Any upgrade to the methods of Google, for example the popular Panda update, is a significant resource of stress for any Web expert because often these up-dates are like earth-quakes ‐ they shake your rankings upside down and all your efforts to pump up your website's rankings go down the drain. While these changes are unavoidable and there is nothing you can do to avoid them, there are some actions you can take in order to soften the blow. Generally, it's considered that if you follow white hat best methods, you are safe from up-dates but actually this isn't so. Here are some recommendations (in addition to the common white-hat best practices) how to make your website less susceptible to search engine algorithm changes.
However, before we continue with the steps themselves, let's clarify that not all traffic fluctuations are the result of a search engine algorithms update. Very often fluctuations are normal ‐ for example, seasonal variations are not due to an criteria change but rather by the time of the year factor. Such changes are more complicated to control because similarly to search engines algorithms they are also outside your reach and this is why we are not talking about these here.
Focus On Your Targeted Keywords
When you want to increase the traffic from search engines likes Google, Yahoo & Bing, your first idea might be that if you manage to rank for more keywords, you will get more traffic. Could be (especially if the keywords are not closely related) but generally this isn't actually so.
You might think that when you expand into new keywords, this will increase more traffic but actually it's just the opposite ‐ these new keywords will dilute the relevancy of your present keywords and as a result you might lose some of the visitors you already have. So, before you focus on some new keywords, always be ready to back off, if results turn out to be more intense than predicted.
Optimize Long Tail Keywords
Long-tail search phrases or keywords are frequently neglected because they don't bring as much traffic as their more lucrative counterparts. However, long tail keywords are more proof against changes in algorithms. The traffic of long tail keywords tends to fluctuate less because there is less competition. If you have been skipping long tail keywords up to now, start optimizing for them as soon as possible.
Optimize Less Competitive Keywords
Less competitive keywords might be not long-tail but they also tend to suffer less from search engine up-dates. The description is easy ‐ for example, if there are 10 websites that compete for a keyword and key phrase, even if Google up-dates their criteria and shuffles results, the most severe that can happen to you is to position Tenth, which is much better than to position in the second hundred, as is quite possible with search phrases that have thousands of websites competing for them.
Publish New Content Regularly
All equal, huge intervals between new posts can basically bury your site even for search phrases you always used to rank well for and even if there are no search engine algorithm changes. While you can't beat these changes completely by publishing new content all time simply because it takes time for new posts to rank well, new content is fresh blood and it does bring traffic. As we've mentioned multiple times, it's better to publish one new content piece a week or even a month than to publish no content for months and then add 20 new content pieces at once.
Get Back-links From High PR Websites Only
The times when any back-link was excellent are history. Now back-links from bad or basically unrelated websites can hurt you badly. This is why, you need to get back-links from high ranking, relevant websites only. Moreover to the juice they successfully pass, these websites usually do not lose their own rankings that frequently and as a result your own rankings will fluctuate. Also, once an A list website places a link, they will hardly remove it just to secure their own positions, as some of the other websites will do.
In order to prevent hyperlinks from bad websites, you can use various tools to discover who is linking to you. When you encounter a link you don't want, get in touch with the web master of the site and ask him or her to remove it.
USE Pay Per Click
If you haven't realized this out so far, let's get it straight - free search engine traffic is excellent but it's un-reliable. No matter how excellent your website is and how well you are trying to secure yourself against search engine algorithm changes, you are never immune. If you want constant traffic to your website, start using PPC. We've put a detailed tutorial on Google AdWords. If you are not familiar with PPC at all, you can begin with this tutorial.
Promote on Social Media
It's the same here ‐ don't put all your egg in one container, i.e. don't get all your traffic from search engines. When you start diversifying your traffic resources, the first choice is PPC (which is expensive but usually it delivers focused traffic) and the second choice is social media. Websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, G+ or Tumblr, etc. are totally free to use and they can bring you a lot of traffic, if your posts become well-known. However, usually the traffic from social sites isn't targeted and conversions might be low but still these websites are an affordable alternative.
While you sometimes can benefit from search engine algorithm changes because these changes hide your opponents and take you up in search engine results pages (SERP) without any effort on your part, this is pure luck and you can't rely on it. If you don't want to experience the negative effects of algorithm changes to the max, you need to be practical and take the steps mentioned in this post. Unfortunately, even if you do, you still can't say you are completely protected but at least you will have the consolation that you did what could be done.
Get Back-links From High PR Websites Only
The times when any back-link was excellent are history. Now back-links from bad or basically unrelated websites can hurt you badly. This is why, you need to get back-links from high ranking, relevant websites only. Moreover to the juice they successfully pass, these websites usually do not lose their own rankings that frequently and as a result your own rankings will fluctuate. Also, once an A list website places a link, they will hardly remove it just to secure their own positions, as some of the other websites will do.In order to prevent hyperlinks from bad websites, you can use various tools to discover who is linking to you. When you encounter a link you don't want, get in touch with the web master of the site and ask him or her to remove it.
USE Pay Per Click
If you haven't realized this out so far, let's get it straight - free search engine traffic is excellent but it's un-reliable. No matter how excellent your website is and how well you are trying to secure yourself against search engine algorithm changes, you are never immune. If you want constant traffic to your website, start using PPC. We've put a detailed tutorial on Google AdWords. If you are not familiar with PPC at all, you can begin with this tutorial.
Promote on Social Media
It's the same here ‐ don't put all your egg in one container, i.e. don't get all your traffic from search engines. When you start diversifying your traffic resources, the first choice is PPC (which is expensive but usually it delivers focused traffic) and the second choice is social media. Websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, G+ or Tumblr, etc. are totally free to use and they can bring you a lot of traffic, if your posts become well-known. However, usually the traffic from social sites isn't targeted and conversions might be low but still these websites are an affordable alternative.
While you sometimes can benefit from search engine algorithm changes because these changes hide your opponents and take you up in search engine results pages (SERP) without any effort on your part, this is pure luck and you can't rely on it. If you don't want to experience the negative effects of algorithm changes to the max, you need to be practical and take the steps mentioned in this post. Unfortunately, even if you do, you still can't say you are completely protected but at least you will have the consolation that you did what could be done.
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