How To Overcome The Google Penguin Update

Matt Cutts and the Google algorithm updates are really starting to annoy internet marketers around the globe. Google Panda was the first update, which was devastating for many involved in the SEO game, but there was not anything quite so bad for a while until the Google Penguin update came along. There is no doubt, it is not as easy to rank in Google as it was back in the day. It is really tough out there. Many internet marketers have gone back to their day jobs and left the SEO industry completely.

One has to realize that this is a business and every business will suffer at some point. Internet marketers are so used to their business going from strength to strength that this is something they just don’t expect to happen. However, there is always a way to turn your business around.

You have to ask yourself what the Google Penguin update was all about. What is Google looking for? Of course, before you start anything you must make sure that you have a clear, positive frame of mind. What is the point of thinking that Google is evil? It is definitely difficult to stay motivated at times like these, but that is what it takes. Stay away from the negative SEO forums and focus on restoring your site to page one again.

Google Penguin Update – How To Optimize Your Website

People came unstuck a lot of the time by over-optimizing their keywords. Using the same keyword, over and over again, when building links without any variations is one way of getting hit. There are lots of ways in which you can vary a keyword.

To de-optimize your keywords you should look to a variety of methods

• Generic keywords – ‘click here’, ‘continue reading’, ‘great site’, etc.
• Long tail keywords – For example, ‘make money online’ becomes ‘make money online at home’.
• Naked keywords – ‘http://yourdomain.com/’
• Brand keywords– ‘your site brand’, ‘your name’, ‘website name’, etc.
• Semantic keywords – These are shorter keywords, but they are not long tails. If you have a site about ‘making money online’, then you would use, ‘SEO’ or ‘internet marketing’, for example. You should spread these anchor texts out evenly for them to be effective.

You should also pay attention to where you are doing your link building and which kinds of sites you going to. There was a recent update where a lot of internet marketers were punished because of simply taking full use of blog networks. When these were de-indexed, sites with thousands of links were affected badly.

Best Ways To Build Links Online

• Guest posting – This is a very good option, especially if you can find blogs with a high page rank.
• Web 2.0 posts – There are many of these sites around so make sure you make use of them all and don’t post all of your links on just Hubpages and Squidoo.
• Forums – This is a powerful form of linkbuilding if it is done the right way and you don’t spam the forums.
• Social Media – Don’t forget about Twitter, Facebook and social bookmarking. If you are doing SEO then you simply have to be social media.

Google has become very smart. This means that it is difficult to take short-cuts these days. This applies to people who are using black hat techniques. They are going to be discovered soon or later. If you want to build an authority website then you should definitely stick with white hat techniques.

Content also proved to be a problem with the Google Penguin update. Not only must you remember that content will always be king and stick with really good quality content, but you must also pay attention to the way that you use your keywords. Using ‘landscaping company, Florida’ muliple times in the same post is definitely going to bring the value of your content down. Varying your text in your posts on your site is just as important.

• Organize your website – This refers to the appearance of your website. When someone lands on your page they want to be able to read the article easily. It shouldn’t be busy with all sorts of adverts flashing away. You don’t want too many links in the footer either.

Internal linking has also been a problem. If you think about it, when you go to a site that has twenty links in a single article you will probably just find that annoying. It is hardly effective either. Google is penalizing these types of links as well so this is something to watch out for.

What do you think?  Have you experienced problems since the Google Penguin update?  Have you NOT had any problems  since the Google Penguin update? Let us know your views by leaving a comment below!
___________________________________________________________________
Thank you to my Guest Post Author: Jonathan Newby

Jonathan owns a number of websites that show people how to make money online.  
___________________________________________________________________