Algorithms are systems utilised to gather data from its search engine index in order to deliver the best possible search result for a query. This is done as the search engine combines numerous ranking factors to then list them from the most popular to the least, based on the relevance of the page.

As a digital marketer, you may have noticed that Google have started to make algorithm updates much more frequent than they previously did. In fact, Google makes thousands of changes that may not be major and goes unnoticed most of the time. However, every now and then, they would make a major algorithmic update that would significantly change the search engine result page (SERPs). These Major updates are often announced by Google via their social media pages to let everyone know. An interesting fact is that they’ve previously had names for these major updates such as: Pigeon, Payday Rankbrain, Penguin, Panda etc.

Although stating that the reason for the update is to ‘improve Search overall and keep pace with the changing nature of the web’, Google doesn’t tell you exactly what has changed as they leave you to figure it out for yourself. Nevertheless, most time the SEO community usually find out what has change due to their continuous work on trying to improve their ranking organically.

So far, we’ve found out that:

1.  Content with Videos rank higher than the ones with text. This means, if you decided to search for something, the first set of result would be those which has a video in it.

What this looks like as a result:

. Sites like TikTok have grew up to 99%

. Sites with videos have increased its visibility by at least 25%

. Those who only have written content have decreased the visibility by at least 4-6%.

. According to several reports, 92% of marketers said that video content was an important part of their marketing strategy in 2020. Therefore, video content is used a lot more in recent years.

2. Those who have general contents are being ranked below those who have specialist content. Therefore, experts in a particular field have more of a chance to rank higher than those who are generalists. This means that sites who focus on specific topics that they specialise in are more likely to be visible compared to sites that provide general information.

What you should do about these changes:

As a digital marketer, it’s extremely important to identify these patterns and decide on how you wish to proceed-whether you feel it could benefit your business or not. Whilst these are just a couple of things picked up by most experts in the SEO industry, one thing to know is that Google does provide information on the type of websites that would be affected by the change they’re about to make. A general advice is to try to improve content on your website by tailoring it more to the type of service you’re offering. Make your website as relevant and precise as possible to ensure Google recognises it and rank it higher due to its quality. Also keeping an eye on reliable SEO blogs and site articles would usually give you a clear understanding on what to do and how to deal with the change.