For 2012, Make Quality As Well As Quantity A New Year’s Resolution For SEO

Google made a big change in 2011 for SEO writers. SEO is the practice of Search Engine Optimization, or the practice of trying to get your content to rank higher in search engines. Google rolled out an update in 2011 called Panda that was meant to improve the quality of user searches, so that users wouldn’t turn outdated content in their searches. However, the change has also had an impact on SEO writers.

The New Year is a good time to make resolutions. The resolutions can be personal, such as exercising more, or quitting smoking. But, the New Year can also be a good time to resolve to improve your web content. One area of improvement can be your SEO or Search Engine Optimization and how you use keywords to get your web copy ranked high in Google Searches.

2011: The Year of the Panda

In 2011, Google rolled out its Panda update. The update was designed to improve search engine results for Google users.  The idea was to rank sites with outdated or poor quality content much lower than good quality content.

While the idea of quality may be somewhat subjective, writing SEO copy is no longer just a matter of getting as many keywords as possible into your text. Now, SEO writers have to pay attention to a few good rules to help ensure good rankings for you and your client’s copy.

A Few Simple Rules

SEO writers should follow a few simple rules to preserve the high rankings of their web searches once they get them:

Update Content-Since one of the major reasons for Panda was to rank outdated content lower, stale content gets ranked lower. Web content can be easily updated.

Remember Grammar-Poor grammar and spellings are also used to rank content. Proofread your content before it ever goes live.

Repair Links-Broken links will also result in lower rankings. Check the integrity of the links periodically for outdated, broken links.

Use Brevity and Depth-Length of the copy is also now used as an indicator of web search quality. Web copy now needs a balance of brevity and depth to indicate quality. This of course can be a judgment call and may seem subjective. But, web articles now need to show that they are easy to read and also have substantial content.

Question Images-Graphic content is important for websites. But, sites that are too heavy in graphics will get lumped in with the ad-heavy sites that get ranked lower in Google’s rankings these days.

Good web content should be clean, uncluttered and tasteful. While Google’s Panda update rules may be a challenge for SEO writers, they should be seen as a challenge worth achieving. SEO writers can make quality a selling point for their clients’ web content. With the Panda updates as a guide, SEO writers can show their clients the differences between their content and lower quality content. Quality is now rewarded in Google searches and copy writers should strive for that quality.

SEO writers should also monitor their copy once it’s posted and periodically test the rankings to ensure their own quality control.

The New Year can be the year that your web content can differ from others. 2012 can be the year you can show quality and produce results for your SEO copy. Make a resolution right now to make 2012 the year that your copy has high quality and produces great results for your clients.