Happy birthday to the USA! We know most of our readers are enjoying their day off so we'll try to make this one short.
We introduced Google's Panda Update on Friday and we wanted to continue talking a little about it today. It seems the idea behind their new update scheme is not to affect ranking every day but rather to apply their Panda Update after a regular period of web growth.
Every day, new websites are created from nothing. This includes websites by regular business and SEO professionals that are trying to game the system. Google has finally implemented a deciduous method of removing the website to remove unwanted websites from the SERP.
After every pass of the Panda, the Google team reviews the changes to the SERP and applies their new found heuristics back into the next version of the Panda Update.
None of us want to wind up beaten down by the Panda, so let's look at another item that the Panda wants to eat...
To quote Google's blog ( http://bit.ly/lPUebd )
"Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?"
Uh-oh... this sounds like a pretty common strategy! Many SEO professionals will tell you to write the same information in few blog posts, but with slightly different variation of words.
We've even said that you should write several pages of good content for your website. Each page should be on a specific topic and include variations of your primary keyword. The advice given above seems to be very clear that every page of your site should be unique to a single topic, and in no way repetitive.
Let's apply this to an example. We've previously said that you should add pages to your website that use the phrase "engagement rings," and another page that uses the phrase "wedding rings." But you shouldn't use the word "wedding" on the engagement page, and then don't use the word "engagement" on the wedding page.
Since the words "wedding" and "engagement" are related, Panda might see both pages as evil.
We're going to suggest a new strategy from now on. Instead of simply raving about how great your jewelry store is, and that you are the "best engagement ring store in Springfield;" instead of raving how you are the "best wedding ring store in Springfield;" you now should tell unique stories of how you helped specific people pick the best engagement ring for them followed by another page detailing their happy wedding day.
Telling stories is an easy way to come up with unique content for a website. These stories are also things your customers want to read. Remember, they don't care about you; they care about how the jewelry will make them feel.
Sell your jewelry with a story and avoid being deciduously removed by the next Panda update.
