New rules for SEO?

Looking to futureproof your website for search? If you are serious about being number 1 and staying there - you should consider the following:-

• Does your site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Is your site visually appealing and easy to navigate with information ready to hand
• Does your site get a regular review and update and have new content added all the time?
• Are you using social media networks and video content to maximum effect?
• Do your articles have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics you deliver driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Do your articles provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?

If you have answered NO to at least two of these points (or those in the extended article), then you will need to look again at how your site works for your users and the search engines.

• Is your site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is your content uniquely produced and a variety of them posted across a large network of sites?
• Is this the sort of page that you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would users complain when they see pages from your site?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to your site?

Is Google’s cheeky little Panda having an effect on your traffic?

This year has heralded the advent of the search engine spiders that take users needs and wants into account and respond directly to this. The way SEO used to work largely depended on how well your site was built, whether you had the right keywords, descriptions and links and other factors.

As web developers and SEO experts have become more savvy to how the search engines work, the search engine developers have in turn become more sophisticated in what they ask for your site to make the grade.

This, together with the need for Google to innovate in the face of competition from the likes of You Tube, has prompted the updates we are seeing now and a sea change in how search engines rank your site. Here, we demystify what exactly it is they are doing and why it is so important for you to take notice.

So what has happened?

Well, Google have released a new piece of software called the Panda or Farmer update, their biggest since Caffeine. This software is also known as a spider or robot that comes to your website and examines how your deliver your content to your user and how much relevance it has to what you do.

The spider measures your site and takes into account many factors and although no one (except the developers) really knows exactly what, there are many experts whose analysis concludes that Google is asking the all the questions above.

Quite simply, the more attention you pay to these areas – the more likely you are to rise above your competition.

It is true to say that the internet is just at the beginning of its very young life and as we develop new technologies and possibilities across the web so the opportunities (as well as the competition) increase.