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Upcoming Google Update to Penalize “Over-Optimized” Sites

April 2, 2012 By

Rarely do we get a glimpse of a Google algorithm update before it occurs. But during a recent panel discussion at the SXSW event in Austin, Texas, Google’s spam chief Matt Cutts announced some minor tweaks to the search engine’s algorithm.

Dubbed the “Venice” update, Cutts said Google would punish sites that are too optimized for SEO, or what he called “over optimized” or “overly SEO’d” (…according to reports from HubSpot and Search Engine Land).

Although Cutts initially had planned not to announce the update ahead of time, he decided to go ahead and spill the beans following a question the panel received from an attendee at the SXSW event.

Basically, the question asked what Google was doing to prevent overly optimized content. For example, if you search for “three-winged widgets” on Google and the first result is just a keyword stuffed document, it won’t have much value to you, the reader.

In his response to the attendee’s question, Cutts explained the changes as “trying to make the algorithm more adaptive.” Sites that will be penalized will be those who are clearly engaging in keyword stuffing, exchanging too many links and any other practices that go beyond “…what a normal person would expect.”

I’ve done things SEO-e and other sources have suggested I do. Will I have to worry about being penalized for following standard recommendations?

A similar question was asked of Cutts by our friend Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land and the short answer is no, it won’t.

Those who will be penalized are sites whose content is driven by keywords rather than topics. If you’re selecting topics based on what you’re audience wants you shouldn’t have anything to worry about provided you’re not stuffing your content with keywords. As we’ve said before, if you spam your content with keywords to the point that it doesn’t read naturally, your site will be either ignored or penalized.

In a follow-up to Cutts’ response, Bing’s Duane Forrester added that social sharing is an important signal as to how others value your content. If others think you have great content, they will “…amplify it” Forrester explains.

“If you’re not engaged socially, you’re missing the boat because the conversation is happening socially about you and about your content. Those are really important signals for us,” explains Forrester.

In light of these revelations by Cutts, we want to take a moment to reiterate the old rule of thumb.

  • 2-3 separate, unique keywords on a page
  • Vary your use of keywords (i.e. singular, plural, stemming, synonyms)
  • Above all, make sure your copy reads naturally. If it feels spammy to you, then it likely contains too many keywords

In the end, if you’re writing with your readers in mind first and the search engines second, you should be okay. Make your readers the first priority and the rankings will follow provided your site is easily crawlable so the bots can actually read and index your content.

Read some of our prior posts on keywords and how you can maximize keyword instances without your content being too spammy.

Are you concerned about Google’s Venice update? What are your thoughts on penalizing sites for over-optimization?

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

Latent Semantic Indexing – A New Way to Look at Keywords

Standard Keyword Research Won’t Always Tell you what your Prospects are Looking For

11 Steps to Increasing Keyword Saturation while Maintaining Valuable Content

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

6 Tools to Throw your Link Building into Overdrive

March 6, 2012 By

Anyone whose worked on optimizing websites for the search engines knows about link building and how tedious, repetitive and time-consuming it can be – prospecting, researching, contacting and following-up can certainly drain away your day.

We’d know – we’ve spent a few years working to get sites to the top of the search engines. Building links is a big part of that. But sometimes though, it can literally be considered a “needle in a haystack” trying to find the right, do-follow link that will really move a website.

As the years have gone on, this task has gotten even more complex as search engines like Google continually make changes to their algorithms.

Fortunately though, there are tools available that can expedite these steps and make the daily task of finding good quality links slightly easier. Below are 6 recommended tools for really cranking up your link building efforts. Each tool has its own unique strengths and focus.

1.    Screaming Frog SEO Spider (http://www.screamingfrom.co.uk/seo-spider/)

    Utilizes an often overlooked way of getting links and audits your site and your competitors’ site(s). The desktop tool sees which incoming links to your site are going to 404 error pages and crawls competitor sites to see where they’re linking.

    2.    Majestic SEO (paid) (http://ww.majesticseo.com/)

    Majestic SEO is now considered the premier tool for comprehensive backlink data since Yahoo Site Explorer went offline last year. Many SEO companies use this tool as a ‘behind-the-scenes’ data provider for their own stats.

    3.    Blekko (http://blekko.com)

    Blekko is unique in that it uses backslash functionality to provide SEO-rich data. Basically, you register for free then enter any site’s URL with modifiers like “/SEO,” “/inbound,” or “/outbound” for detailed link information.

    4.    SubmitEaze (http://www.submiteaze.com/)

    Since Google’s Panda update last year, the value of directors and article links for link building is something to be real careful with. SubmitEaze helps you find the qualified directories related to your industry that will benefit your firm.

    5.    Quix (http://www.quixapp.com/)

    Quix is a “bookmarklet” tool that brings many everyday SEO, social, WordPress and webmaster tasks under one umbrella. Literally dozens of commands allow you to research competitor sites, Google and even social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

    6.    ToutApp (http://www.toutapp.com/)

    Although link building through blind e-mails requesting a link to page A in exchange for a link to page B are in the past, there is still a need for link builders to stay in touch and cultivate media and PR contacts. ToutApp helps do this by automating the process and providing detailed tracking.

