How is the SEO World Managing Post-Penguin 2.0?

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Image Courtesy of Martin Pettitt

Image Courtesy of Martin Pettitt

It has been well over a month since Penguin 2.0 was unleashed upon the world and the search industry is still reeling from the results of the algorithm update aimed at link profiles, low quality backlinks, and over-optimized anchor texts.

The average estimate says that Penguin 2.0 affected over 2-percent of all English queries. That doesn’t sound like much, but when SEO Roundtable took a poll in late May over half their readers say they had been hit by the changes.

First, it should be said that some portion of those may have been affected by a separate algorithm update released shortly before the new version of Penguin, but that update was aimed at typically spammy sectors like payday loans and pornography.

The majority of those saying they were affected by Penguin however were most likely correct about their recent drop in rankings or loss of traffic. It is either that, or far too many involved were misreading their data or somehow unaware that their payday loan site might be targeted by Google. Let’s assume that’s not the case, because that option sounds highly unlikely.

But, time has passed since Penguin came out. I’ve seen at least 10 articles detailing how to recover from Penguin, and numerous others focused on all the areas Penguin targeted. We should all be getting back to normal, right?

According to the recent poll from SEO Roundtable on the topic, that is not the case. Over 60 percent of those responding have said they haven’t recovered from the algorithm update, with only 7.5-percent saying they have fully recovered.

What does this mean? Well the respondents are clearly SEO informed people who keep up to date with the latest blogs, since they responded to one of the more reputable sites available on the issue. One major issue is that full recovery from Penguin isn’t possible for many of those affected until the next refresh. It is hard to know when that refresh could happen, though it may not be until the next update is announced.

The other issue is simply that those articles telling SEOs how to recover from Penguin range from completely valid to “how to try to cheat the new system” which can be confusing for inexperienced or uninformed SEOs. The best suggestion for solving this problem is playing close attention to what sites you are reading and always take the more conservative advice.

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Is Google Using Industry-Specific Algorithms?

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Ranking PodiumA WebmasterWorld thread from roughly a month ago brings up an interesting question for us SEO professionals. While we focus on the algorithms we know about such as Penguin or Panda, it has long been suggested that Google could also be using different ranking factors depending on the industry a site fits within. In other words, sites for roofing companies would be being reviewed and ranked according to different standards than sites for tech companies.

Well, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team and trusted engineer, took to that thread to dispel all the rumors. He doesn’t deny that Google has “looked at topic-specific ranking.” Instead, he says scaling was the issue. In his answer, Cutts explains, “We have looked at topic-specific ranking. The problem is it’s not scalable. There’s a limited amount of that stuff going on — you might have a very spammy area, where you say, do some different scoring.”

He continued, “What we’re doing better is figuring out who the authorities are in a given category, like health. If we can figure that out, those sites can rank higher.”

While Google says they aren’t using different algorithms for different industries, it has been announced that Google uses Subject Specific Authority Ranking, which helps authorities in varying topics to be selected as the most reputable on that subject.

Of course, looking at the comments from SEO Roundtable, who reported on the WebmasterWorld thread, it is clear many don’t necessarily believe Cutts’ statement. Some say they have “always seen a difference in industry types,” while others argue that different industries necessitate using different ranking factors or algorithms due to lack of specific resources available to that industry. For example, industrial companies don’t tend to run blogs, which means creating new content through blogging shouldn’t be as honored as it is on other topics like health and tech with a lot of news constantly coming out.

For now, all we have to go on is Cutts’ word and our own experiences. Do you think Google is using different algorithms depending on industry? Do you think they should be?

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Link Building Tactics We Need to Cut Out

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As always, there are a lot of different opinions about link building across the web. There are still those who offer ways to “dominate” links with schemes that push the boundaries of what Google allows and some who are beginning to completely write off link building as a practice.

It is a bit hasty to completely do away with your linking efforts, as they are certainly still a consideration by the search engines. But, we also live in an entirely different linking climate than that of just a couple years (or months) ago. Moderation and quality are the key words in the link building discussion these days, and it is important to know when someone is giving bad advice.

If only you explicitly knew what link building tactics you should just not do, right? Erin Everhart from Search Engine Land offers just that with her article from last week laying out exactly what linking techniques we can just cut out of our routines, and how to pinpoint when people are trying to give you bad advice.

