Avoiding the Wrath of Google

Patrick Yuan - 8.6.2012 12:00 PM

All too often, we get calls from companies who have undergone Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and seen great results in the rankings, only to have their investment disappear when Google launches a new update. I explained in a previous post how Search Engine Optimization is always evolving. Search engines are forced to continually updated and improve their search algorithms in order to bring their users the most relevant results to their search.

Recently Google has been launching updates for their Panda and Penguin updates that have had a huge impact on some websites’ rankings. If you would like to know more about these updates, please see my post about what you need to know about Google’s Penguin Update. It is important to remember, though you may not be using or are inadvertently using black hat (gaming the search engines to increase your rankings) SEO tactics, you may still be impacted by these updates.

Don’t let this fact deter you from launching an SEO campaign, just make sure you are doing it the right way from the start and you will be fine. How exactly do you avoid being impacted by these updates? Simple: be extremely relevant to the keywords you are aiming at while being original and informative. If you align your efforts with the search engines’ goal of providing the most relevant results at the top of the rankings, you'll set yourself up for future success.
 
It is not enough to just have your keywords used throughout your website in the content, as well as the meta data. Your content actually has to be original, quality content to rank well in this day and age. Quality content means that it is substantial enough in length, informative enough, and original. Internet marketing is easy to track with analytics, which is great because you can track your ROI, but it also means that the search engines can see when people are coming to your website and leaving immediately. If your site is not engaging your users even if your content is original, it will eventually catch up to you.

If you feel like your content meets these criteria, congratulations, you are set up for long term success on the search engines. If you are launching a new site or if you feel like your content is out-of-date or may be duplicate content, it is time to write new quality content before your site is one of the many affected by a wave of updates. If you would like further advice on what qualifies as quality content, or if you would like help creating new content, please contact Webolutions today.

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