Google has recently released its Panda update and this has brought about a lot of changes in the usual way SEO strategies are conducted. The new algorithm has penalised some sites while other websites have benefited from the changes. This update affects around 11.8% of all search queries on Google. The update was intended to reduce rankings for low-quality sites commonly known as content farms.
If you find that the change is effecting you then these are the four recommended changes that you might need to carry out in order to beat the new algorithm.
Become an authority
Having a 5 page website is not really enough nowadays if you want to achieve a high rank in the search engines. If you were making money with a low page website filled with advertising then it will probably be important that you add some extra pages to your site. You can also make sure that your content is really useful for the people that read it and not just articles that are specially written for the search engines to boost your SEO.
Advertisement ratio to content
One of the criteria that Google Panda may now use to rank websites is based on the amount of advertisements that you have on your site. Don’t go overboard is the new mantra and limiting the amount of ads that you have can really help you improve your site ranking. In some cases it would be wise to make changes to your site layout in order to reduce the amount of advertisements.
Unique articles
All good SEO people know that duplicate and copied content can do more damage than good for your site ranking. However the new Google update has made it become even more important to have original content on every page. Make sure you pay special attention to duplicate pages that are created automatically by certain CMS and made changes when needed.
Social Media initiative
It is believed that the Panda update places significant importance on how much of your content is shared across the different social media platforms. For this reason it might be important that you make it easy for visitors to share your content on Twitter and Facebook for instance. Additionally social media networking can also bring your website extra traffic on their own irrespective of the search engines.
The Google Panda update has brought some interesting changes to the way SEO is conducted, whether it is off-page or on-page. The quicker you change your SEO techniques the quicker you will find your site climbing up the search engine ranking page.
