Repair your Google Search Engine Rankings
Have you been demoted in SERP’s by the Google Panda algorithm or the Google Penguin algorithm? April 24th 2012 is the best indication that Google’s off-page Penguin algorithm is the cause of your penalty. If you see a drop in traffic on or around that date, then your linking profile is the cause.
An additional Penguin indicator is that your rankings drop the most for the most used exact match keywords in the anchor text in your backlinks. There is a free back-link checking tool at majesticseo.com which will show you the search terms currently being used in your back-links.
Back-Link Structure
Prior to the launch of Google Penguin, you could use as much as 70% exact match keyword density and rank well, instantly this dropped to 5%. Change the bulk of the keyword rich links for either Brand based links, URL variation links or ‘junk’ links in a variety of permutations.
Company names or website names are your Brand links that you should use. Use a variety of different styles of your URL for your website address links.
Links that come from various C Class IP addresses will be more important than ever. Links on content related sites will help your rankings even more than unrelated sites. Trust score is a vital ranking factor so pick websites that are themselves linked to from ‘good neighbourhoods’. Google Penguin likes to see links coming from pages that are linked to themselves, so look for established pages to get links from where possible.
Google and Linking Networks
Never use automated link networks to create new links because the links will not be top quality and you will eventually be penalized for working with them.
The majority of outsourced SEO companies, (especially offshore ones) are still using low cost link networks to create links for their customers. This is a short term strategy to get hold of your money and leave you high and dry in the longer term, so be aware.
Google’s Penguin Requirements
To be able to comply with Panda’s on-page keyword density requirements, aim for 2%. Adding a link to a .gov or .edu site from your content will enhance your websites ‘quality score’.
Your Content
Unique content is extremely important. Always write top quality content that is unique to you. A good linking strategy is to use contextual links using keywords in your content to link to related information on your website or an external site.
Images and Video
Photo’s and videos are a great way to break up your text and a video will also help to extend the time that people spend on your page. Each image on your page should contain an alt text tag which needs to be different for every image on the page.
Ensure that you spell check all your content and that it makes sense to you. Google can determine the ‘reading age’ for different text which enables it to establish if a professor or a schoolboy wrote your content. While it is crucial not to write words in order to fill space, articles and page content with 500 words or more have proved to be beneficial in SERP’s.
If real people like your content and engage with it, spending time on your site, then Google will reward you with better rankings. Writing content just to manipulate Google is very 2007! Google can tie related words together using latent semantic indexing (LSI) so that rather than repeating your main keywords throughout your page content you can include different words that mean the same thing and your content will have a much more natural style.
Meta Data Tags
Make sure that all your pages contain unique meta-tags because if your meta-tags are duplicated across several pages you will receive a ranking penalty. The meta description tag is usually used in serp’s below your page heading. For this reason you ought to write it to obtain a better click through, not for keyword spamming.
Bounce Rate Metrics
Slow loading sites rank lower in Google. Make sure your site pages load quickly for the best rankings. Bounce rate is a measure of the percentage of your visitors that click the back button rather than engaging with your content. You will need a bounce rate of 55% or less to rank well in Google. Higher bounce rates will incur a ranking penalty.
All of these SEO elements need to be optimized if you are going to rank well. Follow this step by step beginners SEO tutorial for detailed instructions about optimizing your website.
Page Views
The more web pages of your site that each person looks at, the better Google will rank you. The length of time your traffic spends reading your content is a good indication of the quality of your content. Increasing the average time on site will help your rankings.