Each time Google makes a change in their algorithms or announcing a new set of policies, it is obviously big news across the web, especially in the SEO industry. Knowing and understanding how Google works means that you can better optimize your business’s website to take advantage of that system and improve our search engine ranking, including number of visitors to your site.

In order to reap the benefits, you simply cannot just wait around for these announcements. You must be active, driven, and willing to try new strategies with no known outcome. While yes, you and your business may benefit from certain strategies by these announced changes to Google’s algorithm, so will each and every person on the Internet, such as your competition. In order to get ahead of the pack, you must think logically about the things Google might be doing, and you must test the theories you develop. Instead of waiting around for Google to announce their newest update, you should try to guess what that update will entail and be the first to get there. By doing so, your site will benefit from each new development before your competition has even reacted.

You may think that testing your theories sounds rather risky – and it is – but in the long run, you will not be damaging yourself or the company. The worst that could happen is that your effort is wasted. If you try things that you honestly believe Google will be looking for in the future, then it is very unlikely that you would get it so unbelievably wrong that you would damage you and your company. Even if it doesn’t pay off now, it may in the future; just be patient. Also, by testing your theories, you can find out what effect your new strategies are having on your ranking and that way you can decide to either stop or continue.

For example, Google is very likely to notice miss-spellings and poor grammar. Word processors show us how easy it can be for an algorithm to find bad writing and spelling errors, so it’s safe to believe that Google knows how to do this as well. We also know that Google works to pair its visitors with high quality, well-researched content that preferably comes from recognized brands and established corporations. This obviously makes sense that they would allow spelling errors to hurt rankings, because a large website will articles that are well-researched is unlikely to have spelling errors. It also makes sense that Google may prefer longer articles since they are more likely to have detailed, accurate information.

This logic is the same that tells us having a registered trademark for your brand may help, and having a privacy policy on your website may be useful also. This is why smart “webmasters” realized that it would not be long before Google stopped penalizing site for do-follow links to useful external sites, as you are helping Google index other good sites and for pointing your visitors in the direction of useful content in addition to yours.

In order to be great at SEO, you must second guess and use your brain to stay a step ahead, not just simply wait for announcements.