What is Penguin?

Google sometimes makes changes to it’s algorithm, or the software that makes the search happen, in order to fight what is known as “webspam”, or websites with no valuable content and whose sole purpose for existing is to feed “link juice” to other websites. The purpose of the Penguin series of updates is to locate and disable spammers through unnatural linking schemes, and each Penguin release has been to fine-tune the spam link detection capabilities of the search engine. Similarly, the Panda series of updates have been more about on-page issues, such as re-spun and duplicate content. So because we know Penguin is all about linking then we can make some educated guesses based on what we have seen happen in the past. For instance, when Cutts made today’s announcement he said it was estimated that approximately 2.3% of english searches would be affected. While Penguin 2 and 3 only affected less than .5% of searches, the initial Penguin release caused a change in ranking for around 3% of websites indexed, so we know this update will be close to the same magnitude. That means a lot of people who have paid good money to bad SEOs are, unfortunately, going to see a drop in their search engine rankings soon.

What’s Next?

SEO Advantage has followed every Google algorithm update over the last 14 years and made sure our customers stayed as far ahead of the changes as possible.  We will continue to monitor our customers’ results and consult with other industry leaders to make sure you know about it as soon as we do. If you would like to be notified when this post is updated be sure you subscribe to our newsletter by filling out the short form in the right column.

Other SEO Advantage articles about Penguin and Panda

• Understanding and Overcoming Google’s Penguin Update
• Google Will Now Include Panda in its Real-Time Algorithm
• Link Building Post Panda – Is Article Marketing Still Viable?

If you have had any experience with the latest Penguin update we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave your comments below.

Just like no one wants to invite “That Guy” to the party, no one wants to interact with “That Company” on Facebook.

Marketing on social media – and on Facebook in particular – sits more in the realm of public relations, truth be told. You’re there to get to know people, and to let people know the personal side of your business. There are tons of personalities out there to choose from when creating your company’s Facebook persona, but we’d recommend you steer clear of these . . .

The Facebook Self-Promoter

It’s called social media marketing, right? Well, this guy is definitely here to market . . . exactly the way he has always marketed before.

We all know how to recognize this particular That Guy at the party. He can’t seem to talk about anything but himself. He doesn’t want to carry on real conversations, and he’s convinced that nothing anyone else has to say could possibly be interesting, so he keeps talking about the one topic he does find interesting: himself.

If every link on your Facebook page is self-promotional, you’re That Guy. Facebook isn’t about shoving your message down people’s throats. They already like your company or they wouldn’t have followed your page in the first place. Instead, it’s about building relationships and having conversations, so treat it like a conversation. Don’t be that jerk who talks about nothing but himself. Nobody likes that guy.

The Loud Drunk

The ability to interact with your customers through Facebook is as dangerous as it is powerful. We were recently treated to a view of the downside of these interactions thanks to a business that appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s show Kitchen Nightmares.

Of course, telling you to keep your cool and avoid going ALL CAPS on your customers is kind of a no-brainer, but the loud drunk commits another social faux pas: he talks at people rather than to them.

The Facebook equivalent here is posts with no context. Title of article > link to article > done. Let’s wait for the likes to roll in!

. . . Except they don’t, because you didn’t walk up to people and start a conversation. You shoved a newspaper in their face, bellowed the headlines at them, and then walked away.

The Socially Awkward Facebooker

What this version of That Guy lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in enthusiasm, with cringe-inducing results. He pastes a url in the status window, sees Facebook use that information to create an attractive visual link, and it never occurs to him to delete the url. Sometimes he even uses a service to shorten the url that doesn’t have to be there in the first place.

He also likes his own status updates. Every. Single. One.

Listen, I’m all for socially awkward dorks. I’ve even been known to be one on occasion, myself. That still doesn’t make it a valid marketing strategy. Enthusiasm is wonderful so long as it’s tempered with a willingness to slow down, pay attention and learn something. So look around at the companies and entertainers you follow on Facebook. If the page is popular and successful, chances are you won’t be seeing a lot of urls in statuses, nor will that company like its own posts.

