Many small business owners and large corporations have been wondering why Google has become so stringent when it comes to Web content. Believe it or not, there is a logical reason. Their philosophy is simple. They desire to provide Web users with information that is relevant to what they are searching for online. In other words, they want to give people what they want. This is understandable because over the past few years, the Internet has been flooded with poor quality content. Any content that Google stumbles upon that lacks quality is devalued.
The success of a website is no longer measured by how many pages of content you have or the amount of links it contains. A website (or web page) is measured by whether or not a person does what you want them to do.
Internet guru, Gab Goldenberg from Searchenginejournal.com once said: “If you have sufficient PageRank and you regularly publish new content – yes, Googlebot will return frequently to your site to crawl your articles, which will then be indexed. But if you just have plenty of content – even if you publish 5 new unique, original articles a day – Google doesn’t care…”
This is living proof that it’s no longer about the “quantity” of content you have – but rather the “quality” of content a website presents.
In this article, we’re going to share a few quick tips that you can start implementing right away. Here’s how to detect poor quality content on your website and how to avoid getting penalized by Google:
•Search your website for any kind of poor quality content and clean it up by either improving it or deleting it altogether. Now, if you have several pages of content on your website, this can be a very tedious job. One way to detect poor quality content is to use Google Analytics. Check your bounce rate, pageviews, pages per session and the average time a person remains on your page.
•Quick Scenario: Let’s say that your webpage doesn’t have any usability issues, but you have a high bounce rate, that’s a sign there may be an issue with your content.
•Only publish content that is informative and relevant to the product or service you’re offering your audience.
• Your content should engage your readers. Low engagement can also affect the success of your website. Many people struggle with in this area. One way increase your engagement is to create content that will interest your readers. For example, solve a problem that your target audience is more likely to struggle with.
•Avoid keyword stuffing your content. Make sure your keywords are relevant. Also, try using a variation of keywords within your text.
•Use other forms of content, such as video marketing. Videos tend to index quicker than written content. Plus, it is more likely to go viral and it puts a face to your brand.
•Avoid posting thin content. Thin content includes anything that’s less than 100 words. Try boosting your content word count to at least 300 – 500 words. Avoid adding fluff – make sure the content serves a purpose to your audience.
•Get rid of any expired content. Make sure you update content on your website on a regular basis. This includes your static web pages and your blog content.
•Avoid buying links from linkbuilding farms. Yes, people still do this. Google has shut down many linkbuilding farms, but some have fallen through the cracks. When someone tries to offer you an astronomical amount of links at extremely low rates (1000 links for $100), this should raise a red flag in your mind. Buying links equals trouble. Your website may not be affected right away, but it could in the future.
The Bottomline:
The key to Panda-Proofing your website is to provide quality content that’s relevant and engaging. You should also stay abreast to the latest Google guidelines. Hopefully, the tips in this article are helpful in maintaining a website that contains high-quality content.