Of course, it all starts with discussing that special word “quality,” which is now the most important factor in all your link building efforts. Google no longer cares if you have countless links to your site, if none of them are reputable. Actually, they do care. They will penalize your site for trying to use bad links to boost your profile. Natural, quality links from sites people actually read are the only way to get positive results from your link building, and anything else is just as likely to hurt you.

In the vein of quality over quantity, mass article submission is almost as bad as farming huge numbers of shoddy links. Its the obvious successor to the new “content is king” mantra everyone is espousing now, as those who were directly gaining scores of low quality links turned to submitting the same weak article to hundreds of different sites.

Of course, there are other link problems aside from link farming in various manners. Though it has become less popular after Penguin, there are still backlink profiles out there with higher exact-match anchor text percentages than their company name. Anchor text is still very important, but there is no reasonable scenario in which you should end up with that high of a percentage. You need way fewer exact-match links than you did a couple years ago, so just follow the rule of moderation.

Guest blogging is even becoming a problem. There are so many sites hiring “article writers” who churn out 10 to 15 articles a day that the tactic has become yet another link building scheme. Instead of outright buying links, they are buying writers to build them cheap links. Guest blogging can be great when done correctly, but you have to take the time to ensure they know a lot about the industry they represent and will provide value to your site.

There are even more link building tactics still happening right now despite Google’s best efforts to shut down the more spammy efforts. Everhart covers a few more in her article, but the main point is that any good-natured SEO tactic can be corrupted and used to try to trick the search engines, the problem is Google and Bing have gotten much smarter, and they will almost always catch you if you try to outwit them. Play be the rules, and give your sites the attention they need, but don’t try to play the system.

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Bing’s Duane Forrester Speaks About SEO

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Duane Forrester

Duane Forrester from Bing

While I often focus on Google’s search engine because it draws roughly a third of all searches, Bing is still important for most webmasters. It draws in the second most traffic, and Bing is clearly fighting to gain more of the market. That means we do need to keep up to date with their best practices and guidelines and listen when they share insight.

Bing’s Duane Forrester did just that recently when he shared some thoughts about SEO on the official Bing blog. His statements aren’t radically different from what you would expect from anyone else working in search, but it does give a little insight into how Bing functions. Free SEO News, a regular newsletter, collected the most important quotes.

  1. Links are still important – “They are still a trust signal that can help ranking. […] The kind [of backlinks] where your site impressed someone enough that they blogged about it, or shared it socially. […] These are best as they allow the engines the strongest confidence that the link is trustworthy.”
  2. There’s nothing wrong with reciprocal links – “Reciprocal links still have value. Shocked? Don’t be, as the value may not be what you’re thinking. They don’t hold a lot of value in terms of lifting rankings, but they are capable of driving traffic to your site, so a recip link can be useful for new sites in terms of direct traffic, and these links can help us find your content in the first place.”
  3. Buying Likes, Tweets, or Retweets is useless – “We all want ‘em, and therein lies the problem. Because likes are sought after, people try to sell them. […] Similar to how a link farm operates, like farms exist, promising to supply hundreds or thousands of likes in a short period. Yeah, yeah, they claim to be ‘all natural, totally organic’, etc. Simply put, they are not and are easily seen.”

None of this is groundbreaking of course. It is no surprise to us that we shouldn’t try to cheat Bing or Google and that you can do optimization without spamming. Following the best practices Google and Bing both publicly share with web masters will protect you from all your problems.

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5 Questions You Should Ask Before Hiring an SEO Consultant

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Establishing your brand online can lead to higher sales and profits, but the first step is always getting your site high enough in the search engine rankings that potential customers can find you. But, search engine optimization can be intimidating for many business owners to handle on their own.

Hiring an experiences search engine optimization consultant is often the best option for business owners who want to get their business online, but lack the time or technical skills to do so. However, you’ll want to get the most for your dollar. Kim Lachance Shandrow recently shared a list of questions you can ask any prospective SEO consultant to make sure you’re getting the best service possible.

