get across. Avoid any errors that might make visitors click away. The top reasons that users are likely to leave a webpage include:

• Broken links and forms
• Spelling and grammar mistakes
• Outdated information
• Misleading/irrelevant title
• Poor format, design, or usability
• Not mobile-friendly (bad UX design)
• Overwhelming ads or pop-ups

But more importantly, you must have high-quality content by the algorithm’s standards in order to climb the ranks and beat your competitors. Here are three few red flags Google looks for when ranking websites.

1.     Poor On-Page Optimization

Elements like keywords and page titles play an important role in helping the algorithm determine what your content is about. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to optimize title tags, image tags, meta descriptions, URLs, and XML sitemaps.

2.     Thin Content

Simply put, thin content is on-page content that is not useful to visitors. This includes doorway pages, affiliate pages, irrelevant guest posts, and content that is automatically generated or stolen from another online source.

3.     Insufficient Links

Not only do you need great content to gain Google’s approval and achieve high ranks, but you also need great links. The more high-value links your site has, the better your web presence. You’ll also want to avoid bad link-building practices to stay on Google’s good side.

Overall, Google favors meaningful, quality content related to the keywords you’re ranking for.

Understand the E-A-T Perspective

Ultimately, Google wants to give its users the best search engine experience possible, which is why it takes careful precautions to only promote trustworthy domains. As a result, Google’s perception of a business often correlates with the impression left on its target audience. So, how can you tailor your content to meet Google’s standards?

Google measures three main factors when determining how much trust should be placed in a particular brand or website—Expertise, Authority, and Trust—also known as E-A-T. The concept of E-A-T has been around for nearly a decade, yet many industry experts still struggle with it today.

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• Expertise – Expertise means to have exceptional knowledge or skill in a particular subject. Google tends to favor content created by subject matter experts. Simply put, the content on your site must demonstrate a higher level of expertise than the competition.
• Authority – Authority is all about reputation, typically among industry experts and influencers. When people see an individual or website as the go-to source of reliable information on a subject, that constitutes authority.
• Trust – Trust is about the accuracy, legitimacy, and transparency of a webpage’s content. Citing trustworthy sources is a big part of building trust with Google. Including publisher contact information is also helpful.

What exactly determines E-A-T? Google typically looks at a combination of the content, creator, and website. Therefore, the algorithm is constantly being trained to look for these variables when deciding which web pages to promote in search results.

Keep Reader Intention in Mind

Unlike Google, people don’t generally care about links and tags. They’re just searching for content that meets their needs. Therefore, you must tailor your content to your specific audience to achieve the best results. Ask yourself these questions to better understand Google audience targeting.

• Who is your target audience?
• What problems are they trying to solve?
• What writing style appeals to them most?
• How can you earn their trust?

Once you know your audience, all you have to do is create content they are specifically searching for. The best content creators know what strategies to use to boost reader engagement and drive traffic. 

For example, you can incorporate descriptive language into your writing to create an image in the reader’s mind and fully immerse them in your work. Likewise, using figurative language can transform ordinary content into an enhanced experience.

Follow these steps successfully, and the algorithm will reward your efforts with high ranks and leads for your business!

What About Future Google Algorithm Updates?

At this rate, it’s clear that Google won’t be slowing down on the updates anytime soon. And with thousands of algorithm changes per year, it’s impossible to keep up with all of them. It’s true that most updates won’t affect you, but it’s a mistake to ignore them entirely—especially the big ones.

Ultimately, it’s crucial that marketers and content creators know when major changes in the algorithm happen. It’s the only way to understand whether rankings shifted because of an internal change or a Google update.

So, do you have a proactive or reactive digital content strategy when it comes to Google algorithm changes? To ensure your content survives future search updates, you’ll need to raise the bar.

Get ahead of the algorithm and put your best foot forward with the content optimization tips mentioned in this article. Or if you’re not ready to take on that challenge, you can always recruit the help of an outsourced marketing agency that knows its way around the algorithm.

Contact us today to learn more about our SEO services in Houston and Austin, TX.

