Six Steps To Pleasing Google Penguin

Six Steps To Pleasing Google Penguin:from Business 2 Community by Bill Blaney
It’s taken some time to get a handle on what search engine marketers and developers have to do to get on the good side of Google’s Penguin update. For the better part of a year it’s been the bane of our existence. While Matt Cutts and the Google team provide a wealth of information on how to build your website for maximum positioning, they remain vague about the specifics of how to ensure you’re doing everything right.
After some trials and errors, we now have direction on what will help marketers and site creators make the most of their online presence:
1. It’s STILL all about content
Relevant, targeted, original content is still the best way to make sure your site ranking increases with Google. You cannot simply re-use the same tired brochure copy over and over again and make inroads in your on-line strategy. You need to write. Writing must be integrated into the culture of your company or at least one person in it. Otherwise, you’ll need to hire a social marketing/SEO outfit to do the writing and the blogging for you.
Furthermore, competing in a Google search is no longer about having text that contains keywords. The quality of the content you create is evaluated on how useful and pertinent your articles are to those searching.
E-Commerce and Resellers can’t just cut and paste anymore
In the past, resellers had the luxury of copying and pasting descriptive copy developed originally by the product or service they sell. If you’re selling a Samsung smart pad, why not just use what they’ve already provided on their website as sales copy rather than rewrite everything yourself. You are, after all, putting money in their pockets.
Well, that was yesterday. Today, resellers and ecommerce websites need to tweak the descriptive copy, as well as specs and features. If your copy is a duplicate of what exists on the corporate site for a product or service you sell, Google will decide who created the copy first (the manufacturer) and possibly penalize you for taking it verbatim.
2. Become engaged with your audience
It’s called “Community Building” and it’s more than responding to a few posts. Community Building requires companies to extend their customer service arm into the daily conversations on the web that matter for your business. This is the reason getting “connections”, “likes” and “comment threads” are so important through social channels. The more you engage your audience online and talk to them directly rather than create “business copy” for them to read the better you’re ranking will be with Google and, for that matter, your network of leads. According to Forbes, companies are discovering that their customers are willing to talk about their purchases, the problems accompanying them, online. Engaging these customers will generate good will for you in forums and blogs, add to what Google considers relevant conversation, and help reinforce that culture of social interaction that most B2B companies until recently have ignored.
3. Cut out doing things you know are questionable
Spamming blogs and forums with content just to provide your website link, posting links on websites that have little to do with your subject matter, creating dozens of Facebook pages about the same or similar subjects with numerous links back to your site, and launching “landing” pages that are nothing more than link farms within your company’s sitemap. If you, your programmer, or your social marketer are performing “black hat” SEO, you may not have been noticed before Penguin. Suffice to say, game’s up.
4. Get rid of duplicate pages
Does your site still have pages that you thought you eliminated years ago? If you’ve been on the web for a while and have gone through several programmers the chances are very likely. Try Googling your website using quotes (“site;websitename.com”) and get an inventory of every link Google’s indexed from your site. At that point, begin deleting and/or changing content on these pages to avoid duplication. Remember: old websites still available for search, old articles referenced through secondary links, and even dummy pages from your content management system you thought were history are all anathema to Penguin.
5. Create a Google Plus presence
Want to really get on Google’s good side? Create an active, rich, and engaging presence for your company in the Google Plus network. Google Plus, unlike Facebook, is tailored to appeal to business and, if you haven’t already noticed, company pages in Google Plus are showing up more and more on search page one. That should tell you something.
6.  A few words about keyword density
The new directive in SEO is that your article, essay, case study, or white paper not be littered with any more than 5% keyword density. This is not a hard number. Most pages that show up on page one searches do not conform to this formula but what is important is ensuring that your new content not be manipulative. Use keywords when you need them but do not write to them. As search algorithms become more and more complex and built to compliment the way human beings think, all of us need to find ways to write that’s closer to the way we talk. Given that, it is still my belief that a one-on-one conversation between two people always wins a sale over a carefully written company boilerplate. Your online content should follow suit.
As time goes by, more will be learned about how Google Penguin has changed the game. Inevitably, hackers and programmers will also find ways to crack the veneer and game the search engine despite these new updates. The best approach is the same approach that’s always worked: content-rich, relevant websites that do not view themselves as shills for their company will prevail in the Google search as long as these companies follow good practices, continue to post even when they’re too tired to do so, and look at their website as an extension of their company’s marketing plan rather than a necessary evil.