Just be a human

It really is as simple as all that. On Facebook, you’re relating to human beings as human beings. Social media isn’t advertising, and it’s not direct mail. In the often-impersonal world of the internet, Facebook is the most human interaction available to marketers. So just . . . be a human.

The practice of directory submission developed organically the way things do when the internet hive mind is involved. People started making lists of their favorite websites on personal pages, then companies started building these sorts of pages as a service to visitors. Then, the less scrupulous among the SEO and online marketing world joined the fray, buying and selling directory links with no vetting process to speak of. Eventually it became difficult to discern a quality directory from an ad repository with no intrinsic value.

These sites have been hit hard by Google’s algorithm updates, as have the companies that use them, but that doesn’t mean that directory submission isn’t still a viable strategy. You may be looking to hire a directory submission service, or you might wish to handle your own submissions. Either way, there are a few things you should know.

Don’t: Use Services that Offer Automatic Submission

If you come across a site offering to submit your business to hundreds of directories at once, run. Fast. These services play the numbers game, and the inherent risk in that game is incredibly high.

If your site starts showing up in directories that are inappropriate, or on pages that are otherwise filled with above-the-fold advertising, it says nothing but bad things about your business. Online, as in the real world, you have to be mindful of the company you keep.

Do: Check the Page Rank

When your goal is to increase your authority and visibility on Google, one of your first steps should be to determine what Google likes and what they don’t. A directory with a poor page rank, or with none at all, won’t bring you up in the SERPs, and could drag you down on other ways.

Don’t: Trust a List of Best Directories

Even when these lists are made with the best of intentions, the internet is far from a static medium. Sites that slid past Google just a few months ago could get hit any day. Your safest bet is to do your own legwork to find individual directories, or to hire a trusted source to make your submissions manually.

Do: Track Your Submissions

You can streamline your process and avoid duplication by tracking directory submission as part of your link-building efforts.

Don’t: Try to Do it All

Make sure the directories you submit to are niche-appropriate. Ten quality links are going to do a lot more for you than 100 bad ones. Be selective. Otherwise you risk wasting effort, not to mention what happens if Google catches you running with a bad crowd.

Do: Realize that You Get What You Pay For

If your plan to save money on directory submission is to hire the cheapest company out there, you’re better off not doing it at all. When you hire Dirt Cheap Submission, Inc. (not a real company), you aren’t hiring experts to find the appropriate directories. You’re hiring a computer program to input your company information and blast it out to every corner of the internet, including the seedy underbelly.

Directory Submission is Part of the Bigger Picture

Where once directory submission was a quick-and-dirty practice for bringing in both good and questionable links, it is now part of a targeted online marketing strategy. Not only do you have to submit to the right directories, you have to make sure that what visitors – and Google – find there is a quality website that answers a need.

Keep that in mind, and you can successfully integrate directory listings into your overall online marketing and SEO efforts.

Now, I know I don’t hate SEO, so I asked our Senior Copywriter Nathan Williams, who leads content marketing initiatives for clients in a wide range of industries, for his feelings on the subject. Here’s what he had to say:

“It’s interesting that a copywriter would say they hate SEO, because the two work hand-in-hand, at least in my experience. From the copywriting perspective, SEO is the afterthought. If the SEO tactics are on the level, the copywriter just has to make sure the keywords won’t disrupt the flow or distract from the point.

It’s not fair to say that copywriters hate SEO, because that opinion is painting with a really wide brush. And there’s no need to feel that way. SEO provides actions, targets and priorities, and copywriters use that information to tailor the content. The two sides must work together, or both fail.”

What SEO Copywriting Isn’t

Nathan’s point really emphasizes what separates true SEO from the kind of black hat tactics that give websites a brief bump followed by a long, hard fall. There’s a mindset out there that search is a system to be gamed, and for some reason a terrifyingly large number of people in the SEO biz think that gaming that system is a better choice than working within it.

