Last week Google gave us a gift, the Penguin update.  In what seems to be their never-ending changes to its infamous algorithm the Penguin in all essence is a continuation of Panda (introduced to the world in 2011). The idea behind the Penguin, like was the Panda, is to provide Google visitors with high quality, original content. After all, that’s what we all want isn’t it?

Have you noticed a drop in search traffic to your website? To many webmasters the Penguin update was Antarctic cold. It literally sandboxed (meaning, de-indexed, out of sight, no longer in existence and can’t be found. Ouch!) many sites Google thought were scamming their system.

Now is the time to check your analytics. Did your site get hit? Websites that took the brunt of it all were using grey hat and black hat SEO techniques. Some commonalities from these sites that got hit are:

• Paid text links with the idea of having your keyword be the EXACT match anchor text. Worked great… up until a week ago.

• Comment spam or users who would have exact match anchor text in their signature.

• Guest posts on questionable sites. Let’s not be mistaken here. Guest blogging is a great SEO technique. However, it can be damaging to your sites rankings if your entire resume of guest blogging is from low page rank sites. And to further do harm, to again have too much emphasis on exact match anchor text and not quality content.

• Article marketing sites. These sites were of low quality, many had little regulation or guidelines in place regarding submission policies and thus published thin content that held exact match anchor text. With auto-syndication tools available, article marketing proved an easy –virtually hands free way of quickly gaining hundreds and thousands of back links to a website.

• Inbound links from bad neighborhoods.  Websites sitting in what Google considers “bad neighborhoods” are no good. Stay away, they are dangerous! These sites have been flagged for malware, dominated by pop-up ads, and other issues Google considers spammy. Links to / from these neighborhoods will do nothing good for your website equity.

All of these techniques worked great… up until a week ago. Classic example of quick gain and short-term profits using black hat SEO techniques. Obviously this isn’t the goal of the majority of business owners.

Yes, Google got excited about blog networks like BuildMyRank and organizations like TribePro. Does that mean what was once grey hat SEO techniques are now black hat?  Grey hat was the loophole around Google. Unfortunately, many who know little about SEO probably got caught up in these practices thinking they were white hat and have since seen their rankings plummet. That is why it is essential to learn the meaning of white hat SEO and diversify your link building strategies.

Should we SEO specifically for Google?

This is a valid question for anyone with a website. Google is the largest search engine boasting nearly 70% of all searches on the internet. How can small businesses compete with the larger ones and not have their entire income suddenly dry up after another Google update?

Of course it’s not best practice for anyone to put all their eggs into one basket. It’s essential to diversify your link building strategy as it would be in any business. Internet Marketing isn’t an exception to diversification.

Let’s go over some other possibilities to optimize outside of Google.

• Socialize content. Blogging is an essential component to your overall presence online. But your efforts don’t stop once the blog has been written and published. It needs to be seen. Share it across your Social Media pages. If you aren’t in the Social Media game now, you’re missing a large opportunity for exposure. I suggest starting small with Facebook, Google +, Twitter, and YouTube. Of course you don’t need all of them but, each of them offer your clients / visitors great benefits to develop a relationship based on trust.

• Exchange blog posts with others in similar non-competitive markets. Exchanging blog posts holds two benefits. The first, it allows you to cross over into someone else’s home on the internet as an invited guest. Your new audience is looking towards you as a trusted referral.

• Quality content. After all, isn’t this why Google keeps updating their algorithm? It’s imperative your site has quality content that over delivers time and again. It will build trust with your clientele, prospects, and community. It’s like a good book versus a GREAT book. Which one has a better chance to become timeless? We want our websites to become timeless regardless of a change in algorithm and it begins with quality content.

• Facebook. Interact regularly with other businesses on Facebook and develop a relationship with them (below I’ll reveal an old school offline marketing technique that when done right will explode your online marketing!)

On a similar note we cannot disregard Google’s investment in Google +. If you think Google is not tracking +1′s  and Google + shares, think again. Take advantage of this easy to use tool and reward yourself by teaming up with Google.

• Purchase Ads on Social Media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Because so many people share so much about themselves on Facebook, Facebook Ads can be designed and adapted like no other, certainly not Google Adwords. Take advantage of that information and create an Ad Campaign that targets the exact demographic of your clientele.

