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Since the Panda update, it seems everyone has their knickers in a twist ¹. From my perspective, the people that have been hit the hardest are Black Hat SEOs ². Panda isn’t a penalty, it is really just an improvement to Google’s algorithm ³.

What Does the Panda Update REALLY Mean?

• Crappy sites with low quality backlinks and no traffic have been significantly devalued.
• Professional sites with high quality backlinks and real visitors have been pushed up the search results.

Take a Look at Our Results in Search Engines Post Panda

It may interest you to know that in the past 45 days (June 1st to July 15th), I have actually moved jiveSYSTEMS up the search results. Not just a little but, but a lot; a total of 15 positions for 3 competitive keywords: “video email“, “video email marketing“, and “video email software“. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can go to Google yourself and verify the results!⁴

Now I have already discovered that our competition has been reading this blog, and are quite frankly copying many of the strategies that I reveal. So for those of you who like more details, please know that I do best to share as much as possible, openly and with full transparency. However, I must keep some information private, hence the above image only including 3 of our keywords. I am working with about 20 keywords, and we are moving up the rankings quickly for all of them!

How To Rank Higher in the Search Results

Ranking high in the search results isn’t a mysterious art form. All you need to create is high quality relevant content that people what to read and share. You then put that content on your website(s) and distribute it around the internet, after which it is just a case of rinse and repeat⁵.

Step-by-Step Plan

1. Keyword Research - Keyword selection is critical; some keywords are very competitive, whereas others are not. Look for hidden gems – longtail keywords that have lots of traffic and no competition. To do keyword research, you basically type in words related to your products into a keyword research tool and it spits out keyword ideas, gives you an idea of the competition you are up against, and how much traffic you will get from a given ranking in the search engines.  You can use Google AdWords Keyword Tool for free and get pretty good results. I use a paid tool called SECockpit for my keyword research because it goes deeper and searches faster; another thing I like is that it gives me a detailed breakdown of traffic estimates based on placement, which no other tool on the market that I have tested can do (e.g. a placement of 1-3, 4-7, 8-10).
2. Content Creation - You need an archive full of A+ content weaved around your chosen keywords (articles, video, webinars, ebooks, and more). I would lean more towards video content because it is more engaging. Plus, you can create 1 video and upload it to multiple video sharing sites (YouTube, MetaCafe, etc.).
3. Setting Up or Optimizing Your Site – The more sites the merrier! However, they all have to be on different servers or blocks, otherwise Google will devalue the sites. The key is creating a structure that converts visitors into revenue, content into opt-ins, and opt-ins into sales. You also want to add floating social buttons to make your content easy to share. We are using a WordPress plugin called Sharebar on the left side of this blog. WordPress is my platform of choice for building websites. A insider tip is to only use WordPress themes that are built on Frameworks. Most of the themes on the market are not built on a Framework. This means they do not get updated as frequently if at all. The best development houses have a framework and then create several themes based on it. This means they can update the framework cost effectively, as it will update across all of their themes. StartBox is a brand new framework that looks fantastic for building a website and a blog, although I have yet to use it. I have built several websites using WooThemes, they have a lots of themes to choose from. If you are looking to build landing pages, launch funnels, and membership sites, check out our “Stuff We Recommend” page.
4. Distributing Content to the Internet – Article sharing sites, web 2.0 properties, video sharing sites, forums, and more. One trick is to leverage sites like Posterous⁶, where you can setup a blog that will automatically syndicate your content to other sites. If you are savvy, you will create multiple identities and mimic the behavior of real people as closely as possible. When syndicating content, after using tools like TrafficGeyser and TubeMogul, I have switched back to manual video submissions, as I feel they are more natural and I am certain Google is smarter than these tools. This is why I recommend that 80% of your content distribution be manual. I feel you get more SEO Juice when you manually submit your content and mix up the subject lines and keywords, as it looks more natural.

Never Stray From My TCA Formula

If what you are doing doesn’t fall into one of these 3 buckets, STOP DOING IT. Also, make sure to create balance between each area. I like to focus on generating traffic for a few days, and then improving conversions, and then customer support.

Conclusion

SEO is not for everyone, it is a long and laborious process. 95% of business owners would be better investing their time in building relationships and their referral/JV network. For my clients (the few that I do consult with still), I only recommend SEO if they get a capital infusion or have a stable and profitable revenue stream. This is because SEO efforts take about 3-9 months to mature, so they need to be in for the long haul; on the flipside, the results become exponential once you reach the tipping point.

Footnotes