That’s why you’ll still find sites out there hiring bargain basement copywriters with no real skill or experience, and using spinning software to create meaningless, garbage content. Meanwhile behind-the-scenes they are buying links, hiding keywords in code, and participating in all sorts of unsavory practices meant to trick search engines and serve up content that does not answer the question posed in the search query.

The real irony in this is that they are likely putting more effort into those tactics than we on the white hat, ethical SEO side are by just following the rules and creating quality content.

It’s Not SEO’s Fault

Keyword stuffing and creating nothing content around random terms is not what we signed on for, and the results are not what clients sign on for, either. Any copywriter is going to be unhappy in a system like that.

But what Nathan talked about, and what the rest of us who work on the copywriting side here at SEO Advantage know, is that when your behind the scenes SEO and coding folks are doing their jobs well, all you really have to do is write relevant content with a few placement adjustments here or there. We probably spend less than 10% of our copywriting time thinking about keywords, because if what you are writing truly speaks to the question asked in the search query, the keywords don’t have to be stuffed. They flow organically.

If, as a copywriter, you find yourself at odds with SEO, then the problem likely isn’t with the system itself, but with the way you are being asked to manipulate it.

Content not only helps you build rankings in the search engines, it also helps you build credibility for your brand and a loyal following. When people see you’re developing engaging, informative content, they’ll remember you as someone who’s willing to listen and take initiative to help customers better understand important points about what you’re offering.

Likewise, search engines will see how youre making strides to provide your audience with engaging, informative content, and reward your site accordingly.

While many strategies and techniques are specific to your business or industry, there are some general ideas you need to keep in mind when writing web copy – one of the most important, yet most overlooked, is white space.

What do you mean by “white space”?

White space can be defined as a break in copy. It has a couple of different purposes.

One, it helps the readers better comprehend what you’re trying to say. They can skim sub-headings, bulleted lists, and other elements designed to help communicate information in a clear and concise way.

The other purpose is to give the eyes a break – how many times have you encountered a page with just long-block paragraphs and immediately clicked the back button in frustration?

In our fast-paced, information-driven world, our senses are literally overloaded with all kinds of messages at all times of the day. We have to discriminate what’s deserving of our attention, and disregard the things our senses and minds tell us are not important.

We do this through scanning…

If your piece – be it a blog post, an article or a landing page – doesn’t provide an adequate break, it will seem dull and intimidating, no matter how well it’s actually written.

What do I need to do to ensure my site’s content has adequate white space?

We don’t want to imply that long paragraphs are bad – if you have a thought that requires a little extra explanation, by all means, take the extra space.

A few ways to boost white space include:

• Limit paragraphs to 5-7 lines – if you have an extra-long paragraph, consider putting a one-sentence paragraph just below it to either make your final point, or a follow-up point.

• Include sub-headings – to break up different concepts within your piece, use sub-headings. This allows the reader to scan your piece’s important points without having to read it word for word – your readers will thank you. Including keywords in headings and sub-headings are also beneficial from an SEO perspective.

• Include a bulleted or numbered list if it makes sense – Another way to add “white-space” and make your piece scannable is by using bulleted or numbered lists. These help draw attention to important points and communicate information quickly. Be careful though – bulleted and numbered lists don’t always fit.

These are general points to consider when drafting content for your website. If you’re writing an e-book or more formal piece of content, you can have longer paragraphs for example. Also, you really won’t have much in the way of sub-headings with a press release (except in the beginning).

The important thing is to remember that you’re writing for real people, not search engine bots. You need to be mindful how you’re content will appear to a new visitor.

Is it easily digestible with a quick scan?

Is it easy on the eyes and not too “in your face” or intimidating?

Keeping these things in mind will help you develop exceptional content for your site. While there are many other things to consider, this is one of the fundamental tenets of writing for the web – and one of the key differences between print and online media.

We recently learned that Google Reader will be going dark on July 1^st, but do you know what year it was created?

1. 2001
2. 2003
3. 2005

Answer: C

Although Google Reader has gained prominence in the RSS world, it’s actually among the newer feed readers. The service was first launched in 2005, and will have been in operation for not quite eight years when it goes away this July. In those years it became one of the top RSS readers in existence, offering a clean, easy-to-organize method for viewing news and blogs.

