Google Penguin 3 Update: How Will Small Businesses Be Impacted?

Google Penguin has recently updated this month. This update is meant to capture and penalize sites that are using newer ways to spam their sites with anchor texts and links that lead to poor sites. These newer ways include buying these links to be put on their websites or obtaining these links through link networks. Many websites do this in order to manipulate the Google rankings system. These links would help them be able to boost their Google rankings and, in turn, increase their website traffic. For the websites of small businesses, this can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

Sometimes websites do not put these types of links on their websites themselves. Other people have other ways of posting such links on other websites in the forms of blog comments, forum postings, and many other ways. Webmasters try to get rid of all of this spam and posted links using methods like the Google Disavow Tool. Webmasters who do this also get rewarded by Penguin, which helps to increase the Google rankings of their websites.

If a small business website hasn’t taken action to get rid of links like these, however, then their website will be caught and penalized by Google Penguin. The same goes for the links embedded within the site. This is bad because a lower ranking means less traffic to that small business website. With this new Penguin update and the newer ways of adding links to websites just to increase rankings, websites not caught before this new update may actually get caught now.

There may be websites out there that did not even know about Google Penguin or the problems that the links on their sites were adding. They may start to receive less traffic and may want to know how to recover their website from this sudden penalization. Before they know how to recover, however, they must first know what Google Penguin is as well as its function. Google Penguin is a special Google algorithm made to track down websites who are being spammed by links just to increase their rankings. This is not to be confused with another Google algorithm known as Google Panda. This is an algorithm used to make sure that higher quality sites do not get outranked by lower quality sites. In order to prevent certain websites from working around this rule, Google has created their newer Google algorithm, Penguin.

If a small business website has been badly struck by this new Google Penguin update, then they may be able to help recover their website. They can start by using the Google Disavow Links Tool. This tool can help them get rid of the links that have caused their penalization. With enough monitoring of links being put on a small business website that has been penalized, that website may end up getting rewarded by Penguin with higher rankings.

Panda 4.1 Roll Out A Good Reminder To Small Business Owners About Content

The News Of A Change In The Google Algorithm Was First Posted on 9-25 by Pierre Far The Google Panda Algorithm Has Updated Again

The latest update of the Panda algorithm has caused a major shift for millions of websites, most of which would be described as medium to larger in size and scope. In general the Panda algorithm does not impact small business owners and is generally designed to help small business owners get a bump in impressions and traffic. Panda was brought to market by Google as a way to help reward good content and identify websites that are using low quality, auto generated or content that is not deemed as beneficial to the searching audience.

For small business owners the impact of Panda is most likely negligible at best, most experts are anticipating another major algorithm update by Google in 2014, the Penguin updated, which is much more likely to have a larger impact on the small business community. The first penguin update occurred in April of 2012 and was aimed at business owners who were aggressively pursuing links relating to key search terms, often from low quality websites (free directories, bookmarking sites, etc). This update had a dramatic impact on the search landscape and brought a heightened awareness to SEO and linking building, with a new emphasis on quality versus quantity.

The magic formula to rank well on Google will always be changing, but one key constant has remained the same, you need to write great content and update your website on a regular basis to provide a compelling reason to have visitors return on a regular basis. With great content you have a huge advantage over your competition as your content is more likely to be shared on the web, posted and share on social media platforms and create citations for your business, all of which can be beneficially in helping to get your website to rank and retain customers when they visit your website.

The Hidden Dangers To Your Website Rankings By Aggressive Link Building

Having a website is critical for a business, but it is not enough to merely have a website and great content, you also have to be found in the search engines. Searches are done via key words and search terms and the websites at the top of any search have done their link building correctly, usually with the help of SEO experts. In today’s world nearly everyone looks for services and goods online and very few people go past 20 results in a web search, so you need to get on top of the search rankings. Getting on top of the search rankings however requires great link building practices. Top search engine rankings result in organic website traffic, which is basically ad free advertising.

Google, Yahoo and Bing SEO

Trying to do your own SEO link building can be down right dangerous for small business owners to try on their own. Your website is an investment in time, money and your brand name, the first point of contact many times between you and your potential customers. The major search engines use what is called an algorithm to determine how to value links, and every year Google pushes out changes to this algorithm between 500 and 600 times. While many of these are small adjustments, some are rather huge updates such as Google Panda and Google Penguin. Google Panda and Google Penguin each caused tens of thousands of websites to loose massive search engine rankings, and quite a few thousand more were entirely removed from the search engine. Not all of these sites were bad, in fact many were top notch websites, but their SEO and link campaigns were somewhat sketchy.

