Search engine algorithm updates often arrive cloaked in mystery. They roll out silently, sometimes without any official announcement, and leave a trail of confusion for small business owners wondering why site traffic dropped or rankings shifted. For those of us helping local businesses build not just beautiful websites but meaningful digital presences, these updates hit close to home. They increasingly shape the online success—or invisibility—of small, service-based companies who depend on local clients and word-of-mouth.
Today, we’re diving deep into one recent update that significantly rocked local SEO: Google’s November 2023 Core Update. This wasn’t just another tweak to how snippets are displayed or how pages are crawled. It challenged how authenticity, authority, and user signals are interpreted at the hyper-local level. At Zach Sean Web Design in Franklin, TN, we saw client sites either leap forward or get lost in the shuffle. And there were patterns worth unpacking.
This core update zeroed in on what Google refers to as “content helpfulness” and “experience signals.” While these terms feel vague, their impact was very real—especially for small businesses in competitive local markets. Unlike previous updates focused solely on backlinks or keyword density, this one emphasized total experience: page performance, trust-building elements, original insights, and alignment with user intent.
The rollout happened over a two-week period, and the most notable changes were in local service industries: law firms, HVAC companies, cafes, realtors, personal trainers. Local search rankings became more volatile as Google revisited how it defines “reputation” and “authority” on a granular, city-specific level.
Local business owners quickly learned that it was no longer enough to simply list your services and location on a template site. Google started picking up more signals about whether you’re respected locally, whether people engage with your brand beyond your website, and if your site contains first-hand knowledge or recycled content.
This pushed small business SEO deeper into content quality territory—something that can't be faked with just a plugin or a few clever meta tags.
Small businesses often walk a tightrope: they need to be visible to search engines and appealing to users, but with limited resources. Unlike enterprise sites that can churn out thousands of pages of AI-generated content, most small business websites are handcrafted, sometimes years old, and maintained periodically.
That’s not always a weakness, though. Google’s newer algorithms started favoring “experience-driven” content—something a dog groomer in Nashville can easily provide if their blog shares grooming tips learned first-hand, for example. But the problem is, those insights are rarely organized or optimized.
It also exposed an uncomfortable truth: too many small businesses rely on off-the-shelf templates without customizing content or strategy. I’ve seen it play out in platforms like Squarespace or Wix. Websites filled with demo text, generic service page structures, and zero local nuance lost rankings post-update. Google could detect that the content wasn’t created from scratch. It wasn’t experiential; it was decorative.
One of our clients, a local yoga studio, saw their pageviews drop by 40% after the update. Their site was built on a drag-and-drop template with almost no text on the homepage. After overhauling their content to include detailed class descriptions, instructor bios, and testimonials (all real-world, not stock), their rankings began rebounding within a month. The lesson was clear: Google knows when you’re just dressing up the storefront without inviting people in.
Let’s talk about one of our clients in Franklin who runs a small roofing company. Their site was older—built in WordPress five years ago, with sporadic updates and a few blog posts about “the importance of roof inspections.” They barely ranked against national chains with slick SEO budgets.
After the November update, they disappeared from the top 10 for key local search terms like “roof repair Franklin TN.” Instead of chasing backlinks or over-optimizing titles, we took a different approach: We interviewed the owner about what goes wrong during spring weather in Middle Tennessee. We turned his real-world stories into blog content, with photos from actual job sites and details like the types of shingles prone to damage in this climate.
Within six weeks, the post titled “Why Your Roof Leaks in March (And What Franklin Weather Has to Do With It)” outranked three national competitors. Google clearly favored content built from lived experience. This is the kind of authenticity the algorithm is now prioritizing.
This wasn’t SEO voodoo. It was empathy-led digital problem solving—and treating content like a conversation rather than a checklist.
Another big shift after the update is what I’d call the "reputation ripple effect." Suddenly, it wasn’t just what your website said about you, but what others said—and whether Google could verify it. Mentions across the web, consistency of NAP (name, address, phone number) details, and reviews moved from peripheral signals to core credibility validators.
A client of mine who owns a boutique home decor store had been relying on Instagram and Etsy, with only a small Squarespace site as a brochure. After the update, her website traffic doubled—but only after she fully integrated her Google reviews on her homepage, featured customer photos of styled rooms, and linked out to articles where her store was mentioned. Google repurposed these “soft” PR signals into strong local SEO wins.
It showed that digital reputation is now multilayered: review velocity, review diversity, and what platforms your reviews live on all influence visibility.
Perhaps the most overlooked piece of the update was how it factored in user interactions: how long people stayed on your site, how many pages they visited, and whether they completed an action. In the past, these were minor behavioral signals. Now, they appear tied more closely to how Google assesses intent satisfaction.
This meant small businesses with just a homepage and contact form were vulnerable. With minimal internal linking or compelling calls to explore, users dropped off—and rankings dropped with them. A visually appealing Webflow site is not enough if there are no depth signals.
We ran heatmaps using tools like Hotjar for several of our clients post-update. We noticed that content-rich service pages that answered multiple common questions kept users engaged longer than homepage sliders or splash videos.
A dentist in Nashville, for example, added a “compare treatments” table under their Invisalign page. Average session duration increased by 68%. Google doesn’t see the table. But it sees the behavior.
Let me be blunt: fast-loading websites with accessible layouts still ranked better. Google hasn't abandoned technical SEO—it just stopped rewarding it in isolation. When paired with great UX and authentic content, clean technical setup made everything else more discoverable.
I build in Webflow often because of the design flexibility and clean code output. After the update, I noticed that many of our clients whose sites we built in Webflow experienced stable (or improved) traffic, while others on bloated WordPress themes saw minor drops.
The reason? Webflow allows a tighter control over performance metrics like CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) and LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), which indirectly contribute to quality assessments. Minimalist sites that loaded quickly and had intuitive mobile navigation fared better. Design and speed were never separate things—this update proved it.
So if you're a small business owner or marketing consultant wondering "what now?"—here’s what I recommend.
Here’s where it all lands, and this is what I tell my clients when they ask “so what should we really do?” The November 2023 Core Update reinforced something I’ve known for a while but couldn’t always prove: search rankings increasingly go to those who show up with clarity, trustworthiness, and helpfulness. There’s no shortcut for that.
As a web designer with a marketing therapist streak, I believe small business websites should feel like their owners sound. Like their services actually work. Like they’re a genuine part of the neighborhood. That’s both the strategy and the soul of modern SEO.
You don’t need a million backlinks to rank in your city. But you do need content written by you (or someone who deeply understands your voice), a structure that respects how humans explore rather than how bots crawl, and a reputation that’s visible both online and off.
The algorithm may always evolve, but people will always respond to businesses that feel like people too.
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