One of the main ideas behind the Google Panda Update was to help eliminate content farms and let “real” sites rank higher for their original content. SEO marketers are now finding out that this really didn’t happen. In Jen Carroll’s article she explains that content farm sites are still ranking higher because they are providing content that people actually want and are interested in. The updates would “provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis, and so on.”
This statement basically confirms that Google rewards content farms for delivering relevant content to its searchers. How can SEO professionals overcome the farm’s rankings? Why not apply tactics they use to your own site? Carroll provides five quick SEO tips to help send sites like eHow and Associated Content’s rankings to the virtual farm…
- Know your audience – have you defined your target market? If not, get to it!
- Know your keywords and what they mean to your target audience – use the great keyword tools to find terms related to your business
- Create content your customers can identify with right now – engage them, make it relevant and let them know you are ready to help
- Answer questions or led them to where they need to be – if you cannot answer it, send them somewhere reputable where they can!
- Optimize each page for browsing – keep readers on your site by providing lists and pages of content they will want to look at.
With a little hard work, these tactics seem reasonable to accomplish for any site. It is a matter of refreshing your content and making sure that it is always relevant to your audience.
Another key take away is that the content farms rank higher because of their video content. So get out there and optimize your videos as well!
If your site was actually hit by the Panda update and you are still trying to recover, check out Bethany’s post to help. Let us know how you increase your site rank and what tactics work for you!
