How to Recover a Business From a Google Panda 4.0 Penalty

What is Panda and Panda 4.0?

Panda is a quality algorithm released in 2011 which is designed to reward sites with high quality content, and bring down sites with low quality content. Affected sites with low quality content will receive a noticeable reduction in traffic. Panda 4.0 has been given the “4.0” designation which tells us that it is a more significant update that the most recent Panda updates.

How big is the Panda 4.0 Update?

Matt Cutts just announced the update on Twitter a few hours ago. It will be days or even weeks before we can thoroughly grasp the full affects of the Panda 4.0 update. If you are a business owner and log in to your Google Analytics accounts next week and are seeing a drastic reduction in traffic starting around May 20, 2014 or shortly thereafter then you have been hit with Panda 4.0.

How do you recover from a Panda 4.0 penalty?

Backlinks and onsite/technical SEO aside, ranking in Google search today is not that much different than it was a decade ago, especially for competitive niches. Anyone telling you otherwise is probably not ranking in search themselves. Unique and quality content always wins in the long run. I have personally generated several million dollars in sales via ranking content in search and people that haven’t experienced this have a difficult time comprehending the value of content. Back in the pre-WWW days people visited online services for what they offered or visited online services for a specific reason. These days Google is attempting to weed through mountains of spam, scraper sites and spun articles to deliver relevant search results and quality content to its users via algorithms. Will user input one day affect search? It will have to. But right now consistently generating quality content for your website is what it takes to rank in search and is what it will take to recover from a Panda 4.0 penalty.

Sites hit by Panda 4.0 will have no warning in their Webmaster tools account as this is an algorithm change. Some websites will need to start blogging and adding consistent and quality content to their site. Others will need to completely scrap their site and start a new one- that is harsh news but necessary in many cases as algorithm updates usually affect entire domains.

Recovering from a Panda update is simple. Your new website should be a WordPress site using a responsive theme and you need to be putting out quality content on your blog on a regular basis. Site owners can rest assured their websites are safe and even look forward to future algorithm changes.

How do I create Panda friendly content?

Your content should always be geared towards informing your audience. When I am creating content for my clients I pretend Google doesn’t exist. Every personal injury attorney has a page on car accidents, and every optometrist has a page on eye exams. My slogan is to “take your content one step further”. Traditional SEO companies want to optimize your car accident page and charge you a huge recurring fee. Content writers and real SEOs do not concentrate on one page about car accidents- they elaborate and discuss the value of your left hand, how getting rear ended by a truck is negligence, how a Toyota Prius holds up against a big rig and how long a lawsuit takes to complete. This type of content can be created for anyone including cake designers, plumbers, wardrobe consultants, IT professionals, funeral directors, etc, you name it. Pandas are cute animals that want lots of quality bamboo, just feed the Panda.

Do you need help recovering from Panda 4.0?

My best clients have come to me via word of mouth. Most of them have been burned by an “SEO firm”. Fortunately, I do not have to go around beating on doors and harassing business owners with ridiculous, misleading or deceptive sales pitches and I sleep quite well at night knowing that I’m providing an outstanding return on investment. I owned a brick and mortar business for 12 years which was successful due to its content and I have also experienced the benefits of ranking in search since the days of Excite and AltaVista. I am easily able to assist business owners with their SEO and content creation needs. Some of the best content creators out there are business owners that are experts in their niche, however, for 95% of them they are better off hiring someone that specializes in ranking in search and creating high quality content that is not penalized by Google updates, but is rewarded by them. If you need this type of assistance be sure to visit my page on copywriting and content creation to see how content can help your business.

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Posted in: Panda 4.0,recovery from Panda 4.0