4 Things to Do After a Big Google Update

Search rankings can change from minute to minute. That's just how SEO works.

But about 4-6 times per year, Google rolls out bigger updates that impact rankings. These are usually called "core" updates or maybe "spam" updates.

After the dust settles on one of these bigger updates, it's smart to investigate the impacts on your SEO for real estate efforts. Here's what I recommend you do.

1. Check the SERPs for Your Money Keywords

You probably know several keywords that rank well for you, bring you a lot of traffic, and hopefully generate a lot of leads and closings, too.

If you haven't already, now's a good time to do incognito searches for those keywords. Look for changes. Are you higher? Lower? No change? What about other sites near you -- anyone new showing up for those keywords? Anyone MIA?

Make mental notes of any changes -- or, even better, write down what you're seeing and save those notes so you can refer to them later.

2. Check Your Site's Overall Performance

It's also a good time to check Google Analytics and/or Search Console for changes affecting your site's overall performance.

I prefer Search Console for this, even though I know the data isn't perfect. Go to Performance > Search results and set the Date filter to "last 3 months" or "last 6 months" to see what's changed.

3. Check Your Important Keywords

Then right below the chart, check the raw data -- primarily the Queries and Pages tabs.

On this screen, look for any new keywords that haven't been there before. Is your site suddenly ranking for new phrases since the update? Are any keywords I normally see suddenly gone?

Next, click on some of the individual keywords/phrases on that list. You want to see if there's been any change, good or bad, for specific keywords since the update began and finished.

4. Check Your Important Pages/Posts

Next stop is the "Pages" tab to look at specific content. On this tab, I'll do the same thing I did with keywords -- anything new here? Anything that's normally here but is now missing?

If you see pages or posts that were hurt by a Google update, go look at Google's search results for the keyword(s) where your content used to rank highly. Compare your content to what's ranking now, and be honest -- is it better than yours? Is it newer? It's not unusual for new competitors to start ranking ahead of your older content, so make an honest assessment about what you need to do to earn back your previous visibility.

So there you go! For further reading, Search Engine Land has this article listing "6 things to do after a Google core update" and the advice is similar, though a bit more geared toward SEOs.

Your takeaways: After a big Google update, it's time to see how it impacted your site(s). Go into your preferred analytics tool and look for

• the impact on your site as a whole

• the impact on specific pages and posts

• the impact on specific keywords

As you learn what content and keywords are up or down, you can adjust your future content and SEO plans accordingly. Good luck! You got this. 💪

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