Enough of Panda and Penguin Update Scare - 10 Tips to Overcome Google's Update Challenges

by Divya Fernando - 6/12/2012 12605 Views

Here are 10 of the most workable tips anyone has given to you post the scary snowballing of Google algorithmic updates - Pandas and Penguins.

It is high time we stop fidgetting on what is lost and start working upon some long term solutions to the SEO problems one faces today. Below are 10 of the most workable tips I have thought of, to advice my fellow webmasters on optimizing their Website Marketing Strategies and think BEYOND PENGUINs and PANDAs.

Tip #1:

Content marketing

Though I am going to elaborate on this topic soon in one of my upcoming posts, I would like to say that this is truly something that is never going to go out of fashion. That is right, although, nothing really is permanent in SEO, Content marketing sure is. The math is simple, you provide relevant and high quality content that your potential website visitor seeks and you are immediately in the good books of millions of visitors. They either go ahead to perform your 'call to action' or bookmark your website or simply follow you on their social media profiles to gain further quality updates. Whatever the case may be you have their attention. When you have the user attention you automatically gain the search engine attention.

So, content marketing works in both ways really. You post great content, either on your web page or on other pages linked to you and acquire a constant influx of web traffic that essentially makes you rank high in search engines, or post great content that search engines index as quality and user-relevant and earn users with higher exposure on the web. A good content would never fail you unless you promote it to the right audience and the audience awards you for writing what they LIKE TO READ by lowering bounce rates and bringing you business. This is, was and will be the most effective way for your business to rule the web.

Tip #2:

Natural anchor texts

Alternative anchor texts post penguin update.png

Accepted, that search engines are being a little unfair by changing their own rules every now and then. There was a time when you were discouraged to use domain names to link to your sites. Anchor texts like "click here", "read more" were looked down upon. Exact anchor text match between linking sites were encouraged sometime back but it was majorly misused by web spammers. Thus, even the genuine sites were forced to adopt now termed "black hat practice of matching exact anchor texts between contents on different sites" to build their SERPs.

Although, your business must not ideally depend on Google for its livelihood, there is no denying that there has yet not been a better contender popular enough to beat Google's humongous user statistics. So, you better stick to the rules Google updates and make sure your content has a natural flow of anchor texts. Avoid short tail and adopt long tail. Use generic words like "click Here", "Know more" whereever possible. Use anchor texts that are nothing but your website URL themselves like Domain.com. And most importantly, make sure you point the anchor text that is 100% relevant to the site content it is linked to.

For instance. if your anchor text is Press Release Marketing and you link to your page that provides this service, it would be considered unnatural. Make sure that if you are linking to the page of your site that provides this service the anchor text that is linked reads Press Release Marketing Service/Press Release Marketing Company, whichever is relevant.

Tip #3:

Building Domain Authority

Build Domain Authority by branding yourself.jpg

Improve domain authority which in layman terms is Brand Building. There are many ways to do this. It is just like trying to be an online celebrity. Either your brand must have something exceptional that can be shown off through the many content that you post on the web or You must post incredibly engaging content and gain the online reputation as that of a GREAT AUTHOR with immense authority on the niche topic. I would prefer the latter.

When you become popular, say for example your website sells spices and condiments and you post out-of-the-box recipes in your blog site or make videos of these recipes, you create a brand in yourself. People would want to know more about you. Your website is one among the many things that helps them with this (apart from your social media profiles). This way you gain positive exposure for your brand in the most natural way known to Marketing Gods of any industry. This requires a lot of involvement and patient efforts as it can NEVER happen overnight. Just stay positive, as long as you have something that your user wants on the web, you would be on the right track.

