How to survive EVERY Google update

[ahew]

Since the Google Panda update in 2011, there have been a lot of people asking whether or not any particular approach to SEO still works in the wake of the update. Everyone stresses about whether or not what worked last year will work this year. Inevitably, someone comes out and says something to the effect of "Quality matters more since the last Google update!"

But here's the big secret: Quality has ALWAYS mattered to Google!

It's just that they always have to readjust their approach to ranking sites to take into account the new tactics that some black hat marketers have implemented over the previous months. What this means is that no matter what niche we enter into, we should always strive to provide valuable content to our site's visitors. Quality will always win!

Same goes for our linkbuilding campaigns. We shouldn't be trying to find a work around to building links. We should just be building valuable articles and comments on sites that Google has already determined are adding value to the internet experience. All linkbuilding is simply piggybacking on the success of already successful sites. Just choose the ones you want to add value to and you're good to go.

I can hear it now "But Adrienne, this is too time consuming! I don't have time to write articles and chat on forums all day." To which I say, "How much time have you wasted trying to learn and implement every SEO system that has come across your desk?" Of course there's no time left to write when you're busy watching hours of video and reading pages upon pages of content telling you basically the same thing as the last item you purchased on the subject.

You would be surprised at how much you can get done when you aren't buying every WSO that you hear about. This is also why it is so important to choose a niche that you already have an interest in. It is easy to bang out 2 or 3 articles in half an hour when you are already familiar with the subject matter. And as time goes on, it only gets easier. Not only that, but you will naturally hit upon those oh-so-coveted long tail keywords that will drive the search engines to check out your site more often. If you want to make sure you get more of these long tail keywords into your work, you should check out a Firefox plugin called "Wordtracker SEO Blogger". It's a great way to get ideas of keywords in your niche that are currently being searched without leaving your page.

Now, if you want to bump the viral aspect of your already valuable content, you can start doing things like connecting your RSS feeds to your Facebook account, Fanpages or Twitter; social boookmarking; creating videos, Amazon Kindle books etc. You are still adding value, but now you are letting people across all social platforms know more about you.

If you really look around, you'll notice that people who supposedly "don't know anything about internet marketing" have thousands of followers on Facebook and loads of comments from regular visitors. Often with little to no backlinks! Now they may not have the benefit of understanding all the monetization methods that we here on WF have, but they do understand how to be social and interact with their audiences. They enjoy what they do, so they build value by engaging with people across many platforms and they are able to build very loyal followings. Yes, if you build it, they will come! Just do what they do, but do it better!

Often with IM we get blinded by quicker and easier ways of doing things, but when it comes right down to it, skimping on quality is not the place to do it. If you've been doing this for 6 months or more without any or much success, then you should really reconsider your approach. You probably already know enough to start implementing the techniques you have learned thus far. In fact, I know you have enough information under your belt to make your sites rank to the top of Google for your keywords.

Over the past 5 months, I've been doing this with my original sites that got me into IM in the first place and the results have been very rewarding. Even my e-commerce sites have flourished better than before by using this simple, no-fuss method. I build about 8-10 high quality links per month to my stores and that's enough to have me ranking on page one for some excellent, profitable keywords! I don't even build links to my blogs except for feeding them to my Facebook pages. And it only took about 2 weeks to see a surge in traffic by posting once every 5 or 6 days. So much easier than going after hundreds or thousands of links. Also a lot cheaper and less time consuming.

Hope this helps someone out there!

888 -- To your prosperity in the year of the dragon.
Adrienne

[Brendan Mace]

Providing value does not need to be time consuming. There are ways to give the visitor what they want without spending hours creating content.

But I agree overall. Google is becoming more intelligent at analyzing the quality of webpages. If you want to continue to receive google traffic, then you are best off providing content with value.

[ahew]

Exactly! It's easy to get swayed by slick copy that providing value is time consuming. It's much more time consuming trying to reinvent the wheel.

[alcymart]

I agree that content has always mattered with Google but only to a certain degree. Lets not forget that they obviously have hundreds of other ranking factors.