A marketing agency is a business that helps organizations increase the sales of their products and services. Futhermore, there are two ways to categorize marketing agencies: in-house and external. The former deals with the company’s marketing efforts internally, while the latter works with the company’s marketing externally.

Additionally, there are three main types of digital advertising agencies: performance-based, traditional, and integrated. Performance-based agencies provide services like search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising; traditional agencies offer services like print or broadcast media; integrated agencies provide both performance-based and traditional marketing services. So, which one is best for your business? Keep reading to find out.

Why Hire a Local SEO Agency in Your Area?

If you’re looking for internet marketing services in your area, these are a few of the biggest reasons why you might want to hire a local SEO agency, regardless of your industry. 

• SEO Optimization: Agencies would be able to understand the nuances of your industry and help with local optimization.
• Keyword Research: Agency experts know what kind of keywords and key phrases to target and how to rank well on search engines so that your business will be seen by more people who are looking for products or services like yours.
• Local Knowledge: Digital marketing agencies near you will know what searches and trends people in your area are searching for. You also can’t beat face-to-face interactions.

How to Find the Best Local SEO Agency for Your Business in Houston

A local SEO marketing agency will have in-depth knowledge of your industry, be close to you geographically, and have the dedication to work with you long-term. The right agency experts will help you build a digital content strategy that dominates your industry.

So, what are the best practices for finding a marketing agency that can help your business grow? Of course, it’s important to find an agency that understands your industry, has strong local connections in Houston, and has the patience to work with you for years to come. But how do you know which one is right for you?

How Much Should You Budget for an Online Marketing Campaign?

Marketing costs can seem daunting. But it is essential to budget correctly so you can be successful at marketing your business online.

The first step to determining your marketing budget is to look at your company’s revenue and growth goals. If you are expanding, there should be an equal investment in growth and marketing if you want the business to grow exponentially.

After assessing growth goals, you need to take into account the cost of customer acquisition. Customers are expensive — it costs about five times more than what it takes to retain a customer through marketing campaigns or by providing excellent service.

Finding the Best Marketing Agency in South Texas

If you are looking for a top marketing agency in South Texas, look no further. You have come to the right place! You will find all kinds of information about marketing agencies here—from tips for getting started with marketing services in Houston to online marketing strategies with the biggest impact on ROI, top questions to ask a branding agency, and more.

In conclusion, the best way to choose a marketing agency that’s perfect for your business is by following these simple steps. First, ask them about what they do for clients with similar businesses to yours or who have an equivalent budget size. Then ask them about their experience working with your particular market or industry. Finally, see if they offer free consultations so you can meet them in person and see if it’s a match!

Ready to hire and work with the best internet marketing agency in Houston? MARION has been helping Texas businesses advertise big since 1981. We work with our clients to manage their entire online presence, from social media and web design to email marketing and reputation management.

Contact our team today and schedule a free consultation to learn more about our services.

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming for those who aren’t accustomed to it. The number of tools, strategies and changes by Google is virtually limitless. If you’re new to SEO, where do you start? Here are five SEO tools we think are among the best for monitoring your website’s performance and making improvements.

Why Measure SEO Performance?

There’s an adage out there that says, “you can’t improve what you don’t measure.” While cliché at this point, it rings true. If you’re just improving your website without a benchmark or goal, you’ll only experience success if you’re lucky. For the rest of us unlucky ones, we can actively improve our website’s performance based on specific metrics like organic traffic, search engine rankings and conversion rates.

You see, most of what’s visible to your prospects and website visitors is content. And, according to HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2021, “the majority of companies (67%) use organic traffic to measure their content success.” Why? Because organic traffic (as opposed to paid or direct traffic) reflects how valuable your content is to your prospects.

So, how do you get your valuable content in front of the right eyes? These days, a good SEO tool is really a requirement. Fortunately, we have some recommendations.

The Best SEO Tools for Performance Monitoring

Any “best” list is going to be subjective, but the truly best tools will show up again and again on recommendation lists or articles. That being said, here are the tools that we’ve seen over the years that have had a demonstrable impact on improving SEO performance for websites.

