SEO after Penguin: No more shortcuts!

May 17, 2012 By

Let’s face it. In modern society, we are all busier than ever before. Ever since the internet, smart phones, and other advancements in technology, most of us are always on the go, with many tasks to accomplish within limited time periods. So most of us have always looked for ways of maximizing our time when promoting websites. Buying links, submitting to directories, automating some of the link research tasks, paying for content, these are a few of the things website owners would do to promote their sites.

In the post-penguin world, it’s become a lot harder to automate and use shortcuts to promote their business. Quality is now required. Quality of backlinks, quality of content, quality of user experience. In order to produce quality, the demand on resources is much higher, higher than many businesses can afford.

Here are a few of the ways to promote a business in the post-penguin SEO world:

1. Guest Blogs.

Everyone now requires high quality content. We don’t have time to write it. Why not invite people to write for you? Site owners need to build up their author-rank / profile, and to promote their site. Site owners also need content. Accepting guest blogs will help you get quality content to your site, without paying for it or doing the work required to build the content.

2. Infographics.

Infographics are a very popular way to communicate a large amount of information in a way that is interesting and attractive. People love displaying these on their site. Creating and distributing an infographic can create a lot of publicity and buzz!

3. Contests/Giveaways

Do you know anyone who doesn’t want to win something cool and free? I sure don’t! People love contests and giveaways. They have the power to be incredibly viral. People will often share to their social circles, thus increasing the popularity of the giveaway. For a small prize you have the potential of gaining a lot of eyeballs to your site.

4. Social Media Campaigns

Most businesses already have social profiles, but smaller players may not have had the time or resources to create active profiles. It is now very important to do so. It will create active channels and user engagement. You can promote your other content, such as contests and infographics, through social media channels. They can also spark conversations and promote brand awareness and protection.

5. Quality Resources

If you’ve always meant to get to creating something cool for your site, now’s the time. Sites should have something that differentiates them from competitors. Whether it be an amazing product rating system that other sites in your niche don’t have, or a product comparison tool, or a white paper with amazing information, or how-to videos or tutorials – creating something sticky that keeps people on your site longer and gets them to come back can now make a difference in your rankins.

Of course the question is how to allocate enough time/energy/resources to performing all of these time-intensive tasks. There are ways! We will keep sharing more about each of these ideas and ways of systematizing your processes and increasing productivity.

Filed Under: SEO

SEO Beyond Links

May 15, 2012 By

I remember when Google launched as a brand new search engine. The cornerstone of their algorithm was pagerank and they were revolutionary because they took site rankings beyond on-page criteria. At that time, blogging technology didn’t exist, social media sites didn’t exist, etc. Therefore, it made perfect sense to consider links as votes, which is quintessentially what the Pagerank ranking algorithm was about.

Fast forward to 2012 and oh, how the internet has changed. Everyone and their grandpa has a blog. There are a large number of social media sites, giving people a true voice on the internet.

The internet has now become truly democratic, with users now having a much louder voice and control about what they like and dislike. Now, instead of links from business sites being votes, Google has given power to users. Votes have evolved from simple links to endorsements.

Post-penguin, Google’s new algorithm is based on endorsements from individuals across their blogs, social media profiles, news sites, business sites, etc. So a site is evaluated not just from the point of view of straight links but also other social media and user actions such as:

- How many people like this site on Facebook?
- How many people have tweeted or retweeted a page from this site?
- How often is the site StumbledUpon?
- Have people removed this site from their personal results?
- How much time do people spend on the site?
- Do they come back often, or never again?
- Are people talking about this site on blogs?

The democratization of Google’s search algorithm will completely change the playing field. No longer will small firms have the capacity to compete with large corporate businesses. To rank well now requires vast and varied resources, from gaining the knowledge necessary to establish a presence, to maintaining an active profile, to producing quality resources and providing a high quality website that people enjoy. Businesses can’t just build links any more, and have a great internet presence. Now businesses have to build links, build connections with other industry players, build amazing content, create and maintain active social profiles, create viral campaigns, create newsworthy content that gets picked up by the media, etc.

How can small or medium-sized businesses compete?

Come back to read our blue-print for success in this new democratic Google world.

Filed Under: SEO, Social Media

The Penguin Puzzle

May 12, 2012 By

At first I thought that figuring out exactly waht Penguin was all about would be as simple as putting together a child’s puzzle. In the past, all I had to do was run a few reports, analyze the data, and the puzzle came together before my eyes.

