How to Future-Proof SEO Efforts

Have you ever accidentally closed out a program without saving and lost your work?

Imagine that happening to all your highest page rankings. That’s what a Google update can do. Many have seen their rankings plummet literally overnight.

By the time Google announces what’s coming, it may already be too late to act. Take Panda.

Sites that had spent years building hundreds of backlinks now considered low quality couldn’t possibly replace them all in time.

I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t predict what future updates will entail. But I do have a simple strategy to avoid the nightmare scenarios described above. If history is any indication, it should be quite effective at future-proofing your rankings.

Focus on the Why

Every Google update is about the same thing.

Think about the major Google updates. Panda… Hummingbird… Mobilegeddon. While the specific changes were unique to each, the motivation behind them was the same: To provide a better experience for the search engine user.

That should be every SEO’s North Star. Unfortunately, far too many get hyper-focused on tactics and lose sight of the larger strategy.

Let’s look at a few examples.

In the old days, search algorithms relied heavily on keywords to predict which pages would best meet a search user’s queries. So people started stuffing keywords onto their pages everywhere they could, including areas where the text was hidden. For a while it worked.

These keyword practices don’t add value to the user, though. In fact, it often lowered the quality of the search results. These sites were gaming the system. Google needed to change its algorithm to protect the value of it’s product.

Backlinks are another example. The logic was: The more sites that link to your content, the better that content must be.

Sites that focused on gaining backlinks without considering Google’s intent, took shortcuts. They bought links. They set up link farms. They spammed forums and blog comments. And they paid the price when Google released Panda.

The One Question You Need to Ask About Every SEO Tactic You Use

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use tactics to optimize for specific factors. If you want to rank on the first page, then you almost certainly will need to. But you need to do it the right way.

How?

Ask yourself: Does this align with Google’s goal of providing the best experience to searchers?

The black hat link building practices above do not. Compare them to a tactic like the skyscraper technique. If you’re not familiar with this concept, I encourage you to learn more about it. But in essence, it’s about finding content that’s already performing well and building off of it to create something better.

See how that supports what Google really wants?

Look Beyond SEO Tactics

Google doesn’t release updates only to stop black hat practices. You can’t game the system on factors like site speed and mobile responsiveness. But they can have a big impact on your rankings.

The best strategy for those types of updates is to be proactive about user experience.

Most sites that are serious about UX addressed speed and mobile responsiveness before they became significant SEO factors.

If you do your best to continually create an exceptional experience for the people using your site, you should be prepared for whatever Google has in store. And your traffic should convert better, too.

Take Away

Now more than ever, great user experience is great SEO.

Future-proofing your SEO is more about a mindset and approach than specific tactics.

It’s about understanding what searchers value and providing it to them.

It’s about staying true to the spirit of Google’s efforts rather than gaming the system.

It’s about optimizing for users first and search engines second.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the matter, so leave a comment below.