Don't panic when SEO results change drastically

Google recently rolled out another big update on or around November 18th. For many Shopify stores, the impact of Google’s update right before the holiday was an unwelcome blow.

When Google rolls out Core Updates (as they call them) which often impact search ranking, it means your site can do better or it could do worse as a result of the update. This volatility can be a bit frustrating.

But what can you do about it?

The first thing I recommend is not to panic.

Google makes changes all the time. Some changes are so small we barely notice. Other times, we may feel like we’ve been removed from Google completely even though nothing was changed.

It’s best to keep our cool.

Search results change all the time and when Google makes big changes like this, sit tight and let things level out.

Google has said many times “pages that drop after a core update may have nothing to fix.” Results will recover, it may take some time.

It can be hard to sit and wait though. So if you feel like you need to do something, focus on ensuring you’ve got the best content on your Shopify site.

Google has shared in the past how you can focus on your page content to improve results with this self-assessment. I pulled out a few questions to ask yourself that I thought would be helpful. For the full list of questions, check out Google’s post. https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/08/core-updates

• Does the content provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does the content have any spelling or stylistic issues?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them?
• Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• Does the content seem to be serving the genuine interests of visitors to the site or does it seem to exist solely by someone attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

If your website is suffering from poor results, you might consider the Website Rescues. The questions above are similar to what I ask when evaluating your site. The Website Rescues is a quick project where we make tweaks to improve the user experience on your site, driving up traffic, conversions and more.