Google Caffeine Increases Importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Have you been hearing more than usual about search engines recently? Each of the Big 3 – Google, Yahoo! and Bing – has been making news over the past year. The latest is Google’s announcement about an update to its search methodology, which has been dubbed “Caffeine.”
The name Google isn’t going anywhere. Caffeine is simply an update that will enable faster, more accurate searches. Search results for “retirement communities” and “assisted living” in your market won’t drastically change right away when Google flips the switch. In some cases, our tests returned less “junk” in the top 10 results.
But here’s why Caffeine matters to you. With this update, Google is putting more emphasis on fresh content. The web is dominated by blogs and social networks; thousands of pages are added every day. Google’s traditional methodology wasn’t effectively capturing this content, but Caffeine does. Over the long run, fresh content will make the difference in search results for senior living community web sites.
My colleague Janel Wait reminds communities to think of web sites as living, breathing organisms that need to be constantly fed. If your community wants to be high in the natural search results, it’s no longer adequate to simply have a static web site. In addition to optimizing your web site for search engines, you need to regularly add pages with information on community activities, photos and videos, and insights about your community (read: fresh content for search engines to crawl).
Competition for top natural search rankings will only get more challenging. It’s important for your community to get accustomed to the best practices that sustain search engine visibility under the new standards. Moreover, you will be providing your web site visitors better information about your community!
Another challenge for us, Sue, in the development and maintenance of our site…
chad
Hope fresh content means recent — easy to find something several years old on Google.
How do videos promote your site to Google?
Good question, Jeanie. Adding any content to your web site shows search engines that you keep it updated. Furthermore, search engines often include videos in the main results and have separate video search capabilities. You can also upload video to YouTube or Vimeo and include a link to your web site. Video can help keep your community high in the search results and provide better access to your web site!