If you haven’t heard the latest news in digital marketing, then it’s time to sit up and listen. Your website ranking could seriously be effected by what your about hear. In the last few weeks Google have seriously changed there algorithm in an attempt to ‘Clean up the internet’. We’ve been saying for months that the internet is saturated with poor quality, keyword rich, rubbish content and it’s effecting Googles reputation. And dare I say that ‘Outsourcing SEO companies’ and many so called SEO guru’s are to blame. Poor quality English, ‘written for the search engines’ keyword stuffed articles are a thing of the past. So don’t do it.

So why all the fuss?

Well we’ve talked about the quality of content on the web these days but what has been the effect. It seems to be quite a co-incedence that shortly after the fact that ‘Facebook now gets more traffic than Google’ became public knowledge, we see google call a crash meeting and redesign their algorithm. Actually, I’m sure it wasn’t a crash meeting and that they have been very aware of the trends and knew that something had to be done. And to be honest we say ‘Thankyou Google for cleaning up the web. HOWEVER! The effect this is going to have on millions of businesses around the world is astronomical. Almost overnight, small to very large businesses are going to see some major changes in their rankings and they are going to have to do something about it. Losing their position in the top rankings of Google could cost them thousands, if not more.

Google Changes Algorithm. What’s occured?

Well it looks like article directories are the hardest hit. Article directories are saturated with poor quality content and something had to be done to clean up the net. Squidoo pages are another good example, not to mention blog comments and hubpages. Over to the right you will see the results of this change and most importantly, who was hardest hit. You will see all the major players in there like Ezine Articles, hubpages and article base to name but a few.

Article Writing And Submissions

It’s a well know fact that writing a targeted article and submitting it to high Page Rank directories was a good way to get targeted backlinks. It started out that the quantity of backlinks was important to your ranking, so every man and his dog went about mass producing backlinks. From outsourcing in foreign countries to auto-submissions, literally everyone was doing it. Then it changed to the quality score of your backlinks. What was the PR of the site you are linked to. What types of links do they have on their site and are they targeted to your niche. The list goes on, but the point of the message is this: The way we go about SEO is constantly changing and you need to evolve with it. There is now a need more than ever before, to deliver high quality content.

We are not saying that article writing is dead. Just that the quality of your copy is more important than ever before. Just ask Owen McNeir of Copywriting/Marketing Agency ‘Utopia Communications’. He can sure tell you a story or two.

So what do we do now?

Probably the most important thing is to diversify across all media types. SEO is clearly important, but there are so many other marketing strategies that are starting to dominate. Take Facebook ads for example. Or even Linked in. Social Networking is stronger than ever and customers are constantly engaging in short 140 character text. IPhone and iPad apps are another clear winner. So with a clear conscience I would have to say that now is the time to re-view your marketing strategy.

Contact OccaMedia to find out how we can help save you from the changes.

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