It’s time to think like a Publisher. Create content once and spin it into multiple channels. Create photo galleries on Flickr.com, videos on YouTube and create podcasts for your visitors and prospects to listen to. Turn your blog posts into an e-book to sell or give away. Of course with all of these methods you always point the user back to you via link to your website or other Call to Action such as a phone number or irresistible offer.

Think like an Entrepreneur. It’s time to stop worrying about what Google does. The simple truth is that their algorithms aren’t going to stop. Let’s get back to old school marketing techniques that can help our online marketing efforts. I’m talking about Joint Ventures. Team up with other businesses in your location and explore ways where you can achieve mutual benefits and new opportunities. For example, if you’re a scuba dive shop owner you can team up with local hotels in the area. Maybe together you’ll decide that guests staying at this particular hotel can get your scuba dive for 10% off published rack rate. When guests take you up on this offer, encourage them to leave a review (with your website link) on review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. You win with the business and the added link juice and the customer wins with the great deal and easy accessibility of it all.

Another opportunity is to team up with a local charity. Again, you’ll be crossing over into new exposure and increasing your odds to rely less on Google algorithms and more on building long-term sound business practices and white hat SEO techniques. Will you rank on page 1 over night, mostly likely not but there is a good chance you’ll be in business for the long-term and that is a good thing.

Remember, Google is only 1 marketing channel. Let’s not forget about other search engines and let’s especially not forget about diversifying both our link building strategies (white hat SEO!) and offline marketing opportunities that can lead to positive reviews and ultimately more link juice.

To ranking on the first page for a long-time.

Listing in Directories is one way of building links and can bring value to the site provided we make sure that the directories are credible and have authority in the eyes of the Search Engines. Google is said to prefer Directories that are human edited and that have very specific categories for listings ( e.g.Yahoo Directory).

Here are some points to keep in mind:

1. Does the Directory have a good Page Rank?
If the Directory has a low PageRank, it probably does hold much authority with Google.

2. Are Category Pages Indexed? To be more specific, is the category page you wish to be listed in indexed in Google?
If the category page that you wish to be listed in is not indexed in Google, then the page has no power to improve your site’s link popularity, because Google does not know about it, it cannot recognize that it is linking to you.

3. How Many Sites Are You Sharing the Link Juice Wealth With?
In most cases, an interior directory category page will contain ten listings – maybe twenty at the most.If the directory has too many listings on the same page, it may not be worth getting listed on there unless it is a proven source of traffic.

4. Does the Directory Add the NOFOLLOW Attribute To Its Listings?
If you are submitting to a directory to help improve your site’s link popularity and they are adding the nofollow attribute to outgoing links, it is not going to help you. Unless you are expecting to get some traffic from the directory, avoid it.

5. Will the Directory Send You Any Traffic?
It is worthwhile to keep a track of the traffice being received from a directory to decide whether it is reliable source of traffic for your website.

It is estimated that more people will be accessing Internet information via a mobile device than a personal computer by the year 2013 (that’s not very far away, folks). As we know, most standard websites do not render well on a smartphone screen due to the smaller screen size, or use of incompatible plug-ins (such as flash). As many businesses opt for a mobile website to complement their standard website, one wonders what this means for keyword optimization and search trends? Do smartphone users search the same way desktop searchers do?

Interestingly enough, mobile search is used and rendered very different from a desktop search. Here are my Top 5 reasons why this is so:

• Mobile search is highly geared toward local information. Statistically 9 out of 10 smartphone searches result in an action. Chances are, if you are looking for for something on your phone’s browser (like a food, a museum, or a bike repair shop) it is because you want to purchase, find, or visit the searched item. Desktop searches tend to be less action oriented overall and more information oriented in nature. Because of this pages like Google Local Listings are positioned to rank higher than pages that are not locally oriented. Domains with geo-targeted keywords will also rank well in this system.
• Google has 97% of the mobile search market share, and their algorithm is different for mobile devices than desktops.
• Smartphone screen size is much smaller than a PC’s screen size, so it will be even more important to snag the top few spots on a mobile search in order to be on the first page.
• Site loading speed becomes critical in a mobile search. A site that takes too long to load when on-the-go information is needed quickly, will lead to higher bounce rates than a standard desktop site search.
• Android users are always logged in to Google on their mobile system.  This means that Android users will always be served personalized results more often than folks searching on a PC who may not have logged in. This will obviously change as more and more people begin to use Google+ or who search when logged into their Google accounts.  Most users aren’t aware if they are logged in or not, and personalized results definitely have an impact on what you will see in your search results.