Just content is simply not enough to get up to #1 on Google. I am #1 at Google for one of my keywords which has medium competition, and content was the last thing on my mind when I optimized my static page. Another keyword of mine which has very high competition is on first page of the Big G too! I was and am more into the SEO side of things... densities, body keywords, backlinks etc... Of course it's not a WP site...But hey, still a great post you did and content definetly plays a role!

Bernard St-Pierre

[hotboy18]

I absolutely agree that taking your time and building quality content for your visitors is the way to go. The results of value content and article marketing produce long term results plus the search engines love it. It is true that many individuals who start off with internet marketing want quick results so they are constantly searching for a push button marketing technique. In reality, you have to learn to long term skills to make money online such as writing articles, press releases and optimizing your website.

[ahew]

Originally Posted by alcymart

I agree that content has always mattered with Google but only to a certain degree. Lets not forget that they obviously have hundreds of other ranking factors.

Just content is simply not enough to get up to #1 on Google. I am #1 at Google for one of my keywords which has medium competition, and content was the last thing on my mind when I optimized my static page. Another keyword of mine which has very high competition is on first page of the Big G too! I was and am more into the SEO side of things... densities, body keywords, backlinks etc... Of course it's not a WP site...But hey, still a great post you did and content definetly plays a role!

Bernard St-Pierre

Je suis tout à fait d'accord ! I completely agree that you can approach it with lots of links and excellent on-page SEO too, but when you look at many page one results, it is not uncommon for a #1 site to have virtually no links pointing to it. Those sites, in my experience, have always been connected with an excellent user experience.

I guess my main point here is that people who are wondering whether or not they are doing "enough" or "the right thing" shouldn't worry so long as they are providing value with both their site as well as the links pointing back to their site!

Originally Posted by hotboy18

I absolutely agree that taking your time and building quality content for your visitors is the way to go. The results of value content and article marketing produce long term results plus the search engines love it. It is true that many individuals who start off with internet marketing want quick results so they are constantly searching for a push button marketing technique. In reality, you have to learn to long term skills to make money online such as writing articles, press releases and optimizing your website.

So true! Some things never go out of style! But it's still a pretty simple arsenal of tools one ultimately needs -- especially when compared to brick and mortar businesses.

[Spock1]

Hear, hear Adrienne. I most heartily concur. Yet to surf WF one might conclude that the exact opposite is the case in IM.

[alcymart]

Originally Posted by ahew

Je suis tout à fait d'accord ! I completely agree that you can approach it with lots of links and excellent on-page SEO too, but when you look at many page one results, it is not uncommon for a #1 site to have virtually no links pointing to it. Those sites, in my experience, have always been connected with an excellent user experience.

I guess my main point here is that people who are wondering whether or not they are doing "enough" or "the right thing" shouldn't worry so long as they are providing value with both their site as well as the links pointing back to their site!



So true! Some things never go out of style! But it's still a pretty simple arsenal of tools one ultimately needs -- especially when compared to brick and mortar businesses.

I agree, "Value" is the key, we all want to offer value, thus Good content. I was simply pointing out other hundreds of ranking factors that can override good content, and if one has good content too, well that makes it doubly effective...

Oh by the way, I am French so excuse my not so good English grammar, but my point has been made, and of course since Google's algorithm is secretive, we should include every ranking factors we can and I say again, content is key, but just not the only key. Let me put it this way, if content accounts for 50% of the ranking factor which is high and could very well be, then the rest of the ranking factors combined account for 50% and could very well be, Content would play a critical role in our rankings. Does that make sense?

Perhaps I shouldn't have made my comments in your thread but thought it was important enough to make my point. My goal was not to "negativise" (if such word existed), your thread but to get some folks here to debate content vs all the other SEO ranking factors, and thought I should bring up my point of view...

Bernard

[ahew]

Originally Posted by alcymart

I agree, "Value" is the key, we all want to offer value, thus Good content. I was simply pointing out other hundreds of ranking factors that can override good content, and if one has good content too, well that makes it doubly effective...

Oh by the way, I am French so excuse my not so good English grammar, but my point has been made, and of course since Google's algorithm is secretive, we should include every ranking factors we can and I say again, content is key, but just not the only key. Let me put it this way, if content accounts for 50% of the ranking factor which is high and could very well be, then the rest of the ranking factors account for 50% with all of them combined. Does that make sense?

