subject: Google's Panda Algorithm Update & Your Marketing Strategies [print this page] Google's Panda Algorithm Update & Your Marketing Strategies
Google applies what has been labeled as the "Panda" or "Farmer Update" to their algorithm.
Villages, towns, cities and entire countries start to crumble as anarchy spreads through the streets while at the mercy of the Google gods.
When Google tinkers with their algorithm that decides where to show your website in their results, it could costs your businesses rankings and therefore money!
The Farmer Update has done exactly that to a lot of massive websites. A large number of these websites are very heavy on content and are often utilised by businesses to boost their search engine rankings via link building with articles, eg; Ezinearticles.com.
The question you need to ask yourself..
What other online strategies can I implement to avoid being at the mercy of another Google Algorithm Update?
The answer..
Diversification with your traffic generation is the key!
Where to look for diversification
Social Media
Social media marketing has been hot for a few years now and Google has come out and said that social media mentions will and is impacting on search engine optimisation. More importantly it will keep you connected to your community to your community.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of those traffic generation channels that has been around since the creation of the wheel and will continue to be around for a lot longer.
Video Marketing
YouTube.com is the second largest search engine in the world and people do go here looking for valuable content, it is not all just shits and giggles.
Micro Sites
Building smaller sites based around a set of keyword phrases is great for holding another chunk of real estate in the search results and it is also a good way to build some specific links back to pages within your main site. If your main site gets dropped by Google, chances are your micro sites will still be ranking well for valuable keywords.
Offline Marketing
Offline marketing does still exist and it does still have its place in your overall marketing strategy! However, I would not recommend spending a great deal on the Yellow dust collectors.
Brand Building
Building a brand within your community or target markets will keep the traffic flowing to your site.
Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is a touchy topic. If done poorly you are really just spamming your community and could harm your brand building efforts. If you do it right, you can add to a conversation and really provide some unique content to someones blog post. This of course can also drive traffic to your website and also build a link in some circumstances.
Google Adwords
The obvious answer is Google Adwords! Text based and/or banner ads can drive very targeted traffic to your site that is highly trackable. But you are still relying on Google and PPC prices are being driven up all the time so it can not be the start and end of your diversification.
Ezinearticles Alternatives
Ezinearticles will still be one of the favorite article directories to help with your link building, but remember there a lot of other article directories that you can utilise. For example, PR directories, Squidoo, blog hosted blogs, eg; Blogger.com (also good for micro sites). National and local news websites will also take user generated content, this can accomplish brand building, link building and therefore traffic to your website from the one article.
In Summary
Do not panic, Google's Panda/Farmer algorithm update is not the end of the world like you might have thought when you first started reading this article. There are alternative online marketing strategies and even offline to help you drive traffic to your website so you are not entirely reliant on Google's rankings.
