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Five Ways to Make Google Penguin Love You

Google has been making big changes to search—changes that affect the way it assesses your Yola website. Starting with Google Panda and now with Google Penguin, it has been ranking search results based not only on how well web pages answer a user query, but also on site quality. This means that former mainstays of search engine optimization (SEO), like placing enough of the right keywords in the right places, are becoming less important. In fact, Penguin is making it ever easier to over optimize your website…right out of the top search rankings.

How to Become Penguin Candy

So how do you make your Yola website look like a juicy squid to Google’s Penguin? There are five ways you can achieve a stronger Google search showing:

1. Give them a reason to find you.

Examples:

  • High-quality content, rich in information valuable to your audience
  • Social signals at the page and domain levels, such as Yola sociable widgets for Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus
  • Minimal ads, if any (good thing Yola already comes free of third-party ads!)

Social Share Widgets
Penguin sees social behavior as a mark of legitimacy.

2. Give them a way to find you.

Examples:

  • Search terms your audience will use to find you
  • Correct spelling, especially of potential search words (remember to run a spell check using your browser tools or text app!)
  • Text links instead of images to display important names, content or links
  • Descriptive file titles for images and videos (i.e., not CIMG6627.jpg, but bear_posing_on_rug.jpg)
  • Links that work

I can has cheeseburger
Penguin gives misspellings a high search rank only in exceptional cases.

3. Keep it clean and tidy.

Examples:

  • Clear hierarchy organizing your site pages logically
  • Site map, which is automatically generated when you publish your Yola site
  • At least one text link referring to each page
  • Overall links kept to a useful number
  • No duplicate content or near-duplicate content

4. Show integrity.

Examples:

  • No search-gaming practices expressly aimed at upping your search engine results (e.g., automated Google queries, sneaky redirects, or hidden text or links)
  • No “doorway” pages created just for search engines
  • No badware (e.g., for phishing or installing viruses)
  • Affiliate program content only if it adds value with original, unique, relevant content
  • A generally legit site that elicits a “yes” answer to the question: “Would I trust this site with a health issue or my credit card?”

Screen shot 2012-06-14 at 3.57.29 PM
Penguin does not like affiliate websites that try to manipulate search results.

5. Avoid bad influences.

Examples:

  • No reciprocal link schemes, or “link farms,” designed to influence site ranking
  • No links to spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web
  • No search-result services or software promising to pump up your rankings

375px-Link_farm2x
Penguin does not like link farms.

The Upshot

You’ll maximize your Google search showings if you follow this general rule of thumb:

Always consider how your target audience will experience your site.

If you offer up original, well-organized content that shows a sincere effort to serve users, Penguin is likely to say “yum.”

Want to learn more about how you can use Yola to grab Penguin’s attention? Check back for Part II of The New Search Rules.

20 thoughts on “Five Ways to Make Google Penguin Love You”

  1. The bottom line is to create a website that adds value to your surfers. Don’t worry too much about on page SEO stuff such as keyword density etc.

    With regards to social signals, embrace it as a method to syndicate your content to as many people as possible via the different channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr etc and interact with them if possible 🙂

  2. Woe good information all websites should be built to fit.
    Staying new and fresh can be very helpful in generating online traffic. You should never just try one technique and there are many new techniques presenting all of the time that can really help you get the amount of traffic that can propel your business.

  3. This information is as good for a St Louis electrician as is is for a sandwich shop in Idaho- stay within good boundaries of common sense and benefits to the reader and you’ll do well. Also, the tip about having each of the pages link to others is a good one that I’ve heard from other sources and is often overlooked.

  4. Thanks is haven multiple sites that are dedicated to different services that link back to the main page (didn’t want to clutter it up) but not to one another a link farm ? o buy the domain name make it look more pro

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