You know you need links, and you know you need your website to stay competitive. But trying to build your own links and understanding which links are good for your site is something best left to a SEO professional. Years worth of work can go up in smoke with a single Google update. The better professionals also know which links to take down following major updates to the search engines. Google is constantly pushing out algorithm changes, and these changes can take weeks and months for the everyday person to figure out, figuring out what effect the have takes someone who does this as a full time job, which it is. The reason Google and the other search engines do not tell people the exact workings of the algorithm is to prevent spammy sites from dominating the rankings. Yes link building will cost you money, but it is a cost of doing good business online. It does not mean it has to break bank, far from it, good link builders can do great work over time that will see your website thriving in organic search without breaking your bank account.

One piece of advice when hiring a SEO firm or link builder, stay as far away from foreign entities. Besides Simply Google India/Pakistan/Etc SEO + scam and read thousands of complaints, its truly epidemic. While they charge less than an American company, and certainly a few do good work, many are bad actors in the SEO field, they talk a good game, have a great sales pitch and the price seems right but when it comes to delivering a good service that is where it all falls apart.

If you are going to hire a professional link builder, and you should go with a professional, look for one with a portfolio of clients they currently work for. You want a professional that can show you the results of their work, not simply throw you a great sales pitch and have a nice looking website. You also want a professional that has been doing link building for more then just a few years. In SEO duration means they have tackled major changes in the industry and not only survived but also thrived, in an industry where many simply fold after 2 years.

Lastly you want a link builder who understand the entire SEO process not just links. A link builder who understands the entire process can better design a link campaign to help your website succeed, taking into account on site and off site factors, relevancy of content to sites linked to, changes with the SERPs, and exciting changes happening such as Google’s new “In-depth articles searches and how to capitalize on it with your website and incoming links. In short if you value your website, and you rely on organic traffic invest back into your website by hiring a professional to take care of you offsite link building needs to protect your investment.

Small Business Should Use Google Authorship to Increase Web Visibility and Trust

Any small business that wants to get more website traffic and exposure should be claiming Google authorship for its content. This is not a difficult process, but it can make a big difference in the way Google ranks your blog, website, images and other online content. Doing this can not only help you get ranked better by Google, but it also gives you more credibility in the eyes of your visitors and customers.
What is Google Authorship?

Google authorship is the process in which you prove to Google that you are the owner of your content. If you’re not familiar with the way the large search engines operate, this may sound strange. However, if you’ve been keeping track of how Google has been making it tougher to rank websites in recent years you know that the rules of SEO are rapidly changing.
Google authorship works in conjunction with Google+, the search engine giant’s own social media platform. If you don’t have a Google+ account, your first step is to sign up for one. This is something that every business and website owner should have. It’s a way for you to network with potential customers and other people in your industry with whom you might want to do business.
When Google is satisfied that you are indeed the author of your content, it will display the thumbnail that you’ve provided them next to your content in the search engine listings. This is a powerful branding tool, as it identifies you before people even reach your website.

How to Establish Google Authorship

Establishing Google authorship is not difficult. Let’s take a look at how it’s done.
First, set Up Your Google+ Profile. This includes verifying your email address, uploading a photo and filling in your name, bio and location. The latter is especially important for physical businesses that want to be found in the search engines.
You can then start linking your content to your Google+ account. When you write blog posts, make sure you link them to Google+. If you have a WordPress blog, you might want to get a plugin such as Author Box Reloaded. This makes it simple to link your posts to Google+ as well as other social media accounts such as Facebook, LinkIn and others.

The Benefits of Google Authorship

Google authorship helps to make you and your business more recognizable on the internet. It makes it easier for you to rank your content. People are also more likely to click on your content when they see a snippet of you. This is Google’s way of telling the world that your content is important.

This gives people a chance to find more of your content. When they click on your name or picture, they will immediately see other content that you’ve published. While people initially are looking at one particular post, they may eventually check out other things you’ve done. This helps you get more exposure for your content. It also reassures people that you have a strong presence online and that Google recognizes your content.

Like it or not, Google is currently the most powerful authority on the web. Whether you are trying to get more customers to your local business or more visitors from around the world to your website, search engine traffic is vital. Establishing Google authorship is a way to get better rankings for your content and build your brand and credibility online.
Learn more how to position your small business for online success, schedule a free lead generation analysis with our team today.