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Google Panda 4.0 When Doing the Right Things bring power

by | Jun 25, 2014 | Ivan Reyes, Post Formats, SEO, Ux | 0 comments

Google just released Panda 4.0

Since Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Webspam, mentioned on his Twitter account the release of the new update of the Google Algorithm, Panda 4.0, most SEO dedicated teams and Digital Marketing professionals got into a panic.

The projected impact of this new algorithm update was about 7.5% for the English search queries, so, those who were not revamping their SEO strategies were desperately looking to take tactical SEO actions.

Panda 4.0 | How much can this impact a website?

Panda 4.0 is just magnifying the algorithm main objective; ‘punish low-quality content websites’. However, as is normal in all Google algorithms, not everyone loses, there are also some winners.  Once again, the secret to applying the most effective SEO consists in deciphering how this new algorithm update works and how to know which of the current SEO practise produces a consistent and reliable visibility and which, on the contrary, make a decrement in the sought search engine optimisation.

Quality in the content of your website is essential to deal with Panda 4.0. The recently updated Google’s algorithm is meant to penalise websites with low quality, duplicate or thin content.

Quality | How to write engaging content

Panda 4.0 is pursuing and penalising but not eliminating low quality content websites’ rank. So, ‘the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question’ is how to make a quality content?

Well, there are some ways to write a valuable content and be benefited by Google’s Panda 4.0. However, the most important part of it is to research before typing.

Relevant sources of information such as in-depth investigation and well recognised journals will provide a good start for a thoughtful analysis; and that is precisely what Panda loves.

Although the word ‘quality’ could fall into the subjective grey area, particularly for certain matters, a good critical review can help to construct an interesting and well supported written content. 

Engagement | Is it important for SEO?

Well, it is actually not only important; this is indispensable in order to rank well in search engines. There is a measurable way to identify the level of engagement of your site; by quantifying the time the web users spend between selecting a result in the SERPs, visiting an exploring a page, and returning to the search results. So, as a matter of fact, if this time, also known as ‘Dwell time’ is very short, it simply means that the content of your site is not relevant, well-constructed or sourced. So, at some point, the accumulation of these actions –Short Dwell time– emerges as a counter-productive factor that makes Panda list your site into a not very favourable position.

Target | Plan the purpose of your site

A website and/or any webpage created must have a very clear objective and be orientated specifically for a particular target, geographical location and sector/industry. 

So, it could be a good SEO practice to define the target market you are focused on and  then synthetise your message to make it ‘Strong, Short and Sweet’. It is also highly recommendable to keep in mind the length of the content, healthy link-building, the use of italic / bold fonts, the appropriate utilisation of headings, bullet points, and optimised images.

Density | Loading a webpage with keywords 

Don’t forget to research, test and use powerful ‘keywords’ within your content; however, bear in mind the number of keywords used within the content of your site to avoid being penalised by Google.  Also, try to keep a geographically-related point of view to increase the conversion rate of your website significantly.

In other words, the main objective is to make the content of your site sit in line with what the search engine users are actually searching for. By doing this, you will hit the major factor in ranking today, which is the ‘relevancy’ of your site.

Summarising, these are some of the things that should guide you in producing an 2014-optimised content for your website. These will not only help you rank higher, but also convert better:

  • Research and define your target market,
  • List the advantages of your product/service,
  • Research the keywords that you are planning to use,
  • Try to engage web-visitors for a longer period of time,
  • Apply a location-angle to the content,
  • Mind the length of and the  number of keywords you will use,
  • Think of content management as a strategy and not as a tactic.