  1. How will you improve my search engine rankings? – Consultants who won’t go into the details about the methods they use are almost always questionable professionals. SEO consultants should be happy to explain exactly how they improve rankings for companies, along with estimates of how long it can take to get the results you are desiring.
  2. Do you follow Google’s Webmaster guidelines? – Any consultant who tries to toe the line of Google’s publicly posted webmaster best practices is almost guaranteed to get you in trouble sooner or later. There are many consultants who will try to use tricks to get high rankings extraordinarily quickly, but Google is quick to punish those trying to abuse loopholes. Bing and Yahoo also have best practice guidelines publicly available that you should also want your consultant to follow.
  3. How will you keep me informed of all changes made to my site? – As a business owner, you should expect to be involved in your SEO strategy from the very beginning, and your consultant should be willing to stay in communication about any changes being made to your site or the SEO strategy as a whole.
  4. Do you have local SEO expertise? – Brick-and-mortar businesses trying to attract people to their local shops need consultants who are experiences with working locally. The strategies for local SEO can often differ from more regional or national level optimization. There are also numerous actions that local SEO requires to get your site showing up for searches in your area that SEOs without local experience may skip over.
  5. How do you measure your SEO success? – Any experienced consultant should be able to tell you in detail how they measure your traffic coming to your website and where it is coming from. The most commonly used tool for tracking rankings and traffic is Google Analytics, and consultant should be willing to share the data with you.
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Top 100 Fortune 500 Companies Aren’t Optimized For Mobile

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rsz_1377498_16940838Google has made it very clear that mobile SEO is going to play a big part in their plan moving forward. Last month, Google’s webspam team leader Matt Cutts stated as such during the SMX Advanced Conference in Seattle and Google’s own Webmaster Central Blog confirmed the changes will be here very soon. A recent update told webmasters, “We plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.”

It isn’t like these changes are coming out of nowhere. Analysts have been encouraging site owners and SEO professionals to pay attention to their mobile sites for years and mobile traffic increases show no signs of slowing down. So, you would think most companies with a fair amount of resources would already be ahead of the curve, but a recent assessment run by mobile marketing agency Pure Oxygen Labs shows that the top 100 companies on the Fortune 500 list are actually in danger of Google penalties in the near future.

Pure Oxygen Labs used their proprietary diagnostic tools to evaluate sites against Google’s best-practice criteria, according to Search Engine Land. They hoped to see how many sites redirected smartphone users to mobile pages, how these redirects are configured, and how widely responsive design was actually being used to reach mobile users.

Only six of the 100 Fortune 500 companies had sites that properly follow Google’s best-practices. The report stated that 11 percent of the sites use responsive design techniques, while only 56 percent of the sites served any sort of content formatted for their mobile users. That means 44 percent had absolutely nothing in the way of mobile optimized sites or content.

The six that actually completely complied with Google’s policies included Google, so it should be noted that means only five outside companies were safe from future penalties at the moment.

There were multiple reasons sites were ill-equipped, but the most common problems were faulty redirects and lack of responsive design, both issues Google has singled out recently as their primary targets for future attacks on poorly configured mobile sites.

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What is Coming For SEO in The Second Half of 2013?

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Source: Stock.xchangIt took a couple weeks for everything to even back out after the recent Penguin update, and now its time to start looking forward to what is coming up in SEO. It is an especially good time to make predictions for the rest of 2013 as we are just now passing the halfway point in the year and Google has made some of their intentions moving forward very clear.

Google has pulled out the big guns in their fight against spam, and have publicly stated their interests in user experience through site design and quality content. None of that is a surprise, but at the turn of the year none of it had actually been confirmed by people within the search engine juggernaut. A few months later and Matt Cutts basically confirmed everything we assumed before. Focus on the user and don’t try to cheat or loophole your way to the top and you should be fine.

Still, Google isn’t content to simply focus on one or two things at a time, and there are bound to be quite a few other changes in the near future that we haven’t been told about. Jayson DeMers analyzed all of the evidence from Google’s more subtle changes and announcements in the past few months to attempt to make predictions for what we might be seeing in the next year or so in SEO. They are all just guesses from the information available, but it’s always good to stay ahead of the curve and aware of changes that may be on the horizon.

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The Thirteen Rules of Good UX

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User experience is more important now than ever. A few years ago, visitors would put up with a glitchy or poorly functioning site because the internet as a whole was less developed. Now, if one site doesn’t work well, visitors will simply look for another that was designed properly and responds how they want it to.

