When Google decides to perform their routine scramble of their algorithm, such as what they did not too long ago, their intention is to eradicate any unwanted SEO tactics such as, for this time around, the ridding of content farms. This is done to bring you, the Web surfer, better cleaner and more relevant content results.
It was reported that anywhere from 12% to 14% percent of what Google Web Search felt was irrelevant content in their indexed search engines, were suddenly bumped off the rankings.
Since Google receives close to 500 Million different varieties of assorted searches every day in the United States alone, that’s a significant amount of free traffic which was at stake for a lot of online businesses, online marketers and eCommerce retailers.
The changes which Google made demanded that every business who’s online should be reassessing the relevancy of their content, with eCommerce merchants being one of the market segments affected. A lot of the online retailers has seen their site rankings slip ever since the update, and the reason isn’t necessarily because they were practicing poor SEO tactics.
In fact, Google’s Update has forced these online merchants to begin implementing new proven eCommerce strategies such as: unbiased user generated reviews and ratings, social media interaction and the use of video.
The ultimate goal of any site should be creating original unique content which offers practical usage for their online consumers. By doing so, it should ensure that their visitors will easily be able to find their online business and products when using Google.
Steps You Should Be Taking To Rank Your Sites Better
Continuously Be Auditing Your Sites Content
Attempting to provide good content is a big task for some sites than it is for others, but doing so has proven over time to maximize the benefits when it comes to a sites search rankings.
There were a lot of the merchants who had thought they were “safe” when they initially heard about Google’s update, but were surprised when their rankings began to drop overnight. The biggest cause of this “drop” for the majority of these sites was because of poor unoriginal content which was discovered by Google, somewhere on their site.
So it’s extremely important that you review all of your existing content, which should include your recent blog posts as well as all of your previous product descriptions. Make sure that you revise or remove anything which has errors, as well as content which has been “copy and pasted” from another sites, regardless if it’s legitimate or gives full attribution.
The recent Google Update was designed to reward content which benefits or informs the end user, and to penalize content which is poorly written or copied from elsewhere on the Web, so it’s best to rid of your content which applies.
Alternately, you may have written your own content which is unique, clean and original, but it’s so good that others have actually copied it directly from your site and pasted it on their own site. This may also ultimately have a negative effect in the eyes of Google on your sites search ranking.
A good way to finding out if anyone has “Copied and Pasted” your unique content from your site is by using CopyScape.com. Copyscape is able to track if any of your original content is being used by someone else on the Web.
Checking All Of Your Links
No one has ever said that this SEO “cat and mouse” game would be an easy one to corner, but it’s still required that you play along. Your site audit may eventually reveal that the content on your site is completely up to par. But along with the good content, your search rankings however on your site, according to Google, will ultimately depend on the quality of your links pointing back to you.
These links in some cases can actually number in the hundreds, or even tens of thousands for a lot of the major online retail sites. But if you’re linking to poor unrelated content, that will eventually hurt your search rankings and thus your business.
A couple resources where you can get excellent analytical data is, Searchmetrics (http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/) and SISTRIX (http://www.sistrix.com/). They provide excellent analysis as well as statistics of the sites which were the most impacted by Google’s recent Farmers Update.
The data also shows which sites in a particular niche, category or market segment has actually benefited the most by improving their rankings from the algorithm update. These sites will make them excellent targets for building better links for your site as you move forward.
Your ultimate goal should be to eliminate or completely avoid links to sites which does not offer any significant value for your visitors, while you should be adding links to resources which will provide value.
One of the bigger hurdles which specifically faced eCommerce merchants was content duplication. The bulk of their product descriptions were derived from data feeds, which the majority of the other merchants shared as well, and as a result, the same duplicate “product description” content appeared all over the Web. This is why it’s essential that you write your own unique content descriptions whenever possible.
Providing Excellent Unique Content
Writing great content which Google likes.
Quality Of Writing:
Avoid the misspelling of any words, have readable understandable grammar which flows, always provide well researched factual content with no errors in reporting or outdated information.
Provide Unique Original Content:
Never “Copy and Paste” what your site visitors can find somewhere elsewhere without adding some type of additional value.
Try To Be An Authority:
Attempt to provide some type of expertise in your niche and content.
Site Presentation:
Make sure that your site and content is easy to consume, is visually pleasing to the eye and engages your users.
Providing Excellent Value:
Which sums up the first 4 points. The content on your site should have information which your visitors can find extremely useful as well as wanting to share with others.
The ultimate success of your online business is driven and determined by your product or service, so there shouldn’t be any other choice than to sticking with high-quality, unique and original authoritative based content about your product, service or niche.
You should be able to provide value for your visitors and it should be presented in an easy to understand uncomplicated engaging fashion. The process of your site should contain finely crafted relevant blog posts describing your new releases as well as the latest news or information about your industry. Make sure that you give your users the opportunity to be able to add comments or “share” with their friends.
For eCommerce sites, it’s vital that you write accurate and uniquely detailed descriptions of your products, presented in a way that it stands out from the competition. Online merchants should also be taking full advantage of all of the available social media channels and be deploying user-generated reviews and ratings of their business or products.
Creative usage and implementation of instructional videos for your products, along with “real” customer testimonials should also be used in the overall content package. To reap the rewards from Google’s latest, or for any of their future algorithm updates for that matter, eCommerce as well as online marketers should be utilizing this content strategy as an essential element for success.