As most people find information online using a search engine, SEO is essential for any website to survive.
Google is the most popular search engine at the moment and indexes billions of pages of content from all around the globe.
It uses confidential algorithms to assess the usefulness, credibility and reliability of the site. All of this information will be used to rank the results in the search engines.
Google has yet launched another update – the latest revamp is Google Panda 4.1. Make sure you’re taking the necessary precautions to keep your Melbourne FL SEO rankings.
Content
Google Panda 4.1 is all about improving the experience for the person searching for the content. The new Panda algorithm is designed to try and weed out sites which use poor quality, copied or duplicate content. If your site contains content which has been copied and pasted from other sites then it will be penalized.
Also, keyword stuffed articles are going to be frowned upon by Google and this would cause you to move down in the rankings. Even if your site has a plethora of images and few words it can affect your reputation. To avoid this happening to your site make sure that every page and article has a minimum of 400-500 words.
Avoid keyword stuffing, only use keywords where they fit naturally into the article. Write content which is really supposed to be read by real people, don’t just write for the sake of it. Always try to teach, or inform your audience about something. Content is king in the SEO world, and high quality, relevant content will benefit you tremendously in the long run.
Obsolete Pages
As a website evolves it’s normal for it to have pages which become obsolete. Instead of just removing these, use a 301 redirection. This is easy to set up and if you’re not sure, then contact your webmaster. By redirecting rather than removing you are avoiding creating any broken links which Google may penalize you for.
Secure Site
If you have a secure https certificate on your site then it could be causing your pages to be indexed twice. This can mean that it gets flagged up as plagiarized and duplicate content even though it’s original. To get around this make sure you use the rel=”canonical” tag so that the search engine is aware that it’s the same. This will prevent Google from indexing two copies of the same page.
What Should I Do?
You may need to adjust your SEO strategy, depending on your goals. It’s still possible to build a successful site, you just need to learn how to live with Google Panda 4.1. Consider these recommendations:
- Write high quality original, relevant content – never copy. Duplicate content will result in severe penalties.
- Write at least 400-500 words on each page
- Redirect any old pages to homepage (301 redirect)
- Write engaging and useful copy
The most important thing is not to write just for search engines anymore. There’s no point to create keyword stuffed articles. Instead make sure that you create content which is easy for a human to read and is valuable.
If you have noticed a decline in organic traffic to your site since the Google Panda 4.1 update then there’s no need to panic. Quite often the easiest solution is to hire an SEO company like Tight Line Productions to analyze your site and help you to fix any errors.
This will make Google and your sites visitors happy. If you play by Googles rules then it can provide you with plenty of traffic which can make your site profitable, so it’s something that is worth doing well.