Visitors aren’t the only ones who care about user experience, either. Search engines are putting a bigger and bigger emphasis on how much users will enjoy a site instead of focusing on technical things like linkbuilding that visitors won’t ever notice.

Robert Hoekman has been working in the web industry for thirteen years and has first hand seen the changes happening as user experience became one of the most important aspects of running a website. While there are a few dissenters, Hoekman is part of the majority who are happy to see websites being designed for users, not for designers or search engines. However, he knows some designers have had some growing pains during the transition.

To help designers understand the importance of user experience and why it is the key to creating a well ranked and well liked site, Hoekman created a list of 13 tenets of user experience (one for every year he has spent in the business). If you don’t get what the big deal is or why user experience was bound from the beginning to become the most prized aspect of design, his rules should make it all clear.

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What is Your SEO Consultant Not Telling You?

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Source: Steven Depolo

Source: Steven Depolo

Any honest person working in SEO will tell you the industry has its fair share of problems. While many of these problems are a result of less than straight forward information from search engines about how their algorithms actually work, a large amount of the issues within the industry come from bad SEO consultants who will do anything to get a new client.

This isn’t to say that the industry is a scam or that even the majority of SEOs are bad, but there are more than a few SEO consultants who will tell you just about anything to “make the sale.” How do you know who to trust? You can look at what the SEO tells you to start. For example, if any SEO company tells you they can get you the top spot on Google no matter what or improve your rankings immediately, they are likely a bad choice. But, sometimes it is better to look at what they don’t tell you.

Marketers are trained in knowing what to say and what not to say, but that idea should be reserved strictly for the optimization and actual marketing on the pages they run, not meetings with clients. Pratik Dholakiya has been working in SEO for years and has run into his fair share of bad SEO consultants and recently shared a list of things they will try to hide from potential clients. Most consultants will give you a realistic idea what to expect when you’re considering hiring someone to optimize for you, but if they avoid telling you any of the five things on his list, chances are they are hiding much more and you should think twice before signing a contract with them.

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Why Use SEO When You Already Rule Your Niche?

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When most people think of SEO, they see it as a way to earn the top spot (or close to it) on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Markets can be highly competitive, and if SEO can get you above others in your industry than most companies see the process as being worth their time and money. While that is true in some ways, it is also far from the whole truth.

The wide perception about SEO implies that it is only really important for largely internet based businesses or those in competitive markets. However, SEO can benefit anyone who wants to develop an online presence and make themselves available to the ever-increasing number of consumers who use the internet as their primary shopping tool.

Small or niche businesses with limited resources may ask what the point of investing in SEO could be when there is little to no competition. What is the point when you’ve already earned the top spot, with no signs of losing it in the future? Amanda DiSilvestro has spent quite a lot of time considering this issue (enough for two separate articles across different sites) and the conclusive answer is that SEO can help businesses in niche markets in tons of ways that may not seem apparent at first.

Optimization means improving usability

Between Google’s recent shift of focus from links and keywords to quality usability for users, many aspects of optimization are centered entirely on improving how your site functions for the people that actually use it. SEO can be perceived as a marketing tactic, but it is more importantly a usability tactic. Sites that readers enjoy using are more valuable than those that barely function, and Google recognizes that and ranks sites accordingly.

You’ll have competition eventually

No matter how niche your business is today, eventually the vast majority of companies will see competition. Chances are, if you don’t see competition eventually your niche is in danger of becoming irrelevant. Either way, it is always best to be ahead of any competition that arises, and solid SEO essentially helps you fortify your grasp on the market. Rather than battling a new competitor when they show up, you’ll be prepared and far ahead of their attempts to overthrow you.

You want to be the best, not the only option

Ignoring SEO means your site isn’t living up to its potential. Customers view site usability and professionalism as indicators of the reputability of the company running the page. Because SEO is becoming synonymous with usability, optimizing your site communicates your value to search engines and your users at the same time. If consumers see you as the only option, but think your site and brand look sub par, they will view you as the only option they have rather than the best possible option. That pushes potential customers away and could even cause an enterprising individual who notices your weakness to try to enter your little market.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t immediate. It takes a lot of time to get the results you want. While you may feel comfortably established as the top (or only) option in your niche, things always change eventually. Getting ahead of the curve will save you stress in the long run and make potential customers trust your company more.

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