Google wants to see inside your company – engaging business headshots and rich content are now a must!
Google’s latest ranking update, Penguin 4.0, has started to be rolled out in real time and is beginning to have an effect on rankings and search engine placements. As Google’s algorithm continues to evolve and increase its intelligence, Google can now enforce their long held vision for websites and search results. Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness, or E-A-T as Google call it, is the very bedrock of their vision for worthy websites that deserve to rank highest. As their vision evolves, transparency of websites and their owners is going to determine who rises to the first page of Google and who is lost to the depths of search. Google wants companies to showcase their personnel – compelling bios and business headshots are a must.
Google’s position is simple, there are millions of websites out there all competing for our attention, which is impossible for them to curate manually for every single query entered into a search bar. What they can do is allow their algorithm and manual quality team to assess on a number of signals from a website.
When Google’s algorithm was in its earlier stages, webmasters and SEO sellers found that the number of backlinks pointing at a site generally determined the ranking of that site. Once Google’s algorithm had grown enough to counteract that, overnight, thousands of websites were placed into obscurity by a vengeful Google, angered that its subjects had dared tried to circumvent its authority. Since then, Google has placed increasing demands on websites to prove themselves. For the past couple of years, Google has demanded fresh, original content as a signal that a site is well maintained, cared for and to prove its E-A-T which explains why every website has a blog now!!
Now, transparency and trust is Google’s big thrust for weeding out the digital undesirables. Stock photos and generic company information will now no longer be acceptable. Google hates stock photography on business websites – try right clicking on an image and searching the image by Google to see how good they are at matching photos now – and much like their hatred for duplicate content, it’s going to start really hurting websites. Google’s algorithm doesn’t care if you are a legitimate business, they need to see the clear signals that separates you from everyone else, if they don’t exist on your website you’re going to take a hit in rankings at some point.
Google want you to build websites for people, rich in information and content that satisfies your visitors – Engaging corporate photography and content that people want to read. From your customers’ point of view, having a clear window into your organisation gives a sense of trust and connection that lines of text will never bring – so it’s a complete win/win from your point of view. Of course, getting your business headshots taken by a fantastic company will not only boost your business but can be a great day for your team to experience too.
