In March, Google released the “Panda Update” which made significant changes to their search engine algorithm. Changes to Google are always scary. We, and many of our clients get a lot of traffic through organic searches, so you never know what impact changes like these will bring.
But the changes have made the biggest negative impact on sites that try to “work the system.” If you are focusing on creating a well-designed website, a simple, polished user interface, and fresh content that people actually like to read and share with their peers, you should not be seeing major changes in your search rankings.
This is more in-depth information than most small businesses want to think about, and you shouldn’t have to. But if you’re interested, this is a great video by Rand Fishkin at SEOMoz that will help explain the recent changes.
I like his final point, about focusing on improving these metrics:
- Time on site
- Bounce Rate
- Browse Rate
- CTR from SERPs
- Diversity of Branded Search & Direct Traffic (I don’t like this last one, because it benefits the major players more than the small business, but I think its effect is minor.)
Are these things easy to improve? Nope. But whenever something is easy to do, it becomes an open target for scammers to exploit. This latest update seems to reward those who are willing to invest the time and resources into making sites that serve their customers.