    We’ve used a few of these tools to help us dramatically improve link building efforts for us and our clients.

    Have you used any of these tools?

    Any other link building tools you’d recommend?

    Let us know in the comments field below!!

    Some other posts you may be interested in

    Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

    3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

    8 Ways you can safely sell Links on your Website

    Filed Under: SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , ,

    Mobile Smartphones and SEO

    February 21, 2012 By

    You or someone you know in all likelihood owns a mobile smartphone (…like the I-Phone, Android or something similar) and accesses the Internet with it. These devices have grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years – projections are that one day, more people will access the Internet with a handheld device than laptops or traditional desktop machines.

    With that said, now is the time to consider integrating a mobile version of your website into your online marketing strategy.

    When examining this from a purely SEO standpoint though, one thing you must understand before anything:

    Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo don’t give a hoot if you have a mobile compatible web site or not

    That’s right – websites designed for mobile users do NOT receive any special treatment from the search engines. In other words, searches from a mobile smartphone are treated just like any other search from a regular computer.

    If you take out your smartphone and do a search, you’ll notice that search engines do not rank mobile sites higher unless you add “mobile” or some other unique keyword to your phrase.

    Let’s be clear though – having a site optimized for mobile users is absolutely important. However, this is more of a usability issue and not necessarily a ranking issue.

    From a search engine optimization standpoint though, it’s highly unlikely your mobile site will ever outrank your main site.

    The big impact in terms of SEO and mobile smartphones is local search. Here’s where sites designed for mobile devices are treated differently than desktop sites (…notice, they treat them differently, not better).

    Google and others essentially assume that a mobile search is local. In fact, statistics show that there is a 33% or higher chance you’re looking for something local when using your smartphone.

    For example, if you type in “Best Buy” on your mobile device, it’s assumed you’re looking for the local Best Buy store in your town.

    Another caveat of mobile search (..exclusive to Google) is the fact that Google Places is clearly pushed to the top in a majority of local related keyword searches.

    Therefore, if your customers are local, it’s quite clear you need to have a presence in something like Google Places.

    Aside from local searches though, there isn’t any special treatment for mobile-enabled websites.

    With this assumption in hand, your best bet is to drive all traffic to your main site and put your mobile optimized site with a sub-directory (i.e. http://www.yoursite.com/mobile) rather than as a stand-alone subdomain (i.e. http://mobile.yoursite.com).

    Setting up your mobile site this way carries several benefits, including:

    • Content, trust and authority of your main site (…since it’s likely been around much longer) will be available to your mobile users
    • You can maintain focus of your link building on your main site rather than having to split your efforts between multiple sites
    • Setting cookies is less troublesome when you don’t have to go cross domain

    If you’ve setup a mobile site with its own stand-alone domain, you’re probably experiencing difficulty in getting the new domain to rank. If so, you can setup a 301 re-direct to a mobile domain attached to your main website (i.e. http://www.yoursite.com/mobile).

    From a marketing and usability standpoint, mobile compatible sites are becoming an absolute must, especially considering these devices are currently experiencing an explosive 400% growth in usage. Much of your content will stay the same – it will just need to include coding to make it compatible for the ubiquitous small screens mobile smartphones have.

    But considering the fact that only a tiny fraction of companies have added mobile sites, you will likely have a distinct competitive advantage by starting one now rather than waiting another year or two.

    Other Posts you May Be Interested In

    Google and Merging of Search and Social Media

    Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

    Preparing for the Mobile Revolution, Part I

    Preparing for the Mobile Revolution, Part II

    Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

    Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

    January 5, 2012 By

    Well, a New Year has passed and we bid farewell to 2011. It was certainly an exciting year, especially in search and online marketing which saw changes occur at warp speed.

    Over the last few weeks of 2011, we took a break to assess the state of search engine optimization and where things were headed going into 2012. We do this in order to help our clients (…and readers of this blog) better understand where they should focus their online marketing efforts.

    After reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going, we quickly realized that the lines between different types of search – namely organic, local, mobile and social – are now being blurred more than ever. Rather than web search strictly being the center of activity online, social is increasingly becoming the focus.

    According to an exclusive web tutorial from Planet Ocean, web search was the sun and other types of search (…or planets) revolved around it. Now, instead of web search being the sun, social is quickly becoming the center of the universe with other types of search (…or planets) revolving around it.

    As we’ve said here many times over the last year, being social is a critical strategy to being successful online – this will become even more critical in the coming year. A cursory review of search results for a variety of terms shows social mentions and engagement alongside traditional webpages.

    Social is being aggressively integrated in Bing, who has partnerships with Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Google has basically bet the farm on its new social network Google +.

    From these arrangements and others, we can ascertain that social sharing will increasingly integrate with web search. Going forward, social shares or votes will increasingly be the new links.

    How many have liked, +1’d or otherwise made a comment regarding content on your site?

