There’s a lot of buzz about Google’s new Penguin update and it has a lot of website owners and SEMs running scared. Rightly so, since the update, while designed to clear their index of spammy results, has revived dead sites with little quality content. Furthermore, it has taken down some really great sites with original content as mentioned in .
So, besides submitting your site using their form, what else can you do?
In my study of other “guru” blogs and also looking at my own efforts, I have found a few things which webmasters will need to address. While on-page SEO plays a pretty big role in getting your site to rank well in post-panda, their are many off-page things you can do immediately to see a nice improvement.
- On page SEO. Make sure you are using the very best practices when designing or re-designing your site. There’s a very well written SEO tutorial to refresh both your on and off page SEO skills.
- Off-page SEO. When building links to your site, use natural looking links. Instead of only focussing on “blue widgets” as your anchor text, mix it in with “www.mysite.com”, or even “click here”. One study by MicroMasters (look at how I “naturally” linked to them) suggests a 50-50 ratio of keyword to non-keyword links.
- Blog Networks. Whether you buy 15-20 domains and hosting accounts and setup your own, or your buy a private membership to a high quality blog network, you won’t be disappointed with the results. If you buy your own, you have full control over the design and niches and how you use them. If you are part of a private network, your post will exist on the same blogs who will be promoting everything from greeting cards and medical equipment to payday loans and dog training videos. Even so, a well written blog post on a private blot carries a lot of weight, provided the content is original.
- Web 2.0 blogs. It’s been proven that Google loves “free” blogs now more than ever. Create a blog with quality content on platforms like blogspot, tumblr, windowslive and more. Common sense would say that you should have a few posts on each, but I’ve seen many examples over the last few days of one-page blogs on tumblr ranking really well. Imagine what “natural” looking link back to your site would do.
- Yahoo Answers. While you can get busy and start answering questions with a link back to your site, their are plenty of vendors micro sites who will do it for you with their level 4 accounts.
- Web directories. Web directories never were really dead, even though they have that reputation based on what Matt Cutts, the mouth piece for Google, said about four years ago. They work really well and allow you to spread your keywords around. Work with a vendor who can spin your title and your description and who takes the time to use good categories.
- Wiki links. Google loves wiki links and you can get thousands from those sites alone. Need to spread your keywords around a bit? Need to balance things out with some url links? Wiki links would be a great place to do that.
- Social bookmarks. They still work well and fortunately, they are very easy to get. Pickup some software and do it yourself, or farm it out to a vendor.
- EzineArticles and GoArticles. Both those sites do a great job of screening the content, so of course Google is going to like those links. Hire a freelance writer, or get busy and knock out one or two yourself.
- Social Media. Get your new, freshly acquired, “natural” looking links in front of Google. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are always getting spidered by Google, so even a shortened link using bit.ly or others, will drive the spiders to your site. While it may help with traffic if you have loads of followers, google will find it even if you have only a few friends/fans.
- Build links to your links. Start making your Web 2.0 blogs, Yahoo Answers, Articles and blog posts authority links. Build links to those sites and promote them the way you’ve been promoting your main site. The stronger they get, the more powerful the link back to your site becomes.