In 2020, focus on the impact of the user, not Google

In the coming year, contributor and SMX West speaker, Mordy Oberstein believes SEOs should be analyzing the latent messages of what Google is actually trying to do holistically with core updates.

Below is the video transcript:

Hi. My name is Mordy Oberstein. I’m the CMO of Rank Ranger and I’m here to talk to you about what I think is important in SEO walking into 2020.

What I think is important is taking a more multidimensional, less linear, look at core updates. What do I mean by that? Well, sometimes we tend to fall back on our fall backs, if that makes sense, on links on certain technical aspects when dealing with a core update. But I think it makes a little bit more sense to consider the overall picture, meaning a multidimensional look at what is going on around the core update.

What’s Google been doing?
What’s Google been pushing for?
What are some of the new abilities that Google has or has displayed to us?
Where’s the inertia?
Where’s the momentum was Google pushing for?
And considering that when analyzing the core update.

Because think about it like this. Google’s gotten way, way, way, more qualitative when, approaching anything and everything from entities to web pages, to the site. Whatever it is, Google’s gotten way more human-like with its language, for example. And Google’s doing that because it’s fun. It’s great. It’s cool. It’s helpful. Because they want to use it as part of the ranking equation. So we should use it as part of our analysis equation when approaching a core update.

Because I mean, think about the last year and a half, we’ve seen neural matching, neural matching at the local level, the prolific proliferation of the topic. Look, I mean, look at the mobile knowledge panel now, versus two years ago. We have BERT, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So Google’s getting way more qualitative and it’s important to consider where Google’s going with things and the overall picture when approaching a core update.

Now in terms of, you know, how to actually get into the nitty-gritty of this, how to approach this in real terms, I would start with sites. Sites that were hit by an update. The sites that lost rankings during an update and approaching them holistically. I mean something very specific in that. I mean taking a look at the sites that won and the sites that loss and looking at the latent messages within the content. Within the tone of the content. In the format of the content. Within the UI, the UX.

What signals, what latent messaging are you giving Google in terms of your authority? In terms of your trustworthiness for this topic, for this vertical with how you go about your content. With how you go about your UX. How you go about your tone. How you go about UI and that sort of thing. 

Or if you really want to get to the heart of the matter, and this is great because I think SEO is finally catching up to marketing in this where we can talk about the psychological impact of the user, not Google. 

Think about the way you use your content, the way you use words.
The tone you take the UI the UX. Everything about your site.
What psychological signal does that send to the user?
How was the user psychologically interpreting what they’re seeing on your site?
How they’re interacting with your site.

Because that will probably put you in a very close place with how Google’s looking at your site. How Google’s interpreting your site. The signals that Google’s taking the messaging that Google taking away from your site. And at a very, very minimum, you’re going to be aligned to where Google wants to go with how it looks at your site.

There are certain patterns, certain elements that have come out of the core updates and messaging that Google loves or hates. But for that, you can hear me speak about that at SMX West so a little plug there for SMX West.

Again, really important, I think, to take a more, you know, don’t fall back on links. Don’t fall back on the technical aspects per se or alone. But think about the overall context of them. A multidimensional approach to looking at what’s happening with the core updates again, where Google’s heading the new abilities Google has. The things that Google’s trying to do. Where the momentum is working, Where Google’s pushing for. And analyzing your sites or your competitor’s sites of winners and losers holistically and accordingly.

So hopefully that was helpful. Good luck to you in 2020 – I’ll see you.

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