There has been a lot of talk about Google Panda Update so here are some SEO tips for 2012. While many SEO experts are scratching their head on what needs to be done to get back up with the rankings, these tips below have been tested, and are working for sure.
SEO Tips 2012 – Changes
Reality is, we still need unique content, but we need to write it with the user in mind. Useful content is a MUST! But that is not all, your content “on the page” needs to be updated frequently. Squidoo lenses or websites with blogs, or just blogs, are a great way to do this. It is easy to update your content by writing small blurps! It keeps G happy, and it does not take a lot of effort.
Meta Description – While people for years are saying META does not have effect on SEO, they are right… However, it is invaluable for the click through rate from the Google results page to your webpage. Google now is watching the % of how many people, who clicked on your webpage link on the results page, actually stay on the page.
“On Page” SEO tips 2012:
Have a very attractive title – this will increase your click through rate as well as keep Google happy!
Have a UNIQUE title – make sure it is not the same as everyone else’s!
Have an attractive meta description – this is basically a promise to the search person that once they click the link, they will get what they are searching for. So keep in mind, if you do this, what you promise, after click through, you HAVE to give them what you promised. The description is the text that is being shown below your website title, in the search results. Please read further to clarify this point.
“Off Page” SEO Tips 2012
If you are targeting any geographical area, this is not a big deal, but if you are targeting UK for example, getting many links from that geographical area is so important. So if you are located in the UK, you want as many UK and Europe backlinks as possible – best case scenario it would be the majority of the links you are getting. Not all, but majority.
Web 2.0 properties are still very important. You always want other sites to mention your site. So raw linking as well as anchored text, with short snippets of keyword variations.
And if you don’t have a Google account yet, now is the time to get one. Why? Google is keeping an eye on social networks (their own to be more exact) from Google plus, Google shares.
CLICK THROUGH rate – so important. This actually plays a HUGE role in your rankings. So if you don’t have analytics tool installed on your site, you better get it ASAP.
Lower your bounce off rate as much as possible. Now Google is tracking new users, new visitors. So the more returning users you have, the higher quality of the site, the higher your ranking. Remember, earlier we mentioned how important unique content is? Well not only does your content need to be unique, but it needs to provide quality to the visitor. Google is tracking average time on the website, and average time on the page! The longer they stay, the better it is.
Do you know why Google did the Google Panda Update? Simple – so they can find spam content, knock it down, so they can provide better search results. Basically, if you are going to rank on the first page of Google, your site needs to be quality. Period!
So let’s recap before we move further:
Your site needs to be quality. PERIOD! It also needs to provide “promised” information, and your visitors probably want to stay on the page. This is the reason for the Google Panda Update – to be as accurate with the search results as possible – and to get that info, Google is now looking at everything.
DO not have duplicate content on your site. Make sure your site is 100% unique.
While you meta tags might be NOT important for SEO, they are important for Google search results, and the actual searcher. If your Title is “attractive” and your meta description promises to give them what they are searching for, you will get a click through, and if your BOUNCE off rate is lowered, you will start climbing higher.
And vice versa – with a high bounce off rate, Google will drop your results.
Just to give you an example:
High BOUNCE off rate will probably happen if for example: your site is in health niche, your title and meta promise to deliver a guide to 6 pack abs, and a visitor who comes onto the page, gets a 6 day diet plan.
Now, let’s move on to the link building!
Write articles that send traffic to your site. While many people concentrate on SEO and link building for their main site, a good article can do wonders for your site in terms of SEO and direct traffic.
Again, as before, stay with unique content. Hire a professional article writer if you are not good at writing them yourself. Spend time on keyword research. Do this as you would with your own site. It is that important! Social media is playing a HUGE roll!
Now, you should build some links pointing to your main site. But you should build many pointing to those articles as well. Articles will pass on the link juice onto your site, as well as drive traffic to your site.
You also need to have a very good link building strategy. Don’t just throw a bunch of links at your site, have a combination of them all.
Let’s say, your site is brand new. Do you want to send a bunch of blog comments to the site? Of course not, you probably want to send few press releases out first.
Write 6-7 articles on different sites such as Ezine, Squidoo, Hubpages and so on. You will get some traffic to them. And Google will start noticing your site very soon.
Now social bookmark your site, and add it slowly to some directories. (You see, you are slowly building the links, and you are under the radar for Google Sandbox). Now, social bookmark your articles, one by one. Remember this! If you article is USER friendly, it will get passed around on it’s own.
(You see, now you are getting your articles to be noticed more on Google – your site is starting to get popular!), now build more links to your articles, so they drive traffic to your site, as they will rank higher. But you see, even though you are not linking directly to your site, you are getting link juice from the articles.
Now, you can go ahead and write a blog post on your site. Remember how we talked about your site staying updated? Well you just did it, you created a new post. Now, build links to that page, and send some links to the main index page. DO NOT build links ONLY to the main page. Do a mixture. Some to the Index, some to blog posts, and some to articles pointing to your site.
One more thing that Google is paying close attention to these days is the anchor text. If they see that your site is getting a variety of anchored text phrases, you are ok. BUT if the site is getting every time, the exact anchored text, your site will be penalized eventually. This did work for a long long time, but with the recent updates, you really need to be variating your anchor text.
Have a combination of “click here for ANCHORED Text” – “Get more Info Anchored Text”, etc.
An example “Need Affordable Link Building Service? CLICK Here” - or ” Get HIGH PR Link Building Service at Low Prices“
This is probably one of the biggest changes. It use to be, that if you wanted to rank for a certain keyword phrase, you would build an anchored text from many different sites, pointing to your page with an exact keyword anchored text. NOW, don’t do that. Mix of those works the best…
Another thing to keep in mind. Build less links to the Index page an build more to the deep pages.
Be consistent with link building. Do not throw 1000’s of links one day, and zero for the next 29 days, then again 1000. Spread them evenly. SLOW link building is better… Consistent is better! Even with Google Panda Update, if you got knocked down for ranking, if you stop building links now, you will hurt your rankings even more. Continue your link building, but add in more content promotion.
What is the good number of links to build per month? You can increase your link building gradually, but pay attention to the site visitors. At first a site gets 10-15 visitors daily, then 40-50, and that is how you should increase your link building. Based on the sites popularity!
Do a mixture of do follow and no follow links!
One more thing: How do you know you are penalized? Here are some rules:
- If you are unranked – (keep in mind, new site is always unranked)
- Page rank goes down from index. For example, you were on the 1st page, and now you are on the 30th. Keep in mind this can ALSO be a Google dance and the site will get back to good rankings eventually.
- If your page rank is set to 0 (however, if the site is new, this may not be the case).
- Searching for your exact URL in Google, if you are NOT showing as #1, you are penalized,
- Search for your exact title. If your title is unique, you should show up in the top 50 pages.
Reality is, 1 of those things can take you down or all of them. YOU have to work on all of those. Your site is the money maker. And your site needs work to be a very good money maker. There is no more “set and forget”. Think of it this way. You can have the best site in the world, but if you don’t promote it, no one will see it.
This is as simple as it gets. If your site is NOT user friendly, your rankings will hurt no matter how many links you build!
Build pages that are user friendly and useful – pages that people need to read, pages that will pass on either buyers or traffic, and you will rank. When we say user friendly, take a look at this post for example. It is useful, right?
Oh, and one last thing. We are doing some case studies, and we will be sharing the results soon.





