April has seen businesses adapt their digital marketing strategies, in particular their SEO campaigns as the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the globe.

As a high ranking (and probably best SEO agency) ourselves, we have first hand seen the demand for SEO services spike.
Whilst it’s never too late to start on a digital marketing or SEO marketing campaign, it can take time to generate results and with constant Google updates it can be an ever changing field.

Here are the updates for April:

2nd April – Google confirms again that they DO index hidden tabbed content

Confirmed by Matt Cutts in 2013 that Google does index hidden tabbed content and again in a Google chat hangout, Matt Cutts was asked about hidden and tabbed content on mobile devices to which he replied:

“Specifically, when it comes to content on mobile pages we do take into account anything that’s in the HTML. So if there’s something there that might be visible to users at some point we will include that… so that’s completely normal.”

6th April – Advice from John Mueller on META descriptions and why they can change

The every busy John Mueller has explained why sometimes meta tags may be different in the search results to what you actually place within your code.

There is no way to force Google to use your Meta tag as it is set every single time.

Some of the reasons for your meta tag being altered include:

  • Not being relevant to the user
  • Not being relevant to the search query but other on page content is
  • Duplicate meta description across several pages

This is done to provide the most relevant search results to users based on their search query.

John Mueller does offer some useful tips on Meta tags though:

  • Ensure each page has a unique meta tag
  • Are within the required snippet length
  • Match the intent of what a user would search for to find your page

7th April – Mueller: “strongly discourage” Web 2.0 links

John Mueller has stated that ‘web 2.0 links’ from websites such as Tumblr or other directory style websites where there’s little to no text accompanied with a backlink to a website.

John Mueller was very clear about the value of these links:
“So just to be really clear like this kind of activity has zero value for SEO.
It’s not something where you’re promoting your website in any way but rather essentially they’re spamming the web.
So that’s something I would strongly discourage anyone from doing.”

Content is always king with SEO – Why? Because it helps attract natural backlinks which in turn helps your SEO and avoids the use of spammy web 2.0 links.

21st April – FREE to sell products on Google SERPS

Listing of products on Google shopping is now free for vendors as recently announced by Google on their blog.

This means that the Google search results are now majority free and unpaid for however paid for results can still take priority over them.

This action is an act of generosity from Google who are aiming to help small struggling businesses who can’t list their products during this tough time.

23rd April – “There aren’t any great matches for your search”

During April Google decided to make a tweak and inform users through a message that states “there aren’t any great matches for your search”.

With search results aimed at delivering the best experience and being relevant to the users intent this is likely why this was done – To help users avoid wasting time search results don’t match their needs and going against Googles goal of delivering great, valuable, relevant content.

Aside from this activity in April, it’s very important that we update you on the happenings in early May.

There has been a core Google algorithm update.

Whilst it’s still early days it looks like some websites have seen traffic drop and others seen traffic almost double!

Health related websites appeared to of been hit hard, some blogger style websites have see positive up ticks. It also appears that music related websites have also seen a hit.

You can read more here: https://www.sistrix.com/blog/google-core-update-may-2020-whirlwind-through-the-serps-despite-covid-19/

Be sure to check out our post covering the google update march 2020 as there were a number of Google updates in March.