Tip #4:

Enrich User experience

Forget about Google or any other search engine penalizing you for a moment. Even when you manage to create web traffic you need to curb those jumpy bounce rates that happen on your website. This ultimately is a BAD thing FOR YOU and not for the Search engines. A search engine's job is limited to getting you online visibility but the real deal is when you are able to take 100% advantage of this online exposure by giving your user a reason to stay on your web page and absorb the wealth of 'useful and attractive' information you have to offer. Whether or not conversion happens depends on a lot of factors thereafter. But at least you have tried your best to make people stay and not run away.

Google has now come up with a new feature on Google Analytics called Content Experiments. Although, it has not been officially launched all over the globe, it is out for the grabs soon. And since it is Free to use, webmasters can take valuable advantage of the same by sampling and A/B testing your site. Learn what makes your site have higher conversion rates and what doesn't. Get to know more about the upcoming GA feature here.

Tip #5:

Keep a tab on who is linking to you

A lot of negative SEO scare is going around but you do not have to panic unless you are someone who has absolutely no good links pointing out to you. Think about it, if you have absolutely no authority on the web for your niche and no good amount of authoritative links, why would any one be threatened by you to go ahead and spend loads of black hat time to drive bad links to you?

Remember, Negative SEO doers need to spend a whole lot of time and a little bit of money to get bad links directed to you. So, unless your business is worth it, they would not bother doing this. And if they do find you worthy enough to sabotage your site rankings with Negative SEO, Google knows and keeps tab of the pattern of the links produced. A good percentage of legitimate links to your site can negate the effect of the negative SEO possibly done on your site. And if you are lucky enough, you could detect this and try and ask the linkers to have the links removed. This is primarily done not to have the links removed but to show Google that you have made efforts to do it. Message Google about any suspicious activity and these issues will be brought to limelight and taken care of by the search engines.

Besides, in the recent SMX conference held in Seattle, Matt Cutts himself has given indications of a forthcoming option to disavow any links that don't belong on your site.

Tip #6:

Stay Positive and Genuine

This is the unpredictable world of the web, nothing is under your control, especially when you depend wholly on organic search rankings. If you were wrongly penalized just move on and stop fretting about it. If the search algorithms have ruined your online business be optimistic and see it as an eye-opener that you are NOT REQUIRED to completely depend on these search engines for your bread and butter anymore.

You must always keep other ways of business marketing and promotion options that bring you audiences as a back up plan. Learn to optimize the resources that you already have than to sweat it out on the ones that you lost. Learn to utilize existing client databases to achieve newer conversion targets in the form of referrals or word of mouth marketing. If you as a brand are unique and exceptional in the service or product you deliver, your existing customers become your personal marketing weapon. Never underestimate that. This is what I mean by being Genuine. Provide what is expected of you or even more, set yourself apart from your competitors and win a place in the hearts of your existing customers (future referrals) and believe me no Panda, Penguin or even a Polar Bear can ever dare to threaten your business any more.

Tip #7:

Be Active on Social Media

You might be actively updating your Facebook business page or Twitter business page but yet have found no traffic to your website in your Google analytics. Please know this, that there is no certain way to track this sort of a traffic. Social media traffic can work in mysterious ways and hence you must continue to do all you can on your social media profiles.

Learn about newest more popular platforms like Pinterest. Spend enough amount of time on tagging, updating and tweeting intriguing details about your business. Make it light-hearted and if possible funny, rather than robotic and boring messages that are simply skipped and ignored.

Also remember, having your customers on your social media profile helps you to be up to date with the important events in their lives, more importantly, birthdays. Take an effort to wish them and upload a birthday card image or something. They will at least for once talk about you with their friends and this can create some sort of a positive impression, just enough to win you new customers. The magic mantra to strike it right with your social media audience is to stay as natural and genuine as can be and sprinkle a little sense of humor whereever possible.

Tip #8:

Never Be in a Hurry in SEO

There are hundreds of people out there who ask us Page #1 rankings on Google search. We reply to them as humbly as possible that no one in the world can promise you that, not even if they were a Google employee. Anyway, this would have been a remote possibility even without the recent snowballing of Google algorithmic updates that started with the Panda, but now, things have gone far out of any one's reach to acquire that 'guaranteed' first page rankings for their customers.

