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What is the greatest thing about Google’s Penguin? You may well be thinking that it isn’t so great. First of all, you have to ask yourself if you can escape from the Zoo of bad rankings. Are yours down at all? If you are reading this article then I am sure you have questions about them, and what can you do about it.

I am going to outline a few things you can do to help your website that won’t cost a thing, but you have to do the work. No one else is going to do it for you. If your rankings tanked after Penguin, the reality is that there is no quick resolution. Any company advising that they can help you recover quickly is trying to scam you, and one of the reasons is that you can do everything yourself. Then you may be able to recover from its wrath.

I am sure you are reading about and/or listening to all the “gurus” in search engine optimization, but guess what? They’re not going to help you. No one cares about your own website more than you do, and it’s your work to do. Does anyone else really care if your rankings are bad? They might, if they’re your contractors or employees, who may decide to go somewhere else. Maybe you’re thinking that the experts could help you rank better, but no, they don’t really care. After all, their own rankings aren’t your business, so why should they?

Stop listening to the “gurus,” and learn. Become your own SEO expert, but one of today’s.

You can listen to all the advice in the world, but in the end, if you want to recover, you have to do the work yourself, and this time, it’s going to take at least several months to a year. Anyone else might be able to do it for a steep fee, assuming you have the cash, and only then if you assume they know what they’re doing, but that’s still no guarantee of anything. They may very well not know, and won’t admit to it to keep the money flowing. Only you can keep track of your own progress in real time, and adjust on the fly as needed. Always remember that you cannot follow two different timelines at the same time. Do the work yourself, and you’ll recover that much faster.

The situation is that if you’ve been cheating all this time, whether you’re aware of it or not, then you may not have the skills to recover. If you are still cheating and haven’t been caught yet, you soon will be. You have to adapt to Penguin’s rules, and learn. What worked yesterday won’t work anymore. I can write about this because our website was affected by Penguin as well.

Admittedly, we’re not tried and true SEO experts anymore because all of us are old school experts who had a nice ride for awhile. Some of us got rich in the dot com pre-Google days, which no longer works, and we had to go back to the drawing board right after the Panda update. Today’s SEO experts are the ones who have been following Google since the day it opened for business, while we were scoffing at them, and we lost. For the most part, they were not affected, while we were, and for a very simple reason.

Again, you have to learn how to adapt and overcome, just as we are currently doing. We’re not scoffing at Google anymore; the first thing you have to do is swallow your pride and admit that you didn’t do everything by the book. The experts might offer you the best advice in the world, but the fact of the matter is that they don’t really care one way or another about your business. Your website is not theirs.

Every single one of them is in business to make money with their own sites, and as long as they are doing that, then they do not have your best interests at heart. Their interests lie in their own websites, just as your interest is in yours. This is what makes the difference between a good company and a great one. Believe me, I am telling you right now with these written words, those other companies do not care if your rankings have fallen, or if they have increased, other than researching your statistical data. All they care about is getting more business for themselves.

Certain companies affected by Penguin’s “downsizing” are already claiming “recovery,” but it is not going to happen, not immediately, and certainly not this soon. You have to perform your own onsite analysis, figure out what you did wrong, admit it to yourself, and then fix it. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

There are many claiming to already know the in’s and out’s of Penguin recovery, but they are wrong. Only Google knows, and it’s not talking. The “many” only hope to convince you that they are able to, but they are only in business to scam you and take your money. Mentioned above, I am going to offer just a few things to help you recover from Penguin’s backlash. I want to be clear, though, that recovery is going to take several months to a year, and you have probably heard that before. Instead of scammers stealing your hard earned cash, let’s get into the basics.

1. Read Google Webmaster Guidelines. Each of us here now knows that we should have done this ten years ago. So few really do, and assume they know what they’re doing.

2. Clean up your title tags – make sure there are no duplicates

3. Clean up any 404 errors

4. Clean up anything that may be duplicate or similar on your site. Delete it. Move on.

5. For duplicate content you need or want to keep, use canonical tags properly, and only where needed. Google has help to show you how to use them for nothing.

6. Make sure your 301 redirects are correct for your homepage. Don’t mix www with non-www.

7. Write compelling, 1,000+ word articles

8. Don’t worry about your backlinks; there is only so much you can do about that. Don’t fall for the “I can clean up your backlinks” routine. You can do this yourself, and create good quality backlinks in their place.

9. Don’t use keywords; it won’t work anymore. Link to your previous articles using relevant content within a current one. Use outbound links that refer to authority websites. If you are writing about American history, link to an educational institution’s webpage that has content that’s relevant to your article, for example.

10. Write content on your site that is compelling and linkable; that is, create link bait. Write a 500 work article, then write 1,500 words, and then 1,000 words. Google is catching on to the 500 word article game.

11. Always keep posting good, unspun, compelling, unique content for the user every single day. Never write for the search engines, ever.

