Panda and Penguin Google’s algorithm changes – commonly referred to as Panda and Penguin – have been designed to improve the search experience of Google’s customers, which by now is almost the whole of the globe. Businesses are finding that their search engine ranking performance is being affected by these changes. Here is a brief checklist of how the changes can affect your ranking – and what to do. We will look only at on-page SEO here – a separate blog looks at off-page SEO: https://www.opace.co.uk/blog/post-panda-seo-checklist-part-2

On-Page SEO Checklist:

1 – Meta data

Make sure your keywords are included in your metadata, particularly the meta title. Also don’t forget your URLs, headings, image ALT tags and of course your text. But do this sparingly, the rules have changed so be careful not to ‘over optimise’ your keywords.

2 – Fresh content

This seems to be increasingly important to Google. A blog is a great way to achieve this as well as help with social media requirements (see point 6 below). An internet marketing agency can help with setting up a blog and providing copywriting support to ensure you have a website that is kept up-to-date with fresh new copy.

3 – Quality content

Copy for each pages needs to be unique and relevant. Use your keywords in titles, sub-headings and copy but don’t use them so much the copy appears stilted. Always write for your customer base – if they find the content is exactly what they were looking for, they will come back to the website and share it with their friends – the best SEO you can hope for.

4 – No duplicate content

It appears this is being heavily penalised. So remove any content that is not original (for example, copy about products and services that you have used from a supplier’s websites etc). Make sure product pages are not largely repeating standard information, and ensure you haven’t duplicated parts of your site on similar domains.

5 – Social Sharing

Ensure every page can be shared; use social sharing ‘widgets’ to allow this. Encourage social sharing of your content as part of your social media marketing strategy.

6 – Interlinked Content

This is good for the website user but also good for SEO. Ensure the keyword is included in the link text (anchor text) e.g. ‘for more information about keyword’ but also try to vary the anchor text used.

7 – Redirects

Ensure all redirects work and you use a search engine friendly 301 direct when moving to a new ULR. Ensuring all the above are actioned regularly – together with general SEO good practice – will help ensure your website retains and indeed improves its Google visibility.   If you found this tutorial helpful then please click Like or Tweet or leave a comment. Remember to watch this space as we will be releasing a range of SEO blogs over the coming months. Our readers can also find our Opace Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/OpaceWebDesign. For all the latest goings on, you can keep up-to-date with Opace on Twitter https://twitter.com/OpaceWeb. And we also now have an Opace Googleplus page live at https://plus.google.com/111516148099633923012/posts.

Image credit – Nathan Rupert