Penguin is a completely different beast. It looks a lot more like this. There are many many pieces, overlaying each other, some hidden completely underneath many others.

But the full picture is starting to emerge before my eyes.

I believe Penguin has everything to do with stock holders, ratios, raters, analytics, social media, usability, and anchor text.

Ratios.

By ratios I mean a myriad of comparison between high and low quality links. Contextual and irrelevant. Free and manufactured. I’ve seen sites that are ranking better that have many low quality spammy links. But the ratio of low quality vs high quality keeps them under the radar. Sites with extremely high anchor text for money terms are still ranking well. But those same sites also have pretty active social media profiles. And the keywords are not expensive enough.

Stock Holders

What do you think happened to all of those businesses that got decimated? You guessed right. They ran right to Google Adwords to increase their spend to counteract for the loss of their organic traffic. And guess what else I’ve noticed? Industries were there was vast movement were large money terms. Terms that didn’t change much with Penguin were terms that didn’t make much money for Google. And they can easily track this by utilizing Adwords CPC data.

Anchor Text

Many speculate that anchor density over-optimization and manufactured anchor text profiles were the culprits of the ranking losses with Penguin. And yes, many of the sites that lost rankings did have very high anchor density for money terms. But simultaneously, I have found MANY sites that are still ranking that have incredibly high anchor density. Why are some sites still doing well, while others got destroyed?

Analytics

I believe that to compensate for turning down the dial on the importance of anchor text, they increased the importance of 2 important signals: Social media and analytics. Now instead of using links as votes, they are using people’s opinions directly as votes. They analyze this data by utilizing data from people’s analytics accounts. Google encourages webmasters to focus on creating good sites with good content. But how can an algorithm determine this? By relying on user data on a site’s analytics account. Bounce rate, time spent on site, conversions, social votes. This data is direct user feedback, and it’s all very easy to track through Google Analytics, which a large portion of the web utilizes.

Social Media

I also saw sites with active social profiles surviving the Penguin slap, while other sites with similar backlink profiles but without social profiles drowned. A copule of days after Penguin Google Analytics sent out a public announcement about their trackin of social signals on Google Analytics. Coincidence? Maybe. I chose to believe the two are related. Additionally, Google recently purchased PostRank which tracked Social Media analytics. Coincidence that Penguin is now live, PostRank as shut down, and Google Analytics publicly announces better social media tracking? Nah.

Raters

In a previous post I talked about Google openly using human raters. What does this account for? Inconsistencies in data. Why are sites with high anchor data and low quality link profiles still doing well? They simply haven’t been caught and/or rated yet. I believe human raters played a big role in who got hit and who didn’t.

Usability

Based on the many factors mentioned above, usability is now more important than ever. Having a usable site that keeps people engaged is now an essential ranking signal. Building quality content that keeps people coming back and gets them to stay on the site longer can now make the difference between a top 5 and top 20 spot in the rankings.

How do we put all of this together, and move forward with SEO in the post-Penguin world?

Come back for my next post.

Filed Under: SEO

Human Raters and Penguin

May 11, 2012 By

To add to my previous post regarding Google utilizing analytics and other social metrics in their new Penguin algo, I also believe that human raters may have palyed a part in this algo. Google has publicly stated that they do use teams of human reviewers or raters:

In this video they state that the data from human raters is not utilized to individually penalize or promote websites, but instead is used to improve the algorithms.

He does mention in passing that there are other teams of human raters, and he also mentions in passing that the other teams are the ones that address web spam. And since he mentions at the end that, as part of THIS initiative, websites are not devalued or promoted individually, it’s quite possible that he’s stating that because in the case of fighting web spam, raters can increase or devalue rankings.

Again, this makes sense because there are no consistencies amidst sites that lost rankings or sites that gained rankings. Manual intervention would explain the inconsistencies. Also, sites that are still ranking well with spam in their anchor and backlink data could be simply because they havne’t been reported and/or reviewed.

If this is the case, then it’s important to create backlink profiles that will pass human inspection.

Filed Under: SEO

User Feedback behind Penguin?

May 11, 2012 By

I found this article by Daneil Deceuster from SEOmoz and found it quite thought-provoking.

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-penguin-update-how-google-identifies-spam

First of all he mentions that SEO’s are desperately searching for commonalities in sites that got penalized and commonalities in sites that are ranking well. Unfortunately, most of us are not finding those commonalities. I have analyzed hundreds of backlinks profiles in the last few days and looked at pretty extensive metrics, but still there are sites that defy all of my theories.

