The Google Panda update has made its presence felt, with some sites dropping dramatically in rankings. And the launch is not over yet. The web is littered with reports of websites that once topped the charts but are now having a hard time getting traffic from their new positions at the bottom of the ladder. More specifically, its profits have also gone south.
The hard truth is this: These changes are permanent and mark a major turning point in search engine algorithms. What you’re looking at now is Google’s new standard for rankings in its index, and you’d better learn it now if you want to stick around.
What exactly do you need to know about Google’s new ranking formula? Let’s go over some important points that your SEO should take very seriously.
You need to work even more on the original content now. There’s nothing wrong with using articles from external sources (like this one, for example). But if that’s your main or only content, that’s a bigger problem than it used to be.
Google wants ‘uniqueness’ more than ever now. That doesn’t mean you have to come up with something absolutely new and exciting. It means that your content should be in your own words.
For example, Google’s Panda update is being discussed all over the Internet. This article is not the only one in this regard. However, it is written by me and in my own words. This article is exclusively mine, even if the points are completely original. The old SEO days of copying and pasting content are over.
NEW SEO FACTOR: CONTENT QUALITY
Unique is important, but that’s only half the battle. Google is now looking for not just unique content, but unique, quality content. How does Google measure quality?
They are looking for content that visitors spend time on, that they stay with because it offers what they are looking for, whatever it is right now. What do you do when you come to a page that is confusing, misspelled, or doesn’t have what they promised in their search list? You go. Fast.
Google also looks for content that people are talking about, tweeting about, liking, or even quoting. Those are signals to the search engine that this is the type of content that should rank higher. It has value and therefore deserves to be delivered to searchers using Google.
Does your content pass these 2 tests? It’s time to take a long hard look at your website, especially if its ranking has dropped recently. This is the new era of SEO that goes beyond keywords and SEO by numbers. And it doesn’t go away.