1. SEMrush

Are there other better all-in-one marketing tools out there? Maybe. But few software alternatives come close to SEMrush when it comes to SEO. After all, search engine optimization is SEMrush’s bread and butter. It’s the company’s specialty. (Just look at the company name. “SEM” refers to “search engine marketing!”) If you’re going to try an SEO tool, we recommend starting with SEMrush.

• Pros: Robust, deep and packed with features. Extremely helpful customer service team.
• Cons: Fairly expensive and a bit of a learning curve to use.
• Best SEO Features: Keyword research, position tracking, organic research, traffic analytics, backlinks, keyword gaps, competitor comparisons, social media management, content marketing suggestions, local SEO and much more.

2. Moz

Moz lost a bit of its luster and appeal when Rand Fishkin exited the company, but it remains a solid SEO option. One of the best parts about Moz is that many features are free! You just need to sign up for an account and there are limits to queries you can submit. But if you have a single business or don’t check in on SEO metrics very often, this might be a good starter tool for you.

• Pros: Moz also excels at backlink data and has a proprietary Domain Authority score that is a standard in the industry.
• Cons: You must upgrade to a premium/paid account to use all features.
• Best SEO Features: Domain analysis, keyword explorer, link explorer.

3. HubSpot

I admittedly have a soft spot for HubSpot, as I’ve obtained dozens of certifications from the company and have used their tools for many years. When it comes to user experience and customer service, HubSpot can’t be beat. While it’s true that HubSpot isn’t an SEO-exclusive tool, it does have many SEO-friendly features that will help you improve your website’s performance. If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool with plenty of SEO features, HubSpot is a can’t-miss option.

• Pros: Easy to learn, with top-notch UX/UI. Friendly, helpful customer service team.
• Cons: Expensive (though you get what you pay for). SEO data isn’t as rich or accurate as SEMrush or Google Analytics (based on the traffic sources the tool references), but you still get valuable insights for improvement.
• Best SEO Features: Content optimization recommendations, topic clustering, robust reporting and valuable SEO-related tools like blogging, landing pages and marketing automation.

4. Screaming Frog

If you have technical aptitude and some SEO experience, Screaming Frog is a tool that will allow you to dive deeper than others on this list. Screaming Frog basically crawls your site in a way similar to search engine robots, helping you identify crucial issues like improper tags, meta information that’s too short or long, missing alt text on images and more.

• Pros: Rich, deep data, which is easily exportable/sharable.
• Cons: You’re limited to 500 pages on the free plan. May be too much for new SEOs.
• Best SEO Features: Site crawling, integrations with other SEO tools, advanced metrics.

5. Google Analytics

Last, but probably first in the list of tools you should consider is Google Analytics. There really is no replacement for the data you’ll see straight from the source with GA. Customizing reports and diving deep into advanced metrics is attainable with Google Analytics, though you definitely need to know what you’re doing.

• Pros: Most accurate data for organic traffic from Google; highly customizable. Integrates with most SEO tools.
• Cons: Very steep learning curve; not ideal for new SEOs. Permissions/security can be annoying.
• Best SEO Features: Visitor behavior tracking, identifying top pages/content, annotations for big changes, customizable tracking and reports.

Bonus: LinkWhisper

We’re huge fans of this final SEO tool, which is ideal for monitoring links in particular. You can easily build reports, identify broken links, set up auto-linking settings for blog posts (limiting them to one per post) and more. If you’re looking to automate the internal and external linking part of SEO, LinkWhisper is worth checking out. (It works with most WordPress-hosted websites.)

Should You Partner with an SEO Agency?

With all these amazing search engine optimization tools available, why would you need to partner with a marketing agency for your SEO? Well, if you notice from some of the cons above, many tools require search engine optimization knowledge to get the most out of them that you can. (This is why several companies like HubSpot and Google offer certifications.)

Additionally, some of the more expensive tools may be out of reach for your company and its budget. An agency, however, may already be on an agency plan and you’ll be able to enjoy the amazing benefits of the tools without the premium price tag. Other benefits include easy integrations, more precise reporting and flexibility.

If you’re interested in learning more about these tools or how we can help with your SEO efforts, contact us today.