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We like to keep the business community informed about changes in Google algorithms, especially when an “event” incites a call to action on your part, such was the case back in May when there was a major update to Google’s core algorithm. Last month there was another update, but it was a very specific one. Search engine experts around the world noticed a boost in rank for content coming from government websites. Unless you’re a service provider or contractor to the government sector you probably shouldn’t care, right? Not necessarily.

What SMBs Need to Know About Google’s Move to Promote Government Based Content

It Might Impact Your Product-Service Sector

The spike in Google search rank for municipal, provincial, and federal government based content may directly impede upon the positioning of your own website. This may occur for sellers and service providers in semi- to fully-regulated sectors such as educational and the health & wellness sectors.

Is there anything you can do about it? For one, you will need to make sure that you immediately receive an SEO audit of your website and follow up with comprehensive optimization to give yourself a shot at competing. You must also ramp up your content production so that you’re feeding Google on a weekly basis. Below are some content marketing tips for sectors currently being impacted by Google’s government-based algorithm update:

If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them

As a search engine ranking factor inbound links account for an estimated 20 percent of Google rank. In other words, getting links (that point back to your site) from high-authority websites will help improve your Google rank. The irony here, is that there is no higher-authority (in Google’s eyes) than government websites. One well-placed link on a government resource page can catapult your website from Google’s wasteland (Page 2 or worse) to the highly coveted Page One position above-the-fold.

How to you ride the government train? There are two ways to go about this.

For one, get listed on the business directories and resource pages of as many municipal and provincial websites as you can. This is very viable for some health and wellness service providers, such as physiotherapists and chiropractors, but even those such as junk removal and real estate professionals have a place on local municipality websites. Provincial tourism sites also fit the bill, so if your service (i.e. tours, etc.) is correlated you may also be able to get listed. In some instances links on these directories are free, but there are often membership fees for others. More often than not it’s worth the investment! Of course, getting links on high-value government websites is very time intensive. For this reason we suggest letting a professional take on this task on your behalf. Contact Strategis Consulting Group for an estimate.

In addition, you must create more informative and highly authoritative content (articles and infographics) that government website content managers may be interested in referencing. While the likelihood of getting referenced (via a link) on a provincial or federal government website is slim to none, you may be able to get attribution from municipal websites. Let’s look to the insurance industry as an example. Every year the threat of wildfires in BC and Alberta looms through the summer season. As an insurer, you may create a well thought out article and/or infographic on how to the public can help prevent wildfires when enjoying provincial campgrounds. Once you’ve created this content, you can email (with a friendly note) the administrators of every single municipal website in your province and let them know that you’d be honored to have them share this helpful content with their readers. This is just one example, but there are opportunities for many product/service sectors. There is a lot of work involved, but the reward of making this digital connections with governing bodies will pay off for years to come in the form of better Google rank. Again, let Strategis Consulting Group to the groundwork for you!

Contact us today by calling +1 (604) 836-4143 or complete the form found here.