These are key points to keep in mind when conducting a search on either platform, and even more important to keep in mind when positioning yourself and your business for the future, whether or not you have a mobile website. Keeping a claimed and optimized local listing has always been an important piece in your overall SEO strategy. But now, it seems as if listings such as Google Places and Bing Local could have even more impact on your search results in the future.

Do domains with keywords included help with getting better results?

Generally Keywords in the domain can help get better results, it has been seen that the ones that seem to be the best are those with an exact match to the targeted keyterm. Also, more often than not, .com domains seem to have an advantage over other domains.

However search engines are reported to be laying less and less emphasis on keywords in domain names as this has been misused by spammers registering hundreds of “long-tail” domains to rank them for exact match and also because it’s now nearly impossible to obtain any “exact match” domains that wouldn’t be too long or irrelevant.

Howver, if it is possible, getting an exact match domain or a domain with relevant keywords in it is definitely helpful.

I had my domain for many years, but I purchased a better one recently.Should I start optimizing the website for the new domain?

If your domain has been around for a while, it will surely have gained equity in the eyes of the Search Engines. This is very valuable as it is a slow process to get the SEsto recognize your site as authoritative and credible.

It also depends on the age of the domain you have recently purchased, if it is an established domain with an exact match to your target terms, then it would be beneficial to work on getting this domain to be the main one. If not, then it might be better to let the new domain gain credibility with Google and the other SEs .

Google has always claimed that they want to maximize transparency around the flow of information related to their services.  I always took this statement with a grain of salt, as I would from any large corporation trying to explain how transparent and open they were with the public. However, a recent update by Google has done a great job revealing information about government intervention and online content.

Recently, Google has updated their Transparency Report to include more details about information requested from governments around the world. This report has been used to provide data about the number of government inquiries concerning specific users or accounts, as well as requests to remove specific content.

According to this post on their blog, Google has “highlighted some significant changes in the data and provided context about why those changes may have occurred during this reporting period.” They have updated the format of the report so that anyone can see user data requests on a country-by country basis.

The Transparency Report is now very detailed. Using Government Requests, Google is disclosing whether they were asked for user data or for content removal, the reasons why they’ve been asked to remove content (such as hate speech, defamation, copyright, etc…), even the percentage of requests that Google complied with.

For those that are curious, the United States ranks third overall in the amount of content removal requests, and first overall in user data requests (by a huge gap).

Some requests for removing content in the last six months (January to June 2011) included everything from violation of AdWords policies (China) and defamation cases (France) to the removal of YouTube videos displaying protests (India), police brutality (USA) and details about the private lives of political officials (Turkey). For more details, see the Map of requests.

It’s really quite amazing what you can learn about how the web is shaped by government influence and other regulations. In my opinion, Google is providing a great (and interesting) service by publishing this data.

Some reasons to re-optimize your website :

Your site has enjoyed great rankings for several years but you’ve now lost your top or first page listings.

Your website statistics show a big drop in the number of people visiting your site.

Your site was optimized a long time ago, the keywords you originally used to gain high rankings no longer work.

Your site has undergone a redesign or moved to a different platform.

Your competitors seem to be achieving top rankings, you need to market your site to improve rankings.

Your business has changed it’s focus and the priority Keyterms have changed.

Your location has changed or you have new offices and you need to update your optimization accordingly.

Strategies to keep in mind while re-optimizing your Website to Increase Rankings and Traffic

1.Look at the keywords generating the most visits. Are they currently included in your Title tags and content? Use keyword research tools to find related keywords that can be added to your web pages. Create extra web pages that target high priority keywords.

2.Do searches for your top priority keywords and find the competing sites that are showing up at the top of the first page. Analyze these competitor websites for title tags, web copy plus the quantity and quality of their backlnks.

3. Find related keywords and include these within your web pages to increase web traffic.

5. Incoming links to your website help your web page rankings increase. Link building is a task that must be done regularly to stay ahead of your competitors. Boost the number of backlinks across your webpages so they can achieve better rankings.

6. Look for high quality local directories and review sites where you can register your website and increase visibilty for your business.