The mind set of most webmasters who are not aware of the complicated world of SEO and who depend on SEO companies like us is that "I have built a real expensive site that can as well be crowned as Miss. Website Universe, now it is your job to tell me what linkbuilding can be done to bring my site on first page of Google. You guarantee me that and I can pay you whatever you ask for" My advice to such ignorant webmasters is - Please do not treat your web business like it were a lottery ticket.

Respect your online business as much as you would respect its physical version. Think of it as your baby and never be in a haste to celebrate the baby's Graduation Day right away. It all starts with an in-home nurturing and some essential pre-schooling.

Remember this, "Anything that is earned with zero hardwork, will be also lost be with zero hard work" (wow, i just came up with this!)

Tip #9:

Educate Yourself on SEO

Even if you do not do your own SEO and have hired professionals for it, it does help to know the basics and eventually know the trends that happen in the world of SEO. It is just like any other marketing proposition that needs your involvement to a certain extent. Hired SEOs will do the job as they are being paid for it. They do not care about your websites from a long term perspective. You should be able to discuss with them and let them know that you are not completely ignorant about SEO trends and can certainly not be taken for granted.

Believe me, if you are anywhere close to knowing SEO terms and trends, your hired SEOs will be extra careful with you and only suggest promotional strategies that really works. Read good articles about SEO and online marketing. Besides, this might help in the long run if you were to take the promotion of your sites in your own hands.

Tip #10:

Stop Going behind Pandas and Penguins

Stop thinking about pandas and penguins.jpg

I honestly have never really been 100% sure of what information I offer about Google updates, simply because there IS no legit or comprehensive explanation about these updates from their mammoth owners themselves. All we hear about Pandas and Penguins and even those tips to overcome these are generally from speculations, assumptions and predictions done by the savvy SEO authors on the internet who have vast expertise on the topic. I myself have posted some Penguin update tips in the past. There are a lot of 'may be's' and 'might have been's'. Google's Matt Cutts never really came out in the open about the recent Penguin update until after two months of the release of the update and even now it is still unclear on the exact factors that cause a site to go down because of a Penguin or Panda update. All those who follow Matt Cutts know that he never really delves in revealing the inside stuff and why would he? Not all listeners are genuine link builders, we have many black hats listening as well.

So, what I am trying to say is that the basic information on these updates are quite vague and in most cases might not even be applicable to your site's ranking status. And to detect the cause of probable ranking drops and trying to undo the link building can also be extremely time consuming, risky and in most cases a waste of your time and efforts. While it is prudent that you/ your SEO firm keeps up to date with the changing SEO trends, you have to make sure you stick to delivering and acquiring great QUALITY and niche AUTHORITY both in terms of the CONTENT and LINK BUILDING your website is involved in. It is like asking you to build a house of good quality concrete, whilst not knowing when a tsunami can hit the area, in the near future or centuries later. I hope you get my point here!

It is understandable that all the above tips require a whole lot of time and dedication and patience. But, hey, if you want to excel, you cannot afford to exhale (i'm on a roll today!). You are to be on your toes all the while and take personal efforts to improve your own business brand value and marketing prospects.

Category :

SEO News

Tags :

recover from penguin update, Penguin tips, Panda tips, post Penguin update, Penguin update recovery

About Divya Fernando

I am Divi Fernando and I am an expert SEO author who is also into Business Development at Submitinme.com. I have loads of energy and I disperse it in varied tasks that involve writing, dancing, singing, strumming my guitar, drawing, photography, travel and adventure. I believe that 'You must take pleasure in what you do, or simply don't do it'. I take immense pleasure in my work as well as off-work activities and I'm always open to learn new things in life. My strengths are my positive attitude, confidence, innovative thinking and creativity. I also happen to talk too much about myself at times and never know where to stop. Thank goodness for the limited space, you must think .... more info about the author