Google’s Medic Update: Important Things You Need To Know
All digital marketing professionals cautiously wait for the next “update in Google’s Algorithm”. As a matter of fact, whenever Google releases its new updates, the ranking of websites fluctuates significantly. Some websites go up in Google’s SERP, while others are humiliated by a low ranking. With different algorithm updates, Google aims to crackdown the use of Blackhat SEO practices and help only genuine parties to compete fairly in its SERP and gain a fair amount of business opportunities.
On 1st August 2018, Google released a new update. All SEO persons must know the details of this new update and be aware of its impact on the overall ranking of websites. Let’s see the main details of the new Google updates in a nutshell.
What’s Special About Google’s New Update?
In simple language, Google’s new update is aimed at health and medical sites and YMYL Your Money Your Life sites. But, in reality, the ranking of several other websites also. As per the new update, website owners need to focus on making their sites more useful for the targeted audience, offer better content and emphasize on making a great experience.
Have a look at the main websites that experienced gains/losses following the update.
Big Losers:
Big Winners:
Some Practical Tips to Cope with This Update
Is Your Website Customer-Centric?
Every business owner wants to have a site that could remain in the user’s memory for a long time. It not only improves the overall reputation of the company but also helps it to sell products and services in bulk. Every business owner has specific needs for websites, but some things are common for almost all websites. They are:
| Important Elements on Websites | Benefits |
| A website with minimalistic web design elements and enough white space. | It makes websites look professional and appealing to visitors. |
| Social Media sharing icons. | The promotion of Your brand on different social media channels and the acquisition of more business opportunities every day. |
| A search bar on The Right Side of Your website. | It helps visitors to find the desired info, products, services, etc, easily & quickly. |
| Responsive Website design Or A Mobile Version of the site. | It is a mandatory condition to get a decent ranking in Google’s SERP. It helps visitors to access your website through different mobile devices. |
| Proper CALL TO Action Buttons. | They help individuals to take the desired action after reading the available content. |
| Useful & Information-rich Hyperlinks. | High-quality hyperlinks to your website increase its ranking on WWW and help you get more business opportunities. Users get more detailed information on specific topics. |
| High-quality Images with ALT Attributes. | They help your website to perform well in Google Image search results. Images help visitors to understand the text content easily and make informed decisions comfortably. |
| Catchy headlines with keywords | They attract visitors and encourage them to read your content from A to Z. |
| Smooth Navigation | Visitors can easily move from one place to another on your website to find the desired stuff. |
| Multilingual websites | Visitors can read the content in their favorite language and take the desired action. |
Use Plagiarism Free Actionable Content in Website Optimization
These days, almost all digital marketing activities are based on the supply of high-quality and meaningful content. There is a great demand for unique content, but the actual supply is low. So, content developers resort to the copy-paste technology (under great pressure) to produce content in bulk. This creates the problem of content duplication and spoils your SEO initiatives with almost minimal Zero results. Google can blacklist your website or delete it from its server for using the low-quality content.
Have a look at the uniqueness of the content in Percentage:
| Uniqueness percentage | Webmaster’s Remark |
| 95 – 100% | Excellent |
| 90-94% | Good |
| 80-89% | Average |
| 50- 79% | satisfactory |
| Below 50% | Copied content |
Therefore, write unique, meaningful and fresh content with proper research and analysis work. Don’t just do the copy-paste work. After creating the content, check it for keyword placement, grammatical errors, readability, and formatting problems.
Make sure your content is easy to understand and free from spelling mistakes. (Check the language preference of visitors. Write in American English if your website is aimed at serving the needs of the American audience. The same holds true when you operate websites for British people. Always use British English). A website that is pregnant with lots of useful content, can rank well in Google SERP with all important terms and help its owner to make more revenues every day.
More Emphasis on The User Experience
In simple language, the User experience is all about how comfortable the user feels while using websites or different web applications. If they get a pleasant experience, they love to come back to your website next time and be a part of your lead generation process. In case, they had an unpleasant experience on your website because of any reason, they go away instantly never to come back.
As Google takes note of user intent while ranking websites in its SERP, most executives, managers, and UX designers have started to pay attention to the UX design of websites to increase customer satisfaction with the product, improve usability, availability, and interaction. They always try to create a product that makes the audience happy.
Eliminate Website Errors ASAP
Different types of website errors not only spoils the effectiveness of your SEO initiatives but also repels visitors away. So, conduct a website audit from time-to-time, trace all possible errors and eliminate them ASAP to make your site fit for use.
Final Words
Google is famous for releasing new updates at regular intervals. All new updates are aimed at improving the user’s experience on WWW and help them find what they want. Although Google’s Medic update is aimed at health and medical sites and YMYL Your Money Your Life sites, it also impacts other websites. So, don’t sit idle, use the above-mentioned tips to help your site sustain this update and rank well in Google’s SERP. Good luck!