Perhaps I shouldn't have made my comments in your thread but thought it was important enough to make my point. My goal was not to "negativise" (if such word existed), your thread but to get some folks here to debate content vs all the other SEO ranking factors, and thought I should bring up my view...

Bernard

I definitely agree with you. Perhaps I oversimplified my original statement. All I was trying to say is that content is one factor that doesn't seem to change in these updates.

Six or seven years ago before I knew anything about SEO I ranked number one for "mad cow disease" on the heels of a major outbreak. I put up a blog on my website (I didn't even really know what a blog was, but I put it up anyway) and outranked even the major news outlets. The only way I knew it happened is that someone stopped me at a conference telling me how much she loved my article. Then she told me how she found out about me.

And I actually like to hear the debate and other opinions of what constitutes a good SEO plan. Some people certainly would have had far less tact than you in expressing their opinion if for nothing else but to flex their egos. Your opinions are very much appreciated

No need to apologize for your English. It is excellent! Where in Quebec are you? My husband and I spent several vacations in Charlevoix to visit some friends who had retired there. We actually just got back from St. Martin. I'm pretty sure I was French in a previous life. If nothing else, in this life my name is Adrienne Nadine!!!

Amicalement,
Adrienne

[ahew]

Originally Posted by Spock1

Hear, hear Adrienne. I most heartily concur. Yet to surf WF one might conclude that the exact opposite is the case in IM.

Too true! It's kind of like a friend who keeps entering into abusive relationships with different guys. They all position it differently (different face), but inside the content is very similar (outsmart the SEs). Not trying to diss any WSOs, but after a while you start to see that there really is just one common thread that runs through SEO. It's just up to us to trust in the system and ourselves to rank high.

[Awesomo]

Originally Posted by ahew

Too true! It's kind of like a friend who keeps entering into abusive relationships with different guys. They all position it differently (different face), but inside the content is very similar (outsmart the SEs).

like how you use this to compare!

[ahew]

Originally Posted by Awesomo

like how you use this to compare!

Haha! I calls 'em like I sees 'em!

[danlew]

Just keep adding high quality and valuable content to your blog or website. It really matters than just quantity, just stick on providing quality to survive every Google update.

[John Moore]

Yup, it's true, give Google what they want and they'll give you what you want, simple really, people will always try to take shortcuts and google will always find a way to rid itself of those weak hands.

[TBInternetMarketing]

The way I survive every Google update is just by getting high quality backlinks. If you get spammy rubbish links, then you better expect some ups and downs. Google's model is built around providing quality to their users. One of their biggest ranking factors relies on the fact that other quality sites, link (thereby recommending) to your site.

Just focus on getting good quality links and you won't have any issues.

[TBInternetMarketing]

The way I survive every Google update is just by getting high quality backlinks. If you get spammy rubbish links, then you better expect some ups and downs. Google's model is built around providing quality to their users. One of their biggest ranking factors relies on the fact that other quality sites, link (thereby recommending) to your site.

Just focus on getting good quality links and you won't have any issues.

[Kenster]

Originally Posted by John Moore

Yup, it's true, give Google what they want and they'll give you what you want, simple really, people will always try to take shortcuts and google will always find a way to rid itself of those weak hands.

Always good to play with google, not try and get around them. Give them what they want while still getting what you want...then you're golden

[Dexter AJ]

Originally Posted by Kenster

Always good to play with google, not try and get around them. Give them what they want while still getting what you want...then you're golden

I will give Google what they want, but the thing about Google is that you never know what they want and whats more their wants keep changing from time to time aka Updates.

[adwordz]

Thanks for information!!

[martyJames]

Good post , but lets get real- Google CANNOT 'read' - so all the stuff about 'quality' content needs to be put in perspective. All you need to do is make sure you include all the terms relevant to your subject - like the L.S.I. concept . Google just uses a robotic algorithm.

[mikest4u]

Interesting Post! There are no doubt content matters a lot in Search Engine Optimization but there are also lot of other prominent factors which can not be neglected at any cost! For Instance Domain age, unique back links, Page Loading Time etc!

[jastin123]

i recently read this thread, it is such a informative thread.