Here are four more facts about the panda!

4. Content is Still King

Content is king on the internet You probably knew that already, but the question is:

What are you doing about it?

Most marketers are spinning articles, paying $2 per 500 words to have pages and pages of content cranked out by outsourcers in India or Pakistan or repurposing low quality PR articles. They’re assuming that if content is king, you need a whooollle loooottt of content to succeed in SEO.
This is probably the most dangerous myth when it comes to Panda proofing your site…..

Some studies have been done by the top internet marketers and SEO firms to find out what the common denominators were in the top three ranking sites of the Google search results when it came to content. One thing that almost every site had in common was in depth, high quality content on the page which was ranking high.

In fact, the average article length of 500 words, which seems to be what everyone is shooting for these days, isn’t the most common length when it comes to high rankings. Instead, the word count is closer to 3,000 and the content is expert quality and jam packed with information and interesting insights.

So in case you’re thinking about hiring someone from Pakistan to create you 10 articles at 3,000 words each for a total of just $300 USD, think again. While the longer articles do seem to be getting higher rankings than the shorter articles, quality is still the most important variable. Remember the user behaviors. You want your site to be interesting, informative and engaging, not cluttered with clunky content that reads like this:

“Congratulations! You have dropped onto right place for the good reading! Welcome to the website of going in to overcome the fear of rejection! For you,expect to benefit famously from what you read and welcome to best website on the self-confidence!”

Imagine landing on that site, what would you do? You’d be out of there as fast as the back button could get you out. So remember that while content is king, you have to make sure the content you’re offering is worthy of people’s time and attention.

5. Repeat Visits Are Being Monitored

This is another one that’s been going on for a while, but it’s gotten more important since the Google panda update. The Google patent has had information in it about the importance of repeat visits to a site, and when you consider their goal to create a great user experience, it’s no surprise. If people are coming back to your site, obviously they like the content.Lots of webmasters emphasize unique hits and consider their site a success if it’s getting a high number of uniques. Of course, this is important, but if your site isn’t getting any repeat visits, it’s time to change something.

There are many ways to do this, but the most important thing is to provide content which people enjoy reading, listening to or watching. Multi-media sites and sites which bring fresh and relevant content, especially content which is related to something that’s going on in the world, get a lot of loyal followers. When someone becomes a follower of your content, they’re more likely to post links to your content on their Facebook pages so they can share your content with their friends.

Good content has always earned backlinks and it always will. This is another good reason to stop creating poor quality content and to start focusing on quality instead of high volume, cheap content. Also, if your site doesn’t have an RSS feed or a place where people can bookmark your site, take care of that right away.Having a following for your Facebook page and having followers on Twitter will also help you to build a bigger ¡§fan club¡¨ and get more repeat visits to your site.

6. Click Through Rates Matter

By click through rates I mean the amount of people who select your site when it’s displayed on the SERPs page along with other sites. We know high click through rates cause Google to award PPC advertisers with higher placements, but it’s also important for organic listings. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; the problem is that, at least at this time, you can’t monitor your click through rate in relation to the number of impressions in the search results.

What you CAN do is make sure that your meta description and your page title enticing enough to get the visitor to choose your site. The key to making this happen is relevancy and perceived value. In other words, your page description and title need to be as specific to your main keywords as possible while telling the user exactly what they have to gain from visiting your site. This means the generic descriptions like:

“This site contains information about the cause of bacterial vagninosis and how to get rid of it.”

Try something which drills directly into an end result benefit, like this:

“100% natural solution helped this woman cure bacterial vaginosis in less than a week”

Most of us hire experienced copywriters to create PPC and classified ads to market our products, which is of course important. But what about your meta description?If your click through rate is determining not only how much traffic comes to your site but also how well your site ranks, it might be a good idea to invest some time or money into a relevant and value driven page title and meta description for your site.

7. Exact Match Domains Aren’t as Important

It used to be that if you had an exact match domain (EMD) you were almost guaranteed a high ranking for that keyword. For example, if you were optimizing for the keyword “Media buying services”, and had the name www.mediabuyingservices.com, you were in really good shape. In fact, it used to be that even if you have a handful of links, a fairly new site and two pages of content, you could hit Google page one pretty quick with an EMD.
However, Panda has all but leveled the playing field when it comes to domain names and keyword rankings. This is actually good news if you’re just starting out in a niche because it means you don’t have to own the exact match domain in order to have a good chance at beating those who do own exact domains.

While the domain does still seem to have some value, it’s likely that future updates will make the domain name less and less importance. After all, Google is concerned about the value which is being delivered once a visitor lands on the site. They’re not interested in awarding high rankings to someone simply because they own a domain name.

Okay, So What Now?

Now that you have a better idea of what Google has been up to when evaluating your site, The following blogs will be about the six things YOU must do to Panda prooof your website!