Content farms have suffered greatly since Google launched Google Panda more than six months ago. Differentiating high quality from low quality sites and SEO content is difficult – there really isn’t an exact algorithm to get past Google Panda. During the recently concluded Search Marketing Expo East, attendees, experts, in particular, emphasized the need for high-quality and competitive SEO content to meet one’s internet marketing goals.
Heather Lloyd-Martin, one of SMX East’s speaker and also CEO of SuccessWorks, defined content as the manner in which customers are engaged and eventually be converted to purchase sales. Blog visitors comprise of at least 57% of a business’s new customer base, as cited by Lloyd-Martin from a Brafton news article.
Other SMX panelists also shared insights on how content marketing for SEO can be done efficiently and successfully.
One way to go with Google Panda’s algorithm is to clean up existing content. According to Chris Silver Smith of KeyRelevance, this can be done by taking out web pages that are written poorly, infused with grammatical and factual errors, as well as distracting ads. Additionally, for social media marketing, forums and blogs should be regularly checked to eliminate spam posts. When it comes to keywords, variation is likewise important because this is what Panda targets. Similar pages could be created together to produce richer pages that are keyword-rich and high quality.
Usability also factors in with Google Panda. Customers should be able to navigate easily through the various sections of the website. Termed “interaction metrics”, this evaluates how visitors find the usability of one’s website. It also encourages visitors to engage more. Testing for usability can be done by removing unnecessary pages and evaluating the number of clicks needed to get to landing pages.
Other ideas on how to produce Panda-worthy SEO content include doing peer analysis, publication calendars, and practicing a “watchdog” policy which will be discussed in the next installment. These insights come from experts who are known to be successful in the field of content marketing.