    So how can I ensure my site continues to rank high in 2012?

    Dominating your market online in the new year will require some tried and true methods mixed with some new ways of engaging your audience online.

    Since the web has become increasingly social, it’s become increasingly democratized as well. Users will more and more be the driving force in determining which social networking platforms you ultimately adopt.

    The key to all of this though is content – as in years past, successful online marketing will be driven by your ability to create reference grade content that helps the reader. In turn, this can lead to true engagement that builds trust and value.

    Rather than a few pages earning links, success online will hinge more on how socially engaging your content is.

    The more likes, +1s and buzz your content has, the better your business will do.

    Besides content itself, freshness will also be a driving factor in maintaining and building high search rankings. It’s increasingly become clear that Google and others are placing a high value on ‘fresh’ content. Just in the last two months, we’ve seen Google make updates to its algorithms to reward sites with fresh content, especially in areas that are always changing.

    This update though has sadly penalized some sites with great ‘evergreen’ content that’s been around awhile but still valuable. Repurposing this content will help you get around this ‘freshness’ problem, especially if you experienced a drop in rankings due to this latest update.

    Also in 2012, expect to see more firms using social media tools for product development and testing as well as technical support.

    What about mobile-based search? Will it continue to grow in 2012?

    An emphatic yes!! It’s projected that by 2015, more users in the U.S. will access the Internet through their smartphones or tablets than a regular computer.

    Mobile search is deeply tied into local search with over 40% of searches on a mobile device being for something local like a restaurant, doctor’s office or brick and mortar store. According to Google, 44% of searches from a mobile device in the 2011 holiday shopping season were for store locations and last-minute gifts.

    With mobile devices, users can seamlessly float between mobile, local and product search as well as their social media activities.

    In 2012, it’s imperative that local business establish their presence on places like Bing Local, Google Places, Foursquare and others. Don’t be hesitant to allow reviews – customer reviews give you an opportunity to address grievances and open yourself up to new ways of engaging customers.

    So there you have it – things will continue to move at wharp speed in this new year – social and mobile is most certainly revolutionizing how people interact and find things they need.

    Stay tuned to our search engine optimization blog as we slice and dice the trends and developments in the search marketing world. Most of all relax and have fun with the possibilities the online sphere will bring in 2012.

    Other Posts You May Be Interested In

    7 Strategies for Maintaining ‘Fresh’ Content

    Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part I

    Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part II

    3 Ways Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing Work Together

    Reputation Management – Maintaining & Enhancing your Company’s Good Name

    Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Does Google Consider SEO to be Spam?

    November 21, 2011 By

    One question that swirls around out there is whether SEO – short for search engine optimization – is considered to be spam by Google.

    A recent video from the head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts, tries to answer this question. In short, no it isn’t. According to Cutts, all SEO basically means is making sure your pages are well represented in search results.

    There are many legitimate, or ‘white hat,’ tactics SEO pros can use to help your pages rank high, including:

    • Making sure pages are crawlable with good links
    • Using strong keywords in site’s content. Words everyday people will use, not insider industry jargon
    • Constructing a site that’s highly usable and has a design conducive to search engines
    • Making your site loads fast, which is one of many of Google’s search ranking factors
    • Building a good URL structure that’s easy to follow for both users and search engines

    Using techniques like these and many others are considered to be okay by Google. Sites that follow these guidelines and build good quality that’s easily crawlable will, over time, see their organic rankings build.

    However, there are ‘black hat’ techniques as they’re called that Google frowns upon. Sites who are caught using things like hack sites and keyword stuffing will be penalized severely by Google. Sometimes, these penalties are impossible to recover from.

    The goal of Google is to return the best search results as possible for their users. If a searcher isn’t able to find the right information, they will start looking elsewhere for it. As the #1 search engine accounting for over 2/3 of searches online, Google has an interest in making sure it returns sites that are informative and relevant to what the searcher was looking for.

    Matt explains (…correctly in our opinion) how search engine spiders are not smart enough yet to figure out what a site is about all on their own. Therefore, it’s the site owner’s job to ‘help’ the spider learn what your site is about…this at its core is where SEO comes in.  In our experience, basic fundamentals are not addressed.  A good SEO will fix these SEO fundamentals (…listed above), analyze site traffic, ROI and other important factors to keep your site’s rankings consistently high.

    With that said, SEO is about building a site Google can crawl and index. If you hire a search engine optimization company to handle your site’s SEO, there shouldn’t be any secret as to what they’re doing. Your SEO should be open about what they’re doing to get your site to the top of search results.

    If they’re not, you should go elsewhere for these services. If the SEO firm is employing ‘black hat’ techniques, your site and business will be the one who suffers, not the SEO firm who used the shady tactics.

    If your site is penalized for employing nefarious techniques, it will take a long time for you to make up the lost ground. Meanwhile, the SEO firm will have taken a lot of your money and will not suffer the same consequence.

    Watch the video below to learn more.

    One lesson though to keep in mind in this situation – buyer beware!!

     

    Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,
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