As you all may already know, Google released an algorithm change in March 2011 called Panda (aka Farmer) that changed rankings on many sites, maybe even yours. Google then released another change called “Penguin.” These changes pushed many sites down in the rankings, some up, and a few that weren’t affected at all. Several affiliate marketers have been concerned about this “new” approach ever since, and with good reason. There are some great articles and blog posts out there, but this has certainly changed the way SEO will be done in the future, but here are a few key things to remember.
1.) It has always been about offering original and valuable content. Having overly optimized web pages could cause some problems.
2.) Titles must be authentic. They need to sound real. They should sound like a human being wrote them and I didn’t intend to just classify sentence after sentence.
3.) Use your footer wisely. Use your footer to link to things people expect to find in the footer. If you really need to include anchor text on pages, find natural ways to put it in the actual menu at the top, in the content itself.
4.) Multiple pages that are targeting very similar and modified versions of keywords and keyword intents, with only slight variations. Contrary to popular opinion, this does not help with Google search.
5.) Watch for your backlinks. The ‘Penguin’ release especially now is paying a lot of attention to this. If you’re spending the time and effort to develop a strategy around this, make sure it’s not anything that could be considered ‘black hat’ or even gray. Go for quality, not quantity.
Just like in life, there are no guarantees. You should not rely on any one method to drive traffic to your site. You need a combination of things, including building email lists, using social media appropriately, and creating sticky sites that people want to return to or give your site more “value.” In short, Google is a very valuable asset, but you need to set up your business as if Google is leaving tomorrow. Obviously, Google plays an important role in the lives of affiliates, but diversification is always important in everything we do. There is no doubt that Google plays a very important role in affiliate marketing, but for those looking for shortcuts they will surely be short. Go to Google webmaster tools to learn more about “quality guidelines”.
The main lesson should be to be informed but also to stick to the fundamentals. There’s no guarantee that you won’t be affected by changes Google makes now or in the future, but at least you won’t be “caged” by them.
