Give way to Penguins

Analysis of the Google Penguin Update

Filed under Google by on May 7, 2012 at 4:45 am {no comments}

So we’re about two weeks in from the latest major Google update.  This week we came across a good post that does an analysis of the Google Penguin update.  Some of the results are well worth looking at in more detail.

So the Penguin update was meant to reward sites engaging in very white hat, or even none at all, SEO.  At the same time it sought to penalize sites that Google considered ‘over optimized’.  Since Google does not come out and say what indicators it is using, it is up to us to look at the post update movement of sites to uncover just what signals they may be using.

At the root of the update is links.  They want only natural links to count.  By looking at and analyzing many sites, the engineers at Google were likely able to come up with various link footprints.  At one end is the 100% natural link footprint, and at the other end is the massive spam link footprint.  Where a site is within that footprint range likely will dictate post Penguin success in Google.

On Micrositemasters.com, they posted a quick study they did on their results.  There are some nifty charts, and you can see that there are common themes among sites that lost rankings in this update.  Among those are having too many of your main keyword phrases as anchor text pointing back to your site, having most of your incoming links from sites not related to your niche and not having the appropriate percentage of URL based links pointing back at your site.

It does not seem like any one factor of these dictated a site’s post Penguin results, but it starts to give us an idea of the types of triggers you want to avoid.

So what does this mean?  It means more thoughtful link building campaigns, but it also means more on site optimization.  On site optimization is something that we’ve talked about a lot, and the importance of proper site structure and on site optimization just increased.  With proper on site optimization, and links on highly related websites, Google should not have to rely on anchor text to tell them how to categorize that link.  At some point, anchor text is going to become irrelevant.

Looking to the future, this is an opportunity for site owners to quickly adjust to what Google wants, give it to them and solidify your rankings for a long time to come.  We’ll be looking more at this topic in the near future, and should have an analysis from sites we maintain over the next few weeks, which we will certainly share!

The New Google Webspam Algorithm Update

Filed under Google by on April 30, 2012 at 11:01 pm {no comments}

For anyone paying attention, Google has released another major update.  The new Google Webspam algorithm update was released at about the same time as another update to the original Panda update we saw last year.

This new update launched on April 24 and it’s goal was to devalue sites that Google says have ‘over optimized’ for the search engine.  This includes on page and off page optimization, but it seems the main focus of this update was to target aggressive link building.

By using the dates, the Webspam update went live April 24, the updated Panda released about a week earlier on the 19th, you can get an idea of which update is impacting your site by simply looking at the traffic logs.

This update is a bit different than the recent penalties that Google has been handing down.  This is not a manual penalty, but an algorithm change.  This is important, as Google has said that you cannot get a manual review to override this new update.  What this change means for SEO and site owners, however, is not as clear.

Many people are saying that SEO is dead.  This is not the case, but many SEO techniques are now obsolete.  Careful and thoughtful link building are extremely important.  You don’t want to link out to spammy sites, and you don’t want spammy sites linking back to you.  Where that definition is drawn, however, is very unclear.  In fact, Google says “We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all)” but they do not define ‘white hat’ search engine optimization other than for on site items.  They don’t tell you they type of off site SEO they consider to be ok.

An added consequence of this new algorithm is the potential for negative SEO campaigns.  For a long time it has been said that incoming links cannot impact ranking negatively.  If they could, a competitor could simply build links and get your ranking reduced.  Now this seems to be a reality.

So what are small business and website owners to do?  Google says to produce great content, but will great content be enough to get a site found if no link building is done to promote it?  Will this change put small business out of business?  For those who have relied exclusively on Google traffic, this may be a tough transition.  The good news is that there are many places from which to generate traffic, and in the coming weeks we will be looking at a number of strategies that focus not on improving Google rankings, but rather that focus on generating targeted traffic to your website without relying on the Google search engine.

Long Tail Marketing Strategy for SEO

Filed under Promotion by on April 24, 2012 at 6:30 pm {no comments}

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the changes going on with the search world.  With all the updates Google has been rolling out, many people are not sure how to build a sustainable business online that relies on organic traffic.  Today we are going to look at a long tail marketing strategy that you can implement today for continued success online.

If you have not read our Keyword Advice for SEO Purposes post, go check it out.  It will give you some background on this strategy and why it has the potential to capture more traffic than you might expect.  We won’t dwell on the basics, but rather we will jump right in to our long tail SEO strategy.

The basis of this strategy is content creation.  We are not talking about creating a 5 page site and then promoting it with link building, but rather we are talking about creating a blog on your main domain and then posting content on a very frequent basis.  Your goal with this strategy is to get a lot of good content out that is highly related to your niche.

With each post you write, do a little keyword research.  You can use Google’s keyword suggestion tool to get started.  Put in a keyword term then sort by competition.  Find the low competition phrases that are highly related to your niche, then take them over to ubersuggest.org, plug them in and get some very low competition long tail keyword phrases.

SEOThe goal here is to target phrases that show little to no search volume, but that people do search for.  This is not sexy like targeting a high traffic, high competition keyword phrase.  It won’t get you thousands of visitors for your one keyword choice either.  What it will do is allow you to rank well for these forgotten or overlooked long tail keyword phrases that no one is competing for.

That last sentence is important, so I’m going to repeat it.  We are targeting very low volume keyword phrases that no one else is competing for.  What this means is that it is going to be much easier to rank well for these terms.  Ranking number one for these terms is very achievable.  Maintaining these rankings will also be very easy due to the fact that no one else is targeting them.

These are the ‘outcast’ search terms.  No one cares about them except for us.  The reason no one cares about them is that there is no search volume for them.  The misconception here, though, is that these terms will deliver no traffic.  They will deliver traffic, and it will be 100% organic traffic.  Maybe each post will only deliver a handful of visitors each month, but if you write a lot of quality content, those visitors will add up.

Even better is that as you write more, you will find your posts ranking for more and more of these long tail keywords, picking up a little traffic here and there.  The best thing, though, is the sustainability.

These terms are not the high profile terms, you don’t have to build links to them all the time to maintain your rankings, and when things get shaken up again with the search engines (as we all know they will), your rankings will be left alone, or may even improve, as you are flying under the radar.  With this long tail marketing strategy, over time you will build a sustainable flow of traffic.  It takes time and some dedication as you must write, but try it out for 90 days and let us know your results.

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