UMSL State of Digital Media Marketing Conference: Don't Let Pandas and Penguins Derail Your Content!

April 17, 2015

University of Missouri-St. Louis

J.C. Penney Conference Center

DON'T LET PANDAS AND

PENGUINS DERAIL YOUR

CONTENT!

Kari Rippetoe

Marketing Mojo

About Kari

Director of Content and

Marketing Services,

Marketing Mojo

www.marketing-mojo.com

@KariRippetoe

About Marketing Mojo

• Demand generation marketing firm founded in 2005

• Search engine optimization (SEO)

• Online Advertising

• Content marketing

• Marketing automation

• Analytics consulting

• Headquartered in Charlottesville, VA

Codename: Panda

First released into wild: February, 2011

Modus Operandi:

Targets low-quality or

“thin” content, also

duplicate and/or

“scraped” content.

Google Quality Raters

evaluate trustworthiness

of site.

Codename: Penguin

First released into wild: April, 2012

Modus Operandi:

Targets websites that

are in violation of

Google Webmaster

Guidelines,

specifically unnatural

links/linking

“schemes”.

Am I a Victim of Panda or Penguin?

Step 1: Check Google Webmaster Tools

• Do you have any manual action notifications in GWT?

Step 2: Check your analytics

• Did your organic traffic suddenly drop off?

• Does it only affect Google traffic?

Step 3: Pinpoint the date

• Does it correspond with a recorded algorithm update?

http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Why is My

Content Being

Penalized by

Google?

1. It’s Being Duplicated on Other Sites

Other sites are scraping your

content without links or

attribution

Your syndicating your content

to other sites and not getting

links or attribution

How Can You Fix It?

• Use canonical tags

• Tells Google the preferred URL for your content

• http://bit.ly/UMSLCanonical

• Reassess your syndication strategy

• Are they publishing the full or partial article?

• Are you getting links back to the original on your site?

• Test for scraped content using Copyscape

• Contact the site owners to ask for removal

• Submit a request to Google if they won’t remove it

• http://bit.ly/RemovingContent

2. You Have Unnatural Links

How Can You Fix It?

• Check Webmaster Tools for flagged links

• Do those websites look spammy?

• Also use other tools to check links: Ahrefs, Open Site Explorer,

SEO Spyglass

• Use Google’s Disavow tool

• Disavow the suspicious links

• PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!!

Tips for Link Building

•Keep it natural

•Be cool with building links.

•It’s OK to ask for links.

•Don’t buy links.

3. Your Content is Thin or of Poor Quality.

Low Quality Content Signals

•Duplicated content

•Ad-filled content

•Scraped content/low levels of

original content

How Can You Fix It?

• Check to see if your content has been scraped and take

steps to get it removed.

• Say NO to article spinning. Say YES to thoughtful, useful

content pieces.

• Don’t fill your pages with more ads than content.

4. Your Content is Not Mobile-Friendly

21

How Can You Fix It?

• Configure your viewport for mobile.

• Specify viewport setting to browsers

• Responsive design

• Set your font sizes properly.

• Avoid pinching to zoom

• Use a minimum base font size of 16 CSS pixels

• Give your touch elements space

• Space out buttons, menu items, and text links so visitors can easily

select them

5. Your Content Takes Too Long to Load

Tools for Checking Your Site Speed

•Google Developers PageSpeed

Insights - http://bit.ly/UMSLPageSpeed

•Pingdom -

http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/

•GTmetrix - http://gtmetrix.com/

How Can you Fix It?

• Don’t script-block yourself.

• JavaScript & CSS = speedbumps

• Move scripts to the footer

• Use asynchronous versions of third-party scripts

• Compress your images

• Tools: Smush.it

• Batch optimize images

• Enable Gzip compression

• Enabled on your website server

• Ensures all other files are compressed and optimized

How Can You Fix It?

• Leverage browser caching

• Tells browser to “remember” certain files so it doesn’t have to

download them again

• Cache all resources that don’t change frequently

• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

• Servers located around the country or world

• Delivers certain site assets from the server closest to your user

• Combine and minify your JavaScript and CSS

• Organize your JavaScript and CSS into one file and “minify”

(compress) them

Wrap-Up

• Register your site with Google Webmaster Tools

• Monitor for duplicate content

• Evaluate your syndication strategy

• Useful, original content = linkable content

• Keep your link building strategies natural

• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly

• Get your website up to speed

Thank You!

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @KariRippetoe

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/karirippetoe