The changes in search engines, Google specifically, have forced SEO companies to look at their strategies in different ways. These changes are not over yet, as Google has yet again put a spanner in the wheel with more changes. Penguin 2.0 has been released on 22 May 2013. Matt Cutts, from Google, has said that Penguin 2.0 will have a far greater impact than Penguin 1.0
There is evidence that this release will have webmasters scampering again. However, you are able to get your site ready for the new changes. The first thing you should take care of is not to panic. The major point here is to get your site ready.
1. What Can You Do?
The first step is to get your link profile cleaned up. As with the previous Penguin update spammy content, and links of low quality will be penalized much harder with the new update. The best plan is to run another thorough audit on all your links. This is to make sure that you are in the clear, as far as your backlinks are concerned. The simplest thing to do is to delete these spammy links if you find any.
2. How Can You Do This?
Remove and avoid links form sites:
- That is geared at SEO only. You want to link to sites that offer valuable content.
- That over-optimize anchor text
- That has links to adult sites
- That has no relevance to your site.
3. Steps To Take Regarding Your Backlinks
This is something that you need to do before the update is released so that your site can survive. There are many sites that have not yet recovered from the last update.
Here is what you need to do:
- You need to create a complete list of all your backlinks. Google has software for this, but if you already have a comprehensive list of your backlinks, you can work with that.
- You should remove links that do not work, any longer, as these will just increase your workload and waste time in your search for the valuable backlinks.
4. Look Closely at your Anchor text
Penguin also looks at your anchor text. The requirement here is that your anchor text should be as natural as possible. If you overuse the text, your site would be penalized. Thus, you would need to:
- Look closely at your anchor text.
- List those that are used excessively.
- Compare the backlinks with the anchor text. This will assist you to see the excessive use of both.
5. Remove all Suspicious Backlinks
Once you have looked at the backlinks, and marked the suspicious ones, you are now able to manually analyze and see whether these are:
- Relevant to your site
- Not low in quality and
- Not spammy
By cleaning out your site, you should be careful not to remove too many links, as this would cause your site to drop in rank. Make sure that you remove only those that are really going to cause your site to be “deranked.”
When it comes to backlink removal, you should ask an SEO Company for assistance, especially if you do not have the expertise.
6. Keywords and Duplicate Content
Even though the focus is often on the backlinks, there are also aspects such as keywords and content that can cause havoc for your website. The idea is to find and eliminate any duplicate content and spammy keywords.
- You need to drastically revise the way in which you use keywords. It is important to have a look at what your competitors are doing, especially those who have high ranking. It will also give you a clue as to what Google sees as relevant and not spammy.
- You need to make sure that your content is unique and that your titles are also unique.
7. Keep Track of your Site
In order for you to fulfil your strategy plans, you need to make sure that you keep your eye on the rankings of both your own site, as well as that of your competitors. For this and other activities, you should get hold of an SEO agency. They would be able to do all the work for you, especially as in the case of:
- Your changed rankings. This way you are able to react quickly and make the necessary changes.
- The rankings of your competitors. If they move up or down, you would want to know what they did do deserve that.
The best is to have continued awareness of what is happening and adhere to the Google quality standards at all times.
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