It would make sense that the reason we cannot find those commonalities is because the answers lay hidden behind Google’s data mining golden doors. They have been tracking site usage statistics using Google Analytics for many years. Additionally they have tracked +1′s, Chrome users, etc. Could they be utilizing this data now to rank?

I keep extolling the theory that now instead of links being votes, Google is using people themselves to vote. We vote by liking on facebook, we vote by Google +1, we vote when we retweet, we vote when we interact with the site and spend extra time on the site. Instead of having to rely on something as unnatural as links, they can now rely on actual user interaction, which is a much more valid metric.

Google keeps saying, “Focus on making sites for the end-user, this is what will benefit you most”. Could this be because now they have turned the dial vastly up on the “personalization” signal? So if you make sites that end users benefit from, they will like you, retweet you, stay on your site for an extensive period of time, and perform other calls to action?

If this is the case, then focus would change away from link building, and towards social media as well as usability.

Filed Under: SEO, Social Media

It’s time to go Social

May 10, 2012 By

While further analysing the Penguin update, I noticed that many of the sites that had low quality backlinks but did not get penalized are sites that have a social media presence. Not all of these sites had very active campaigns, but the simple fact of having a presence on social profiles seems to help.

The question, of course, is how to manage a social media campaign while simultaneously running a link building campaign based on quality content?

Google has really upped the ante. Small and medium sized companies don’t often have the time and resources to allocate to such detailed internet marketing campaigns. It requires at least one person fully dedicated to these efforts. And even that would create a very slow process as there are so many different aspects of the campaign to manage.

Imagine having to write FB wall posts, post interesting and relevant tweets, post new and original content on Google Plus, monitor the conversations on all of these channels, monitor news channels to write about timely news and events, write articles for high profile web 2.0 sites, create interesting and valuable content for your blog as well as white papers and PDF’s, create video tutorials and information, create incentive programs for reviews, check-ins, and testimonials, run and promote contests and giveaways, contact and write content for other high profile relevant sites, become an active participant in relevant forums and blogs, etc?

This is the connundrum many of use are encountering. It requires a certain amount of automation combined with old-school content and community building.

Have you been successful establishing similar campaigns on a budget? Share your tips!

Filed Under: Social Media

A penguin without a tail

May 7, 2012 By

Google’s Penguin update had a significant impact on many sites on the web.  I thought I’d launch this blog with a discussion of some of the observations I’ve made regarding this massive Google algorithm update.

I have been running tons of backlink reports with very detailed data, including authority score, links to linking pages, domain age, PR, and anchor density.  I’ve analyzed sites that are performing better in the SERP’s after penguin, and sites that tanked after the update.   On the sites that tanked, I noticed:

- They lost their long tail.

- Sites that had high anchor density for money terms dropped.  The exception was when the anchor density was high for the name of the site.

- If the anchor density looked too artificial upon human review.  The top ranking keywords by anchor density were all money terms, such as “blue widgets”, “red widgets”, “yellow widgets” etc, and it was obvious that those links were manually acquired and the anchor text manipulated.

- The anchor text didn’t look natural.  Naturally occurring anchor text includes many variations, such as “click here”, “site name”, “www.site.com”, “friends”, etc.

- They didn’t have a presence in social medial or web 2.0 sites

- The ratio of paid and low quality links to editorial contextual links was low

Everything that I mentioned above was reversed on sites doing well.  Here’s an example of a site with a gorgeous backlink profile:

www.brickhousesecurity.com

For many years Google has struggled with the propensity of having their SERP’s manipulated by sites that use very high anchor density.  In the past there were many Google bombs, many which are still active today.  This was a basic flaw of using an algorithm that relied so heavily on links as votes.

When Google’s algorithm was written, the social web did not exist.  Now, with social media and user generated content, instead of relying on links as votes, Google can now rely on other social signals.  I believe they “upped” the value on these signals which allowed them to change how they evaluate anchor text and density.  By replacing social media markers with anchor density and other easily manipulated metircs Google can finally combat  link networks, google bombs, etc.

A few ideas of the methods I was planning to use to combat this:

*  Create and promote infographics
*  Create a database of sites that accept guest bloggers and work on establishing a name as an author and then distribute content on these guest blog sites.
*  Run contests to increase likes and tweets in social media world
*  Doing old-school PR and contacting sites, establishing conversations, and trying to figure out how to get people to pick up stories and share our stuff

Please if you have other ideas or observations, do share!

Filed Under: SEO