Google Reader and the Online Marketing Connection

Arguably, even as a relative late-comer, Google Reader can be given at least some of the credit for the popularity of RSS, and hence the popularity of blogs, which have become a mainstay of online marketing. Gmail is one of the top free e-mail services on the web, and many Gmail users became Google Reader users by default because of the connected service. For a fair portion of users, Google Reader offered their first experience with an RSS aggregator.

As more people began to use RSS as part of their daily lives, blogs became even more popular. They shifted from a method primarily used for personal expression to a near-requirement for businesses looking to grow customer engagement. Some blogs themselves became businesses, garnering deals for books and television shows.

While personal blogging still exists, the blog has now become a powerful business platform. With the loss of Google Reader, however, some users are moving away from RSS altogether, and instead continuing a trend that had already begun to gain traction. As online marketers, we need to be aware of this shift and account for it. That means realizing that consumers who are leaving traditional RSS readers behind aren’t leaving blogs behind. They still want the kind of engaging content and conversation that springs from blogging platforms, and businesses need to provide an easy way to track that content.

Social Media: the New RSS?

The reason so many are finding it easy to move away from RSS is that forward-thinking businesses are already providing an alternative method of tracking updates to favorite blogs: social media.

At SEOA, for example, every blog post we publish is immediately shared on our Facebook page. Chances are that’s how you ended up here reading this. This practice gives you a way to track us without an RSS reader, not to mention an easy method for sharing posts you might find interesting, and multiple options for joining the conversation.

This type of change is part and parcel for the online marketing experience. The dynamic landscape of the internet is what attracted so many of us to the field in the first place. From the perspective of an internet user the loss of Google Reader may be a disappointment, but from the perspective of an online marketer, it’s an opportunity to move forward, adapt, and develop new approaches.

In a Q&A session at the SMX conference earlier this week, Google spam chief Matt Cutts was asked when the next Panda update would occur.

He answered that it would occur either today (March 15), or Monday March 18^th at the latest.

A brief recap of Panda

Following an update in late 2009 aimed at improving its indexing process, Google obtained lots of content to display in their search results. Some of this content was really good, some not so good. In commenting about the events of 2010 and 2011 leading up to Panda, Cutts explained that many sites were taking a minimalist approach to content, meaning they were making only token efforts to avoid being labeled “spam.”

To address this issue and provide better search results for their users, Google unveiled the Panda update in February 2011. One thing became clear during all of this – Google was using more human reviewers to determine if a site is “trustworthy.”

Sites who simply rehashed content found elsewhere, or who otherwise had “low-quality” content, were suddenly being knocked lower in the rankings. Google would run this update every month or so – with the last one occurring on January 22^nd that affected 1.2% of English-based searches.

Going forward, Google will be including the Panda “parameters” in its real-time algorithm.

“Rather than having some huge change that happens on a given day, you’re more likely in the future to see Panda deployed gradually as we’re rebuilding the index, so you’re less likely to see these large scale sorts of changes,” explained Cutts last week at SMX West.

Google also working to revise its “Penguin” update

Besides the content based Panda update, Cutts also indicated Google would be going after spammers more aggressively through a revised “Penguin” update. You might remember Penguin from last year – it targeted sites considered to be “over-optimized.” Examples include:

• Questionable linking practices
• Overuse of exact-match domains
• Aggressive use of exact-match anchor text
• Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links
• And more…

Explaining the new Penguin update at SMX West, Cutts says the update will be the most significant one for 2013. He says the anti-spam team at Google also plans to target more link networks this year. While Cutts was fairly forthright about their plans, he didn’t provide a timeline of when the new Penguin update would hit.

With that said, it’s clear that we’ll likely see some pretty significant activity on the Google front in the next few months. Many sites and merchants on Google will undoubtedly be negatively affected.

How do I avoid being caught in the Google penalty box?

From what we can tell, Google’s primary goal is to provide useful results to their users. These search results must provide valuable information to readers.

