6 Tips For Surviving In A Post Panda World

Back in February the powers that be at Google released an update to Google Panda. What is Google Panda? It’s an algorithm designed to combat spam sites, link farms, scraped, content, and all the other junk floating around on the internet these days. Think of it as a second flush to get rid of those nasty bits of poop left in the toilet bowl if you will. It uses a very sensitive set of guidelines to separate and filter websites and blogs and helps quality sites get the rankings and traffic they deserve. This is nothing new as all the big search engines have some type of filter system, what is new is how sensitive or depending on the site how vicious it can be.

Right now it appears that Google Panda is only in the U.S, plans are being made to launch it globally but when it happens nobody seems to know, my guess is probably very soon. This also has an effect on sites based outside the United States that have a large percentage of its traffic from that country. If your not sure if your website has been “panda slapped” there’s a post I found on Wordtracker that goes into detail about how to find out through Google Analytics which you can check out.

So how do you make your site Google Panda friendly? Well for starters if you’re noticing a steady increase in traffic especially from the United States, you can rest east because you’re probably doing everything right. If you’ve noticed a significant drop or you just want to be ahead of the game and protect yourself here’s a list of 6 SEO tips for Google Panda

1. Content is king but great content is the master of the universe

Providing the best content you possible can should always be your number one priority on your site, regardless of niche or how you write. This means you don’t do the following;

a. Scrape content from other websites, blogs, or wherever. Obviously if you’re writing about a particular topic there will always be similarities but never directly copy and paste somebody’s work or simply spin it by changing a few key words.

b. Content so stuffed with keywords it reeks. Should you include keywords in your text, most definitely. Should every second word be a keyword or keyword phrase……hell no

c. Grammar and spelling play a big role with Google Panda as this is a way to determine the junk sites from the legit ones. Take the time and use a spell checker to get the punctuation and spelling right.

d. Don’t duplicate your own content. As well as not copying others, don’t go out and create pages that copy the content on your own site. Its fine to go into deeper detail on a topic, but it should be treated as its own separate page.

And lastly with content don’t be afraid to mix it up or write longer posts now and them. This doesn’t mean all your posts have to be several thousand words each, just offer more in depth information.

2. Humans first before bots

While you should optimize your site to be crawled and ranked by the search engines, your primary focus should be on your human visitors. After all their the ones who will be clicking your links, adding comments, liking, stumbling, digging, +1ing, and buying stuff or clicking your ads. Do everything you can to make your site as user friendly as possible. Have an easy to follow navigation system and menu on your site. Include a sitemap that links to everything. Pick a color scheme that is friendly to both older monitors and those who are color blind. And have some method for people to get a hold of you if they have questions or comments.

The better the user experience for your visitors the greater the chance they’ll be back for more, so don’t piss them off.

3. Be trustworthy

This goes hand in hand with the first two. You want your visitors to feel comfortable potentially sharing information, especially if your website is for a business or selling products where credit card or other personal information might be required. This is where it’s vital to have a means of reaching you either by email or phone in case there’s a problem or concern.

4. Observe, and makes changes when needed

You should always be keeping on how your site performs regardless of Google Panda or not. Things like bounce rate and load time are big concerns that you should always be improving upon. You should also be looking at the layout of your website and correcting any issues such as over lapping text and making adjustments or even deleting pages that aren’t performing well.

5. Watch who you link to

Linking your website or blog to spam sites, link farms, porn sites, gambling sites, or other websites or blogs that have been flagged as malicious need to be avoided. Otherwise if you link to these kinds of sites your site will be labelled in the same category and will be treated the same, regardless if its 100% legit or not.

6. Keep it white hat

Black hat tricks have always been frowned on by the search engines. And while they can potentially offer a short term gain, they usually pay for it in the long term. So if you’re serious about your site sticking around for awhile don’t use black hat period.

Overall there really isn’t any big changes or techniques you need to learn and if you’re already doing this stuff now chances are good your site will be fine. It’s also important to mention that Google Panda is by no means a perfect system or will completely irradiate bad sites. But it is a big step in making it that much harder for them.