If you are going on a hike or camping trip that has both grizzly bears and black bears, it is best to wear bells on your clothes. A scat from a black bear will consist of berries while a scat from a grizzly bear will be filled with bells.
Good piece of information right? However, when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization) writing, it is the Panda scat that you should be worried about, as it is mostly filled with money that is completely wasted. Why do I say that? Well, because most SEO professionals are still trying to find ways to get the sites ranked like they did before. Even though people know that it is going on, website owners are still not able to understand it.
People post an ad on Craigslist or other ad sites, saying that they are going to pay $500 to anyone who is going to bring them to the top of Google Search results. The next time you plan on doing something like this or hear that someone is doing this, it is best to be prepared for the result of such an act, as it will not be as impressive as you expected. Many firms will gladly take the $500, but they will not be able to deliver the promised result. Google updated the algorithm behind its search engine in February 2011. The search algorithm now allows websites that have good quality to come on top. In other words, those who had bought their way to the top have been pushed down the staircase again. Many websites went from being on the first search result page to not being found in the first ten pages!
The low-quality links had actually shown results and had fooled many business owners. These business owners have seen very less traffic on their websites, resulting in lower profits. They now need to rebuild their image in market. These business owners will now find it hard to trust any SEO writers or the SEO profession. The Panda update was done by Google to remove all the low-quality links from the search engine results. According to Matt Cutts from Google: This update is designed to reduce rankings for low quality sites sites which have low-value ads for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high quality sites sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, and thoughtful analysis and so on. The idea was a good one, however the business owners who were not at much fault suffered tremendously. In the meantime, the so called SEO professionals filled their pockets. There is no need to sulk away and think that you have lost it all as a business owner. You can mend the mistakes you made previously and you can be back in the game. Use the following guidelines, so that you are not fooled again:
- The content should be 100% original. Do not copy content from any other source. It’s importance has been stressed before and it just became even more necessary.
- You add original content but the content is not very much. Your site will automatically be marked as a low original content site. Start adding content to the website and bring it up in the search results.
- The number of pages goes hand in hand with the amount of content placed on the website. If you have placed less content and have a large number of pages, it is best that you start adding content.
- Try not to add any and every advertisement on your web page. It is better if the advertisements are relevant to the content on your website.
- Keywords are important but stuffing your content with keywords is not appropriate. The keyword density should be kept in mind when the content is written. Read the content to see if it has got excessive use of keywords. If that is the case, change your content to lower the number of times the keyword is used.
- Control the bounce rate of your website. Google analytics is a free analytics program that can run on your website and collect data. If you have a high bounce rate, it can help you find the reason. It is best to reduce the bounce rate so that you get a better ranking.
The rules may sound tiresome and expensive but there is no other option. Google Panda has changed the whole SEO profession, as well as the searching criteria. All SEO professionals will agree that it is difficult to add quality content. Adding links is much easier and costs less money. Panda has made SEO a bit more expensive by adding all the requirements. However, many SEO professionals are still accepting low payments and dishing out poor quality work. It is time to bring some ethical standards to the SEO industry. Professional SEO writers need to stop selling stuff that does not work, and business owners need to stop expecting to be on the top without spending much money. And SEO professional needs to research the changes and adapt to them. They should clearly inform the website owners that the work is going to cost more and explain why it will cost more. The business owners also need to do the math and see for themselves that the SEO service is not going to be cheap. So, if you want your business to grow or you want to be the best at providing SEO services it is time to accept the changes. Otherwise, it is useless to step in the web marketing or SEO profession. Webmaster For Hire clients have not been affected by the Google Panda. We have always required original content for our clients web sites. Therefore, we were compliant before the Google Panda ever entered the SEO neighborhood. If you’re interested in SEO services, contact us. Well keep you safe from Google Pandas and Penguins.