Just a few months ago Google was receiving continual pressure from the media to improve their search results. The general consensus was that too many search engine results pages (SERPs) were filled with content farm articles that did little more for searchers than show them low quality content and Google Ads.
Google has made it clear that they were listening to such feedback and in March released what has been termed the “Panda Update”. This update is focused on improving the quality of the results served up to searchers. In return, it has also put the pressure on Webmasters to ensure that their sites have quality content.
One way that Google is improving the SERPS is by decreasing the ranking ability of domains that contain significant amounts of low quality content. They’ve even provided a list of questions that includes some hints at the variables used to determine the ‘Panda’ part of the quality score for a site. This quality score is used to help identify low quality sites. Sites flagged as low quality can be penalized across the entire site, reducing its ability to rank highly in the SERPs for targeted keywords. This new site wide penalty for low quality content means that high quality content is critical for any site hoping to rank highly for their target markets.
5 Tricks To Dominate Google’s Quality Check
To help make sure that you are only following publishing high quality content to your website be sure to follow these 5 tricks:
- Peer-Review – If any content is being published to your site before having someone else review it, you’re at risk of lowering your quality score. Often a second set of eyes will correct mistakes and typos that can completely destroy the quality of an article you publish. The more these typos and mistakes occur, the more likely that your site will score poorly on Google’s Quality Check
- Use Proper Grammar – If you want to rank highly for English keywords, then your site needs to follow English grammar rules. To help your site score highly, be sure to utilize Grammar Check tools like Grammarly.com to identify any major grammar mistakes that could penalize your site.
- Be Unique – Too often content on blogs and sites are simply retelling information the author discovered on other major blogs or news sites. If your content is simply a rewrite of what others have already stated it will not only be difficult to rank but it will be difficult to get readers to come back to your site. Content farms are filled with regurgitated material and if your site is also then it is likely that Google will look down on your content.
- Write in your native language – Too often we see individuals trying to create content in a language that is not their own. Often it is not even their second language. If you can’t speak a language, then don’t expect to rank highly in the search engines in that particular language. If its essential to your business then be sure to Hire a Translator. There are plenty of skilled individuals on sites like oDesk that you can hire to help your writing sound professional and natural to your target language. Paying for copy that makes sense in the targeted language is worth every penny. Alternatively, you could do your best at writing in the second language, but then be sure to follow steps 1 and 2 above.
- Keep Users on your site – In addition to focusing on creating quality content on your site you should also focus on reducing your bounce rate. If you have a high bounce rate, you increase the chances of people clicking on the dreaded “Block listings from this site” link that Google displays to users that bounce back to search results. I predict this will heavily impact a sites quality score and Matt Cutts has all but confirmed that if users click to block your site it will drop your site from the SERPs quickly. Additionally, its very possible that google uses bounce rate itself (when it can measure it) as a ranking signal.
By taking the time to produce high quality content you’ll be improving your site, your chance to ranking highly in the SERPs, and protecting the time you invest into your web businesses.
