Our GIANT SEO series
If you think you’ve been hit by Panda 4.1, it’s important to understand why. Firstly, you need to consider the fact that you might not have actually been hit. The people around you may have just benefit from Panda 4.1. Here are a few things to consider:
- Your traffic is relative to your competitors
- They might have done a slightly better job, therefore benefiting from the update
- You might have simply stayed put, whilst other websites moved around you
- You might not have done a lot wrong
To find out more, watch our video:
So, although you might not have done a lot wrong, it’s still not good news. How do we get around it and compete better with the people around you?
The first thing to do, would be to perform a content audit. You should look at every single page on your site, and bear in mind the following three factors when doing so:
1 – Is the content unique?
Have you copied this content from another website? If so, it’s not unique, meaning it is adding no value to your website. You need to make sure that every page on the website is unique.
2 – Content per page
Each page should include useful content, which is relevant to the readers search. One or two lines probably isn’t adequate enough, as it’s unlikely the reader will find the answers to their questions. Ensure there is enough content to not only provide useful information to the reader, but let Google know what the page is about and what you provide for your customers.
3 – site:www.*your url*.com
By entering the above into Google (and replacing *your url* with your own website url), you can see how many pages Google has from your site, in its index.
There is no right or wrong number, but consider that the more pages there are and the more content you have, the better as there will be more search terms you’re likely to rank for. Ultimately, the more pages, the more likely you’ll be able to survive the Panda 4.1 update.
Competitors
Another thing to consider, is that you can check all of this for your competitor’s websites. This will give you an idea for where you stack up against them. You’ll get an understanding of why they perhaps benefited more than you did, giving you a good benchmark to work towards.
Google Analytics Package
Finally, have a look at your Google Analytics Package (or other analytical packages). This will allow you to go down to page level, in order to understand which pages on your website are drawing readers in, and which ones the readers stay on for a prolonged period of time.
There are also various other metrics to look at, each of which will help you understand what pages are adding value to users, and which ones aren’t. We’d suggest either getting rid of the ones that don’t, or use them to redirect to pages that do. Also, add more pages that are similar to the current ones you have, that are already adding value.
Do you think you’ve been hit by a Panda update? What have you done to recover? Please let us know if the comments. Also, if you have any questions, pop those down below too and we’ll get back to you.