12. If you are in SEO, then learn to be a content writer. The best people in SEO, including Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan, Barry Schwartz, and others, are great writers. I have no idea if other people proofread their articles, or whether they have ghostwriters or not, but who cares – start writing – you have a website – and you are a publisher.

13. Last, but not least, when you write an article, put your own picture and your own name on it. This is one of the best metrics to help you, and bring you to the web. Do not hide behind a computer. Let others know who you are, and you may be invited to write for another website.

What is there to SEO today? It takes short, medium, and long term plans. One of the most successful online companies today is SeoMoz, and its owner, Rand Fishkin, wrote one article every single day for two solid years. Ask yourself this: Do you think he was popular when he began writing his articles? No one had ever heard of him, and yet he did what it took to get noticed.

It really comes down to one simple thing: Content. Write great content and keep writing; if you don’t have the time, then ask others to write for you. Do you have what it takes to write every single day, day in and day out? Is your website currently what you would like it to become? Rand had a vision, and that vision was long term. He wasn’t looking for shortcuts as so many others still do even today. He wasn’t looking at becoming the the greatest thing since sliced bread in a year. He did exactly what Google wanted a website owner to do. He’s a distinguished publisher within the scope of the internet who owns a global company, and he’s one of the great internet pioneers. Do you have what it takes?

Article Written by Greg Fowler

The year 2012 has brought volatile changes for the search engine optimization (SEO) industry, even white hat SEO strategists are struggling to keep Google, the search engine giant, happy. Starting in January with the Freshness update, it became apparent that Google was pushing for more quality content, and they kept the pressure on with a Page Layout update that penalized sites with too many ads place above the fold.

Certainly, there were more than a few web sites affected by these algorithm changes, but the mayhem truly hit the SEO world when Google began to unleash the Panda updates:

• Panda 3.3 – February 27

• Panda 3.4 – March 23

• Panda 3.5 – April 19

• Panda 3.6 – April 27

To make matters even more precarious for SEO strategists, Matt Cutts and his Webspam team threw the Penguin algorithm into the mix on April 24. Google intends to weed out low quality sites with these algorithm changes, but there have been outcries from site owners that they have unjustly received a penalty; So many that they (Google) created a form to report the mistake, and let us not forget the parked domain glitch that happened mid April.

Cutts’ April 24 post for Inside Search felt like a promotional piece for SEOs, and leaders in the industry scratch their heads, confused by Google’s mixed messages, wondering which update or glitch is the cause for drops in search rankings.

SEO In 2012

First, maybe the industry should change its name to “Value Building and Usability Optimization.” It has a positive ring to it, and it does not mention the search engines. All kidding aside, the recent algorithm changes are putting pressure on those who use black hat methods, and so for best results, SEO strategy should concentrate more on brand building and providing quality content to acquire links naturally.

Brand Building and Authority

Brand recognition takes time to develop, but when a site adds value to the internet by consistently presenting new content in a visually tasteful manner, visitors will come to recognize your company as an authority. Even a pretty site loaded with quality content cannot do the job alone. If you want people to know about your service, product, or brand, you need to utilize the social networks to promote it.

Connect with others in your industry through groups on social network sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and become known for helping others with your expertise. When people know they can get helpful answers from you, they will not only visit your site, but also share on Facebook, Tweet about it, and reward you with a backlink from their site.

To become an online presence it is crucial to have a profile complete with avatar, name, and brief description. Remember you are brand building, so be consistent and only use one profile whenever you appear online, and appear online often.

In addition to social networking, it is also good strategy to find other authoritative voices in your industry and guest post, or at the very least, make valuable comments on their blog posts. All of this, of course, is in addition to your own blog, and will not only boost recognition by your peers, but will get a link as well.

Link Building – Naturally

While anchor text that includes a targeted keyword is a strong ranking signal, too many exact anchor text matches will send up a red flag now days and gain your site a penalty. Besides, links containing exact attributes are rarely a natural occurrence, so instead of obsessing over exact matches, concentrate on building links that include your brand name.

So, if you are building links, how are they natural? If you use guest blogging and commenting, the links you acquire are natural. Now mind you, I am talking about comments that are adding true value, so those generic spammy comments will not do. Remember, the goal is to build brand recognition and authority through providing great content in order to entice others to link back to your site. Linkable content comes in many forms:

• Blogs

• Info graphics

• How Tos

• Consumer Guides

• Funny Videos

Build it, and they will come. At least that is what Google is saying. If you are not buying that, and still feel you need to use other strategies to gain quality backlinks than you should at least take some effort to appear natural.

Diversify the PageRank of the linking pages to your site as well as the amount of links you build each day, week, and month. It would not look natural if you gained 1000 links each day from PR4 sites. In addition, mix up the types of links you have, internal, outbound, and inbound. They all have, at some point in time, a use that will improve a visitor’s experience, and is that not what we all want?

Lastly, when trying to make your links appear natural, stop buying links (Who does that?), stop concentrating on exact match anchor text, and for goodness sake, if you are involved in a low quality blog network, stop that too.

Written for SeoWeave by Penny Adams