the panda update. who am i? co-author of the art of seo president of stone temple consulting 20+...
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The Panda Update
Who Am I?
Co-author of The Art of SEOPresident of Stone Temple Consulting
20+ person SEO and PPC firmTrainer for Instant E-TrainingFounder of Web Site Publishing Companies
Publish web sites, grow them, then sell them2 significant exits so far
On Twitter: @stonetemple
What was it all about?
• Panda targeted at content farms?• Broader than that• Real Question: How good is your content?
– User engagement (compared to competition)– Sameness/me-too-ishness– Content Quality
1. User Engagement
Bounce Rate
• Google Analytics– Did the user view only one page?
• Google Toolbar– One page? How long on page?
• Search Results Interaction– Time between click through to back to results
Time on Site
• Hard to measure with Analytics– Measures time from 1st page view to start of last
page view
• Easier to measure with Google Toolbar– Can see when they go to another site
Pages Per Visit
• Easy to measure in analytics• Easy to measure with the Google Toolbar
Search Results Interaction
Chrome Blocklist Extension
Site Previews
Social Metrics
Social News Sites
2. Is this you?
Sameness
Do we reallyNeed 2.54MillionResults?
3. Thin content
Must Find Ways to Add ValueManufacturer Supplied Text?
4. Myths
No way to get whitelisted
http://searchengineland.com/google-weve-made-no-significant-changes-to-the-farmer-update-66591
There is no blacklist
5. This is a Fundamental Shift
How Ranking Used to Work24% Trust/Authority of Domain22% Link Popularity of Page20% InBound Anchor Text15% Keyword Usage7% Traffic / Click-Through Data6% Social Graph Metrics5% Registration / Hosting Data
Source SEOmoz RankingFactors Survey
What it Might Look Like Now
21%
19%
11%18%
7%
20%
4%21% Trust/Authority of Domain19% Link Popularity of Page18% InBound Anchor Text11% Keyword Usage7% Traffic / Click-Through Data20% Engagement Metrics4% Registration / Hosting Data
Source: ME
What to do?
Kill Weak Pages - FAST
Or Repair Them
How To Repair?
• User Generated Content– Not enough traffic? Try Facebook Contests to get
it
• Replace thin content with deep content (or at least original content)
• Offer unique tools
Address Engagement
• Measure It
• Improve it
How To Improve?• Enticing cross links• Great tools / content• Videos• Contests, prizes, surveys, …• Figure out how to get users to spend
more time with your site!• If all else fails: Disable the back button
of their browser
Be Surgical
Know the Goal
Thank You!
Eric [email protected]@stonetemple(508) 485-7751www.stonetemple.com For a One Sheet SEO Checklist, email me, or
drop off a business card