Let me start by pointing out that, with Google, you will always win if your focus is on providing quality content rather than looking for other superficial strategies to rank your blog.
That aside, we all know about the so-called Google Florida 2 Update that came out in March 2019. The update is popularly known as the Florida Update because when it was first released, it happened around the same time as the Pubcon Florida SEO conference. That first Florida update, which happened in the early 2000’s, really hit e-commerce sites. This time, however, to expel the confusion, Google refrained from calling it the Florida 2 Update and instead named it the March 2019 Core Update. Here is a look at what insights can be gleaned from this update.
High-quality Content Is Key
No matter what kind of update Google makes to their algorithm, content will always be king. That means you are more likely to be successful by keeping your focus on high-quality content that answers the questions your audience asks and offers them value. You can also increase the number of blog posts you do to increase your own ranking. There are plenty of credible services from which you can buy blog posts to help you with this.
Don’t Change Domains Too Often
Some of the calamities of the latest update include sites that split up into multiple sites. This is usually what webmasters do when their main site isn’t doing so well. They decide to split up the site so they can get more traffic to the individual sites than they would have got from the larger main site.
List Sites Saw a Lot of Flux
Another group of websites that saw massive changes in traffic, both from a negative and a positive perspective are those that have a lot of listicles (long-form list articles) on them. Some of these sites saw a significant boost in their rankings that came with an influx of traffic while others saw their ranking go down and their traffic suffer as a result.
The exact reasons for this flux aren’t known just yet. It could be pretty much anything, especially for those long-form list blogs that saw a growth in their traffic. It could be that there were a lot of factors off-page that contributed to the jump in traffic. All the same, if you write a lot of long-form lists as part of your content, focus on making it as valuable as possible.
Low-quality Content Suffered
Sites with inconsistent patterns in their publishing and low-quality content that may have performed better than expected but hasn’t been updated for long tend to suffer. These sites were among those hardest hit by the algorithm update.
Active Publishers Fared Well
Those sites that tend to publish more consistently and frequently saw their rankings stay the same or go up. When a blog has an active publishing schedule, then it may signal to the Google algorithm that users generally express interest in the blog and so it is probably popular. For your own blog, consider publishing more frequently, even if it means doing it through blog posts and publish high-quality content to improve your chances of ranking higher. As always, you can never go wrong with high-quality content.