7. Optimize and verify your Google Places and Bing and Yahoo Local listings.

According to a new study, your #1 ranking in organic search accounts for an 18.2% click through rate on Google, and a 9.66% click through rate on Bing.  For the combined click through rate of the top 10 results (page 1 on the SERPs) you get 52% for Google and 26% for Bing. This is a dramatic decrease when compared to similar studies done not too long ago that showed the top ten organic search results would garner anywhere from 63% to almost 90% of the click throughs. Overall, the data suggests trend has been on the decline, but why?

Now more than ever, users are distracted by the additional information provided in search results. You have sponsored listings, images, video, shopping results, and instant search. This has changed search results from a simple, focused list of relevant information to a crowded street bazaar with each new search feature shouting “click here!”

So what does this mean if I want my business to show up on the first page of the search results?

If your located in a competitive area for your business, the days of free business from the internet are nearly over. More and more you will have to rely on a professional optimization and marketing strategy that involves pay per click campaigns, local directory listings, video, social media, and finding niche markets for yourself.

Even before that, it will be necessary for your web site to not just show up, but to convert the ever more elusive clicks into leads. This means having a properly designed, attractive site with well written content that makes users trust you and want to buy your services.  You also need to make sure your staff, the people that answer email inquiries and phone calls, are doing their part to convert interested inquiries into paying customers.

The internet is fast becoming as expensive a medium as radio and television advertising, and the reality is that it is still a better value. Radio and TV simply cannot offer you the feedback and data that internet marketing does. Nor can they allow you to target your audience so specifically. The best return on your investment dollars is the internet, so invest for success!

Is it better to get a lot of incoming links at the beginning of my SEO and give it a jump start, or add them over the course of time?

While launching a brand new website or a redesigned site,  optimizers can work towards getting a  a reasonable number of incoming  links by listing the site on relevant directories, this will help boost  rankings and also  propel the site higher in the search results. As a rule,  however,  it is better to add links steadily over a course of time, this helps keep the site interesting to the search engines and shows that it is a relevant, credible site.

 I heard linking to other websites doesn’t help at all with help my SEO results.  Is that true?

While incoming links are more valuable towards link-building,  linking to other topical and related sites also brings value to the site. Out-bound link building should be done very sparingly and only when linking to the external site brings information and value to the viewer. It is also preferable to link so that the other site opens up in new window, this way the viewer is not led away from your site but can take in the information and return to your site easily.

What is a link farm?

A link farm  is a website set up with the sole purpose of increasing the link popularity of other sites by increasing the number of incoming links to those sites. Most of these links will not be relevant links, the linking is solely done to try and spam the Search Engines into raising rankings but appearing to bring credibility to the linked sites. Link Farms are frowned  upon by the Search Engines,  link farms will be removed from their directories when they find them and many also penalize other sites that link to them.

If you have a website, chances are you are being contacted by Webmasters asking you to exchange links with them. You know that you should choose only Relevant Links as far as possible, but what are relevant links and how do you pick them?

Here are some questions and tips that may be helpful:

1.Do I want to associate my business with this particular site? Is it a credible site with good authority?
It is a simple question to answer and this should form the basis of your decision making process. If you think you will be dealing with a good quality website then the chances are others will feel the same and possibly the search engines too.

2. Is the site focused on a topic that is relevant to the information on your site?
A link from a relevant website to your site is the preferred choice as it can help reinforce your website theme and potentially send some useful traffic your way.

3. How many existing links does the page have?
When your link is being placed on another website, you ideally want that page to contain as few outbound links as possible, if there are a high number of links on a page, the value of each link out is weakened. However if you are working with a ‘ high authority website’ ( sites that are typically non-profit like .edu, .gov, news sites and other resource based sites) an exchange can still be worthwhile.

4. What is the Page Rank of the site on Google?
Typically the higher the page rank, the more important a site is perceived to be. A link from a Pr 5 page is often seen as a more powerful link than one from a Pr1 page. However, Google’s Page Rank is only meant to be a rough guide and should not be the only criterion.

5. Is the links page being read by search engines?
It is important that the page your link is on can be found and read by search engines. The page should be no more than 2-3 clicks away from the homepage. you should check to see that the site is not broken and that it is being regularly crawled and indexed by the Search Engine spiders.