Therefore, you should ensure that content you’re developing is unique, and provides value to your site visitors. You should also follow good linking practices to ensure you’re not snared by the new Penguin update when it comes out.

Following tips on linking and content found here at SEO-e is perhaps the best thing you can do to avoid being penalized. Check out some of the links below of prior posts exploring these best practices.

And please browse around our blog for more insights into what Google looks for, and how they penalize sites that do not meet their strict standards.

Related Posts

Penguin Update Targets Link Schemes and Low-Quality Content

Link Building in the Post-Penguin World – Guest Posting

Answer these 23 Questions to Understand What Google Looks For

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

Welcome to SEO Advantage’s Friday Trivia feature, where we discuss, dissect and comment on the internet and marketing, and how the two intertwine.

Ah, the dreaded bounce rate. It’s that unpleasant little number that lets you know that no matter how many visitors you get to your page, some just aren’t going to stick around to see the rest of your site. This can happen for a number of reasons, though, and not all of them are bad. Do you know the average bounce rate for web pages?

1. 20%
2. 40%
3. 60%
4. 80%

Answer: 40%

According to Google, Kissmetrics and just about every other source on the internet, the average bounce rate for a web page is about 40%. Whether that’s higher or lower than what you usually see, though, is less important than determining what that bounce rate means for that specific page.

When high bounce rates might not be so bad

Sometimes a high bounce rate might actually mean you’re doing something right. This is especially true of informational pages like knowledge centers, blog posts and even directory listings.

If you’re putting information out there on a page optimized for search with content that directly answers the question posed by the keyword phrases you’re targeting, then you’ve given visitors what they want. They search, come to the page, get the answer to their question and leave satisfied. This isn’t bad from a marketing standpoint, either, because the next time that visitor has a question or needs what your business offers related to that topic, chances are they’ll remember you.

In some cases, bounces might also indicate quality leads. If you host an offsite blog linking to your business home page and that blog has a high bounce rate, visitors may very well be bouncing right where you want them to go. Are you getting a lot of referrals to the main site from the blog? If so, then your blog is doing its job.

A high bounce rate may also be benign for a business website. If you’re observing web design best practices, your contact information is prominently displayed on every page of the site. Bounces in this case could indicate that visitors liked what they saw and took the next step.

In short, if your content is robust, high-quality and relevant to the keywords that are bringing in visitors, a high bounce rate is likely nothing to worry about, and possibly even a good sign.

When to worry about a high bounce rate

Reassurances aside, there are some situations where a high bounce rate really is a no good, very bad thing. The most common occurrence of this: the landing page. If you’ve created a page specifically to bring in visitors with the intention of having them purchase a product or sign up for a service, and those visitors then bounce without buying, browsing or signing up, it’s time to optimize that landing page.

You should also be concerned when high bounce rates correspond with shorter visits. If you’ve written a robust information piece but visitors are spending an average of 30 seconds or less on the page and then leaving your site entirely, it usually indicates that you are either offering information that’s irrelevant to the keywords or your content itself is problematic. It may be too generic, or it may simply be poorly written and difficult to read. If you really want to fix these types of issues, get ready to set aside your ego and get self-critical.

Every page is different

What makes understanding bounce rates so confusing for some is that every page and type of content is different, and you won’t learn anything from analyzing bounce rates in a vacuum. You need to understand how to interpret bounce rates as they relate to your other metrics and the page’s purpose and content.

So, did you guess the right answer? How do you use bounce rate to help you optimize your SEO and online marketing?

Most articles are citing the data visualized in the image to the left, which would seem to indicate LinkedIn is rapidly overtaking other social networks for business use, but with any study of this nature you have to look at the sample. In this case, the data came from a survey performed on business listed in the Inc. 500, an index of the 500 fastest-growing private businesses. It’s a small sample, and the companies listed here would seem to share a specific characteristic – a strong focus on growth.

Stop Trying to Pigeonhole Businesses into a Specific Social Media Venue

It would have been great to see some information about the specific industries of the companies surveyed. It seems likely that what looks like an overall shift in preferred social network is actually evidence of how the specific types of companies surveyed best use social media, and not a directive for all businesses.

