Quick Update

5 months since my last post here? Time flies. To anyone who might be still around and reading this blog, I thank you!

What happened with my site flipping plans? Panda happened! Not that it’s the end of the world as some so like to moan about. Yes, some quality sites were punished but overall, if nothing else, I think it’s pushing all of us to be bigger and better bloggers, affiliate marketers, SEO’s, webmasters, link builders and whatever else your forte and interests are.

Where to from here? I did build a bunch of sites late last year. I ended up selling one or two to a friend who is just starting in affiliate marketing, some I will let expire because of the new quality vs quantity focus (more below on this), a few I sold just as domain names because they were nice keyword names, and a couple I am holding on to and building up into bigger authority sites.

So, while I’m sorry that I won’t be reporting the results as planned (basically because I’m changing my entire SEO and promotional strategy after Panda), I will be starting a brand new case study soon which WILL be reported in detail. Stay tuned for that.

What I Won’t Be Doing From Now On

These are things I don’t want to waste time with. Some worked very well before, others I always thought were spammy or too short term focused.

1. Auto generating any content (more on this below)

2. Submitting dozens of articles to Ezinearticles or any other directories. Firstly, if I write or outsource a high quality piece of content, I want it on my site, not theirs. Actually, that’s the main and only reason I won’t be going back to EZA too often (it was fun while it lasted!).

3. Creating fake linkwheels (I never really did this before anyway).

4. Contracting link building services that only get low quality, spammy backlinks by the thousands (again, never did this before and certainly won’t now).

5. Submitting to a gazillion link directories (quite possibly I will submit to none unless I really feel inclined to).

6. Using article spinning software (briefly dabbled in this ages ago, never got into it and again, certainly wouldn’t bother to now).

What I will Be Doing

1. Writing at least 800 words per post/article at the minimum (see more on this below)

2. Creating (or outsourcing) interesting and useful content that is more likely to gain natural backlinks from other bloggers and webmasters in the niche. In other words, content that people will want to link to without being asked to.

3. Reaching out to other bloggers and site owners in my niches in order to create guest blogging opportunities (one of the most powerful ways of getting high quality backlinks) and natural referrals to each other within blog posts.

4. Doing extensive research within the niche to gain near-expert knowledge (or outsourcing the content to a knowledgable person, not just run-of-the-mill $5 content writers who don’t extend their research past Wikipedia and EZA).

5. Focusing extensively on on-site SEO including navigational structure, internal linking, header tags and all the usual suspects that are too easily overlooked in favour of off-site optimization.

6. Removing (deleting) pages on existing sites that are low quality, contain little to no unique content and/or aren’t performing well and probably never will. They didn’t call Panda the “high quality sites algorithm” for nothing… this link contains an extensive set of questions that Google considers relevant for quality websites (which you’ve likely already read, I hope).

Note: Google certainly isn’t the be-all and end-all overseer that you must bow down to at every move you make. But these points cover what makes a good website in general, not only what makes a website that Google likes and might give favor to in their SERP’s.

Article Length

This is worth elaborating on. You most likely have read many post-Panda suggestions and tips from other bloggers and industry people, and one of the things most or all agree on is that longer, in depth, highly researched articles are the way to go.

Fluff-filled 300 or 400 word posts just aren’t going to cut it anymore if you want to stand out. Naturally not every single post or article on your site need be essay-length, but quality over quantity is more important than ever.

I know personally that most of the blogs I read contain in depth analysis of the subject in almost every post. Even if they only post once per week I appreciate the high quality content, rather than having filler and fluff because they want to fulfill their goal of posting daily.

Google +1 Button

Just a quick word on this. Am I using it? No, not yet anyway. I just don’t see use for it at this stage. Although many of my niche sites contain Facebook Like buttons, I feel these have benefit but I don’t feel the Google +1 has anywhere near that pull factor yet.

People may only take one action on a web page, and clicking the Google +1 button is not the one I want them to take because it can potentially take them away from an affiliate link, adsense ad, or a FB Like at worst (but still preferable to the +1). I might change my mind on this in future as Google’s new social network progresses.

So in light of all this, I’ve removed several promotions and banners from this blog that I feel I no longer can recommend simply because they are shortcut methods that, now more than ever, aren’t really going to contribute to a successful website. In fact I won’t be promoting much at all on this blog (not that I think I ever really did!) unless I use it myself and think it’s something that will actually help you too.

Keep Learning
I learn something new everyday. Whether by reading about it, doing it, or reading about it and then doing it. I used to have 100+ blogs in Google Reader. Impossible to keep up with. I’ve since cut it down to about 25 high quality sources focusing on marketing, SEO, WordPress, affiliate marketing etc. In a future post I’ll provide a full set of links of all the blogs/sites I enjoy reading.

Interesting reads over the past couple of months:
SEOMoz Search Ranking Factors for 2011 is worth a read. I enjoyed this post about adopting a long term content strategy at Blueglass. Another one at SeoMoz,
Fat Pandas and Thin Content and lastly, a good post about what you can do when the search results are crowded with tough competitors in your niche at SEOBook.