Tuesday 28 October 2014

How to recover from Penguin 3.0

Every business with a website has likely had a frantic meeting with their SEO strategist in the past few days about the recent Penguin update. If you have been penalized, then you will want to ensure the correct SEO strategy in Melbourne in preparation for future updates.

First of all, you will want to double check that you have actually been negatively impacted. All the hype surrounding this long awaited update might fool you into thinking that it will have a significant impact on lots of people. Realistically, only 1% of enquirers will be influenced, but the potential for damage within this single percentage is large. Use a Penguin penalty checker tool which tracks your traffic in line with Penguin roll out dates. Of course, dropped rankings could be a coincidence, but more likely than not is that Google doesn’t agree with some of your SEO tactics. This means that it is time to change.

If you’ve noticed a drop, then the first step is to perform a link audit. Every single link should be checked, and confirmed as abiding by the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Unfortunately, you will probably need to wait at least a few months until the next refresh update for your changes to be recognized. That being said do not put it off. The next update could come at any time, and doing as Google says right away is the right choice to get back on track as soon as the update arrives.

If you were stressing about the update uncovering all of your dirty SEO secrets, and have seemed to come out unscathed, then be weary. Google algorithms are constantly evolving, and you are far from out of the woods. It is quite possible that the next refresh will find those paid links that you tried so desperately to hide. Perform a pre-emptive link audit and any that don’t cut it need to go. For any links that are red flags, your first choice should be removing the link. Only then if you don’t receive a response, or if the webmasters in charge of the site refuse to oblige, then you should look to Google’s disavow tool.

Consider other forms of directing traffic to your site which don’t directly require Google. Things like blog and forum commenting or guest blogging are useful tools. Just remember to always stick to informative and interesting content; otherwise this effort will be in vain. This limbo between making changes and waiting for the next update might present a great opportunity to focus on your social media presence. Whatever you do, don’t waste this time and think that there is nothing you can do of value.

As an internet user, Penguin 3.0 is certainly beneficial. Just like the updates before it, this latest version is targeting spam content and aims to weed out what no one wants to read to deliver a better search engine experience. The algorithms will continue to be amended and tweaked with the single goal of giving users accurate and informative search engine information that answers their query. Provide this, and it will be difficult to be penalized.

If you wouldn’t know the first place to start in performing a site audit, then there are some competitive professional services that can do the job for you. If they do a good job, it might be worth considering that team as a long term option to reassess your entire strategy. Get in touch with the gurus at Zib Media at http://zibmedia.com.au/ to discuss how you can be on your way to bright SEO future in Melbourne.

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