Even if you are a born writer writing is hard work. It has to make sense, it flows out of you with some difficulty and once it is ‘out there’ you are normally justified in feeling such a sense of pride that even the thought of editing what you have written, much less deleting it, is enough to make you want to hurt someone. Badly.
Ok, I understand all this, not least because when it comes to feeling like that I am probably just as guilty (if not more so). The harsh reality of SEO is that it respects no one’s feelings. When it comes to the facts which drive online content to appear high on search engines the only logic you have to argue against is that of algorithmic codes, which means that you’d better have your own logic clearly worked out if you don’t want your website to crash and burn.
The Google Panda update is Google’s first major, concentrated and concerted attempt at generating a consistently positive end-user experience across the web. Of course, Google will tell you this is something it has always done, in the past though it focused on specific metrics, watering down some, changing the SEO weight of others and introducing perhaps a new one or so. This time it’s different. The same watering down, rejigging and introduction of a new one has taken place but while the ingredients are the same the formula is brand new.
This time, the introduction of socialisation, Click Through Rates (CTR), bounce rates and website groupings into ‘high quality’ sites and ‘less high quality’ ones, has changed much of the SEO landscape and turned upside down a number of conventions. One of these is content.
In the pre-Panda SEO world content weight counted. A site that had 1,000 articles was ‘better’ in terms of SEO than a site which had only 100 articles and so it led to the online equivalent of an arms race with sites competing to create content, which in turn led to spam, which in turn led to the bad end-user experience Google is so keen to prevent.
All of which leads us to the SEO point of this article which is pruning your website content. You already know the importance of starting each day with a check on your Google Analytics, the reason this is important is because it allows you to see how your website content is faring in terms of traffic. Here comes the hard part: with the Google Panda update a few ‘unpopular’ pages on your website which might have been created in the past and are now out of date, or which were put there mainly for SEO (cue: keyword density, word count and subject matter link) now have the ability to drag your entire site from the ‘High Quality’ category of sites to the ‘less salubrious division of websites’ which means that irrespective of the quality of your recent posts, your site will get a lower ranking and less attention than it deserves.
This is why pruning your website content, however painful it may be, is truly important. It should be part of your monthly task to identify content which may be potentially toxic in terms of SEO, update it or delete it. The reward will be greater attention from Google search and more traffic, more business, a more successful online presence.
Here’s what to check in your Analytics:
1. Entry point – is a particular page, other than the Homepage on your site an entry point? If yes, does it have a high Bounce or abandonment rate (visitors leaving your site after they land there in less than 30 seconds?) – if yes, change it or remove it.
2. Inert page – do you have a large number of pages which deliver no traffic at all despite the fact that you have them cross-linked with other content on your site? Either change them and share them socially again, or delete them.
3. Abandonment point – is a particular page featured prominently as the last page on your site visitors see? If there is no good reason for that (i.e. it’s an offer, form or contact page) then it may well be a deal-breaker on your site, the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. Again, change the page’s content and monitor traffic to see any changes or simply delete it.
A smaller site with the Google Panda update can be SEO-vibrant and highly ranked irrespective of its number of pages, provided those pages work hard to provide relevant content.
Boost your Website after the Google Panda Update
Keyword Stuffed Websites First Casualty of the Google Panda Update
Market your Business Online Locally and Get More Customers
Google Analytics and the Marketing of your Website
Make search something you are good at. Get your website ranked on Google's first page with a tried-and-tested, practical, 20-step method that works. Now updated for Google Panda's search algorithm update. Low on cost, high on value.
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