Trend Positive After Google Updates With Lessons From a 50-Website Case Study
Whether you work at a marketing or creative agency, or lead marketing in-house at a business, you heard about Google’s big updates to its search algorithm that it made in 2023.
Arguably the biggest of these updates was Google’s September Helpful Content Update, which is referred to in marketing circles as HCU. Starting last fall, many LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) users have complained about severe drops in website traffic due to the HCU and several other subsequent updates. Here’s one example from X:
If you search X for “hcu”, you’ll even find gifs depicting recovery from it as a unicorn. It’s that difficult to recover from it if your website is not using on-page factors that Google wants to see (which it says it’s looking for to deliver the best search experience for its users — ie, business customers and clients).
SEO firm Zyppy has come to the rescue
I came across this case study that SEO firm Zyppy published on February 20, 2024. It’s absolutely huge — in it, Zyppy Founder Cyrus Shepard evaluated 50 websites that lost or gained significant organic traffic across Google updates that occurred between August and December 2023.
Toward the top of Shepard’s in-depth case study, he shares a handy chart that includes both positive and negative correlation for 42 on-page website features. It represents either winning or losing following Google update rollouts.
Let’s look at Zyppy’s top 10 positive-correlation on-page website features
Here’s what you should look to incorporate on new pages you build — including for your clients if you’re a marketing agency — and to check against on your existing pages for editing consideration:
First-Person Pronouns (positive correlation of 0.383). This is an interesting finding. For business websites, it’s commonly accepted that you want to use pronouns like “you” and “yours” in marketing copy, to help paint a picture of the pain points that your target audience is facing so you can insert your firm as the solution in your customer’s or client’s story. However, Zyppy finds that pronouns like “I,” “we,” “my,” and “ours” work better for ranking on Google. This makes sense considering Google’s much-discussed E-E-A-T framework for assessing website content quality — particularly the first two traits of the acronym, Experience and Expertise.
First-Hand Experience (positive correlation of 0.333). As Shepard writes, “One way to evaluate first-hand experience is to ask yourself, ‘Could this content be created by anyone researching the internet, or did the creator use unique, first-person experience to create the content?’”
Cookie Consent (positive correlation of 0.333). If you’re based in and market within the U.S., it’s not essential that you require cookie consent from each visitor upon first visit. But doing so could help you rank higher. Shepard writes, “It could be that higher-quality sites are more likely to use cookie consent screens. Or it could mean Google’s machine algorithms have learned to associate cookie banners with high-quality sites. Or it could mean nothing at all.”
Contact – Footer (positive correlation of 0.3). This simply means that Google is looking to find your business’ contact information at the bottom of any page on your site. IMO this is a must-include, including for reasons that I discussed in this recent post.
Any Contact (positive correlation of 0.288). Many websites, including business websites, don’t display contact info on a given page. Shepard found that this omission tends to lower traffic for affected websites following a Google update. Conversely, he found that displaying contact info anywhere on the page tends to increase traffic following a Google update.
Contact – Head (positive correlation of 0.206). In my experience, 95+% of business websites include either contact info or a Contact button in the head (top) section of a page. This longtime trend should continue indefinitely according to this case study.
CTA in Head (positive correlation of 0.178). This is another no-brainer IMO — both in practice based on what I’ve seen in the field, and as a finding you’d expect in a study like this. Your average target-audience visitor is looking for a solution to their problem on your page as quickly as they can find it. Putting a CTA (call to action) that addresses this visitor need close to the top of the page delivers the best experience for that visitor and, thus, for Google’s users when it comes to search rankings.
Social Links Head (positive correlation of 0.109). Shepard doesn’t speak to this, but this simply means putting one or more of your social links either in your top menu or in the top section of your page design. This is an interesting finding, given that I’ve mostly seen marketing agencies — and B2Bs in general — put social links in the footer, which is in the negative-correlation category of Zyppy’s study (with a value of -0.211, meaning footer-based social links can lower traffic following a Google update). However, Social Links Head having a positive correlation to post-update traffic does make sense, considering this gets at the Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness traits of E-E-A-T.
Table of Contents (positive correlation of 0.042). Given that this on-page feature has a barely positive correlation, and that many pages are too short or narrow-focused to need a table of contents (TOC) in order to give visitors the most value, this is optional IMO. However, if you have a lengthy case study page — or other page where you’re conveying a lot of information to your visitor — you will be well served by adding a TOC. One page type that usually calls for a TOC is an FAQ. And luckily, many all-in-one web hosting and management platforms include content blocks (or widgets) that build in this functionality, such as the Accordion block in Squarespace, which I discussed in this post.
About – Footer (positive correlation of 0.041). I’m not surprised that this is in the Zyppy case study’s top 10 positive-correlation on-page features list. If you don’t include an About link in your footer, frankly you look like you might have something to hide. It seems that Google agrees.
Next step after page edits: optimize your conversion tracking
If you implemented #6 or #7 from the above list — and/or any other on-page features from the list of 42 that Zyppy highlighted in its case study — this moment is a great opportunity to ensure that you’re tracking all your important CTAs in one place.
Google Analytics 4’s Events report is the perfect way to do this, provided you also use Google’s (also free tool) Tag Manager for custom event setup and configuration. Using both programs, you can track each CTA button, email address, and phone number click, as well as each lead form submission, lead magnet file download, and more.
We set this up for marketing agencies and other businesses, and provide a ton of related value, with our Website Conversion Tracking service. Go here to learn more.