As marketers in the social media arena, we need to be extra careful not to fall into this sort of trap. For example, were I to recommend that a client at a B to C that sells a physical product focus the bulk of their efforts on LinkedIn, I’d be doing them a great disservice. People don’t shop or window shop on LinkedIn. It doesn’t even begin to have the same consumer power as more visual venues like Pinterest, YouTube or even Facebook.

In fact, if you take a quick look at the full list of 5000 Inc. published in 2012, you’ll find certain types of industries filling pages and pages of data: Business Products and Services, Advertising and Marketing, and IT Services are among the top performers. Even companies in the top 500 who list themselves as providing Consumer Products and Services tend to be in fields like investing and event planning.

Take this report and others like it with a grain of salt, and realize that there hasn’t been one social network to rule them all for many, many years. You have to understand who your customers are and what motivates them, and develop your social media strategies based on that information. Reaching the largest audience of people who aren’t looking for your products or services generates the wrong kind of leads, if you get any leads at all.

What the Study Does Tell Us

Looking beyond the catchy headline, you can actually dig down and find some really useful information from this study. Once you understand that the survey respondents were from growth-focused businesses, you can learn a lot about how they accomplish that growth.

63% of respondents stated that their CEO is active in their content creation and social media, and blogs are far more popular among the Inc. 500 companies than among the Forbes 500 – a list that tends to include more established businesses. This tells us that businesses using social media avenues to increase growth are finding success with those methods, and that their growth is also due in part to humanizing their upper management, thereby giving a level of transparency to their corporate culture.

This information is the real take away from the study. Concepts like blogging and increased visibility for upper management span every industry, and these methods seem to have proven successful for the businesses on the list.

PEW Internet has just released their 2012 statistics for social network usage. You should definitely check out the expanded demographics, but first, see if you can guess which networks are used the most among adults. Some of the answers may surprise you.

Lunch is just one of many photo opportunities for Instagram users.

Question:Can you put these social networks in order based on overall usage?

Instagram
Tumblr
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn

Answer:

Facebook – Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the biggest social network there is. A whopping 67% of adults surveyed reported using Facebook. That usage is 47% higher than the next network on the list.

Facebook appeals to consumers and businesses of all sizes. There’s not a person or organization in the world that can’t get some sort of benefit from Facebook , and for businesses, the opportunities to build real relationships with consumers are countless.

LinkedIn – At the number two spot – with 20% usage among adults surveyed – we find LinkedIn. This placement might be surprising to some, but when you think about it, business connections often overlap with social and friend connections.

Additionally, LinkedIn is useful for building business and career contacts in just about any industry. It serves as an online resume for job seekers and a way to share knowledge among peers in a given field. While LinkedIn is certainly a niche network, that niche is larger than many realize.

Twitter – The main surprise here is probably that Twitter – with 16% usage among adults – didn’t beat out LinkedIn for the number two spot. There are likely a few reasons for this, but I suspect the growing number of businesspeople who are discovering the benefits of online professional networks plays a part.

Pinterest – That’s right! Pinterest, which has only been around since March of 2010, is a relative newcomer to the social networking scene, yet it is already used by 15% of adults. It may only be a matter of time before Pinterest eclipses Twitter. The lesson here for online marketers? Bite-sized, visual content absolutely must be part of your strategy.

Instagram – Another newcomer, Instagram launched in October of 2010 and made an immediate beeline for social media prevalence. Pew’s reported usage is 13%. What does this tell us?

For one, we are in a mobile age, and Instagram is a mobile platform. Secondly, Instagram is the epitome of visual content sharing, and thirdly . . . people really love sharing photos of their cats, their meals, and themselves in front of mirrors.

Tumblr – Tumblr has been around since April of 2007, and can probably take at least partial credit for the move to more snackable content. Even with that being the case, only 6% of adults surveyed report using Tumblr.

So, how did you do?

Did you guess that LinkedIn was more popular with adults than Twitter? How about Pinterest coming so close to the number three spot? Did you see that one coming? Let us know in the comments!